Dr. Michael Bailey of St. Vincent’s East performs a procedure without the customary lead apron. St. Vincent’s East was the first hospital to use Rampart’s device.
A medical device created in Birmingham could revolutionize the way interventionalists and their teams are protected from radiation.
For over 100 years, physicians and technicians have worn heavy lead aprons to decrease radiation exposure in cath labs. Over time, the weight of these aprons takes a physical toll, causing fatigue and injuries that could end a career long before retirement.
Enter Rampart IC and its device, Rampart M1128, a fully adjustable and portable system developed by a Birmingham doctor that provides full-body protection for interventionalists and technicians, eliminating the need for cumbersome aprons.
The device uses see-through, lead-infused acrylic panels that are suspended above patients to protect the medical professionals in the room from radiation during procedures that use diagnostic imaging equipment to look inside the heart.
Hardware Park, where Rampart is headquartered.
Dr. Robert Foster, one of the M1128 designers and an interventional cardiologist at Birmingham Heart Clinic for 23 years, experienced severe medical problems caused by lead aprons, which can weigh up to 30 pounds. Foster developed a significant back issue that kept him out of the cath lab almost entirely for fear of reinjuring himself.
Over the dinner table with friend and Birmingham businessman Tom Livingston in 2014, Foster presented the idea for what would become Rampart. Over five years later, the team is selling it to hospitals, from St. Vincent’s East in Birmingham to a health system in Ohio. The level of excitement for the Rampart device is palpable and far reaching, Livingston said, with potential customers as far away as Australia and New Zealand reaching out to the company, headquartered in Birmingham’s Hardware Park, an innovation campus anchored by companies established in manufacturing, engineering, product design and logistics.
“We understood more as we got closer [to launching] how significant and what a life-changer it is,” said Livingston, president and COO of the company. “This device will help medical professionals perform what they were created to do. It’s a common sense invention in a world where common sense is a superpower.”
The name Rampart came from medieval times, Livingston said. A rampart is a defensive wall built to protect the inhabitants of a city, much like Rampart panels are built to protect the team in the cath lab.
“Our slogan is ‘fight the good fight,’” Livingston said. “In this environment, we protect a team of people that are fighting the fight they’re there to fight, which is to take care of the patient.”