RIBBONMedical

Continuous tidal volume monitoring for patients on hospital wards

RIBBON is a wearable chest sensor being developed at Trinity College Dublin to bring continuous, breath-by-breath monitoring to patients outside intensive care.

Get in touch In development. Not approved for clinical use.

Supported by Enterprise Ireland and the Royal Academy of Engineering

Deterioration on the ward is rarely sudden. It is often unseen.

84%

of patients who arrest on a ward had documented warning signs in the 8 hours before1

1 in 10

survive the most common type of in-hospital cardiac arrest2

Over half

of in-hospital cardiac arrests happen on general wards2

Yet on most wards, breathing is still checked by hand every few hours, and is often not recorded at all.3 Counting breaths also shows how fast someone is breathing, not how much air they move. RIBBON is built to monitor it continuously.

A wearable that measures every breath

RIBBON is a small sensor worn on the chest that tracks chest wall movement and estimates tidal volume breath by breath.

We are developing it for use on general wards, where patients need to move, sleep and be cared for without being connected to bedside equipment. Its accuracy is being assessed against spirometry.

  1. Wear

    A small sensor sits on the upper chest.

  2. Track

    It follows the rise and fall of the chest and estimates the size of each breath.

  3. Record

    Breathing is recorded between routine checks, not only when a nurse counts.

Where we are

Prototype built

Device design

A research-grade, single-unit prototype.

Where
Trinity College Dublin
Under way

Healthy volunteer study

RIBBON compared against spirometry across a range of body types and activities.

Where
Trinity College Dublin
Started
September 2026
Participants
About 90 planned
Next

Clinical research study

An observational study with intensive care and ward patients.

Where
St James's Hospital, Dublin
Starts
October 2026
Participants
120 planned: 60 intensive care, 60 ward

Supported by

Clinical research partner

Talk to us

We want to hear from ward nurses, anaesthetists, critical care and patient safety leads about how breathing is monitored today.

We are also open to conversations with clinical collaborators and potential partners.

Dr Conor Hayden

Founder

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow.

haydenc5@tcd.ie

Sources

  1. Schein RM, et al. Clinical antecedents to in-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. Chest 1990;98:1388–92. PubMed
  2. Nolan JP, et al. Incidence and outcome of in-hospital cardiac arrest in the United Kingdom National Cardiac Arrest Audit. Resuscitation 2014;85:987–92. PubMed
  3. Cretikos MA, et al. Respiratory rate: the neglected vital sign. Med J Aust 2008;188:657–9. PubMed