Innovation Grant Spotlight: Dr. Baston Creates Revolutionary Overdose Detection and Alert Monitor

Dr. Baston is the CEO of AltruMed, LLC, a company focused on medical equipment manufacturing. The company specializes in creating devices designed to save lives through medical solutions. With an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, he had a brief foray into plasma physics in Los Alamos, then worked as an automotive design engineer in safety systems. He spent a year working in economic and environmental policy before going to medical school at Jefferson Medical School. He then went to the University of Washington in Seattle for his internal medicine residency and chief residency.  Dr. Baston came to Penn for a Pulmonary and Critical Care fellowship, and while there, also received a master’s degree in clinical Epidemiology and completed a Clinical Ultrasound fellowship.  He joined the faculty in 2018 and was promoted to associate professor in 2025. 

Drug overdose is a public health crisis. Dr. Baston realized how easily available technologies could be combined to provide safety from overdose for patients exposed to opioids. His personal motivation comes from clinical exposure to the harms of overdose as he worked in the ICU, but also from his earliest friend who died alone of an unintentional opioid overdose 10 years ago.  

“She left behind two children, and the idea that I could be a part of a project that would have kept her alive long enough to get into the MAT that could have truly saved her life is an incredible driver for me,” he said.  

The primary objective is to develop a shoulder-mounted device equipped with advanced pulse oximetry technology, designed to detect opioid-induced respiratory depression instantly, and autonomously alert emergency services and bystanders. Unlike existing methods that require bystander intervention to diagnose and respond, this device’s automatic detection and alert system will ensure rapid deployment of life-saving measures, thus addressing an unmet need in overdose response scenarios. This will not only aim to reduce the mortality associated with opioid overdoses but also significantly cut down on the healthcare costs involved in post-overdose hospitalization and rehabilitation. 

DOVE is a shoulder-mounted, standalone device that accurately senses opioid overdose based on physiological parameters. Smaller than a matchbox, DOVE uses next-generation pulse oximetry to detect overdoses caused by any respiratory suppressant, not just opioids. Upon detecting an overdose, DOVE immediately alerts bystanders and first responders, reducing the time to treatment and preventing long-term neurological damage. Building off previous versions of DOVE and related studies, the goal is to incorporate essential technology into a redesigned device and validate it in a simulated setting. Once validated, the finalized devices will be tested on real patients at a hypoxia lab. They will also be conducting outreach in urban, suburban, and rural areas of Pennsylvania, meeting with health systems, harm reduction centers, etc. to establish a pilot program site location and to build relationships to facilitate device distribution once FDA approval is obtained. 

The project has moved slower than planned, but has made some real progress, including meetings with the FDA, some great clinical trials showing the accuracy of the device and some real community support.  Perhaps the most important part of this was integrating a user-centric design from the very beginning.   

“We knew that this device would only work if people chose to wear it, so we put real effort into finding the form factor, capabilities and specifics that would make it attractive to people who are actively using.”  

The initial design and prototype were aimed at using the reversal agent naloxone, so that people could give an injection automatically if no one else was around to do it.   

Unfortunately, the regulatory pathway (even though the drug is now effectively over the counter) meant that they had to pivot to a sense-and-alert device to start. The silver lining is that the main fear they’ve encountered among actively using patients is that they would have a false positive in the device, resulting in unnecessary delivery of naloxone.  This device doesn’t allow that possibility. 

This grant allows researchers to jump the final FDA hurdles for clearance of the device to monitor oxygenation and perhaps more importantly to make the meaningful connections across the state of Pennsylvania with the organizations and government bodies that will eventually be key in getting this device onto people’s arms. 

In Dr. Baston’s mind, the device is analogous to a seatbelt. He believes the road to recovery from substance use disorder is long, treacherous, and with many opportunities for fatal crashes. The DOVE doesn’t prevent overdoses, but he believes it makes them MUCH less likely to be fatal or cause real organ damage. With the unpredictability of the drug supply, having that layer of safety makes people much more likely to reach the destination of suboxone or methadone therapy and the recovery that can bring real healing and a return to living. In the shortest terms, he wants to prevent the 40,000 to 50,000 overdose deaths that happen each year among people who are using alone. This is a public health crisis. Beyond the deaths, the cost of brain and other organ damage from near fatal overdose has enormous personal and financial impacts on the country.