Portrait of a Heath Care Innovator, Entrepreneur, and Inventor

Invention breeds invention.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Society and Solitude

November 7, 2011 - I spoke today via Skype with R. Lee Heath, a serial health care innovator, entrepreneur, and invenstor. Heath is one of many talented people out there – biomedical engineers, IT technologists, and others - focusing on medical applications.

These entrepreneurs have much to teach doctor entrepreneurs about cross-discipline and cross-community innovations. Heath is an excellent example of the inventive mind at work.

The Health Bio

R. Lee Heath is the sole founder of LifeBot, L.L.C., It will deploy his new patented and additional patent pending technologies focusing on next generation advanced solutions for emergency telemedicine and telehealth. The company also is integrating and bringing to market proven military and triage technologies that have been developed over many years, but not commercialized.

He has 32 patents. He is best known as the inventor of ‘hands-free’ noninvasive cardiac defibrillation and pacing ‘combo-pads’, or ‘R2-Pads’ electrodes, now a world-wide standard.

In 1995, the American Heart Association officials, and other peers, recommended him for the Lemelson MIT Prize, the highest prize awarded inventors, and credited him for making possible the modern AED ( Automatic External Defibrillator) and related intermediate first responder programs.
In the early 1980′s Mr. Heath attended all of the Purdue University Conferences on CPR and Defibrillation held by Dr. Leslie Geddes and Dr. Willis Tacker. Mr. Heath sat with Dr. Paul Zoll, considered the founder of modern cardiac electrophysiology.

Mr. Heath inspired Dr. Zoll to use his large external electrode pads to successfully reinstitute the procedure of external non-invasive heart pacing. This has become a world-wide method responsible for the saving of thousands of lives. This led to the founding of Zoll Corporation, a leading manufacturers of medical devices.

Mr. Heath’s range of experience extends from “Biocom to Bluetooth”. He has been involved with Emergency Medical ALS Data Communications since the early 1970’s representing Biocom, the first developer of EMS telemetry systems, popularly known through the TV Series ‘Emergency’.

This was prior even to the entrance of Motorola and others into this field. Others he has represented, or consulted to, in the medical field, have included Datascope, Harlake Cyprane, Imed, Cape Waine, British Oxygen, Inspiron, Bird Corporation, Electro Medical Systems, Cardiac Pacemaker Corporation, Applied Medical Research, Cardio-Data, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, General Devices, Philips Medical Systems (IMS Expert Services), and many others. Philips is the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier of AEDs. In the early 1990’s he represented both Ameritech and Cortronix pioneering EMS medical priority access through cellular communication networks.

R. Lee Heath has consulted and participated in designing and installing major hospital and metropolitan emergency communications systems for prominent institutions including Northwest Community EMS, Milwaukee County EMS, Cook County EMS Chicago, Detroit Fire Department EMS, University of Chicago EMS, Advocate Healthcare, City of Tucson EMS, and many others.
He has been involved in the design and deployment of critical
interoperative communications for addressing potential terrorism, mass casualty incidents, EMS telemedicine, and centralized prehospital data collection and sharing for triage, C.Q.I. and EHR, Electronic Health Record, management.

Mr. Heath has served 38 years in the medical industry, with more than 25 years in senior management positions. In 1978, Mr. Heath was the sole founder of R2 Corporation, where he was also Chairman of its Board for eight years. He was also the sole inventor of all of its products, including the ‘R2 Pads’. In 1986, he finished his tenure at R2 as its Chief Executive Officer.

This was after his management of a successful public stock offering on NASDAQ. Prior to R2 he managed the medical services and distribution business of Zenex Corporation from 1972 to 1978. During the period, Zenex was a major supplier of medical products used in virtually all areas of the hospital and prehospital care markets.

From 1986, Mr. Heath is listed in, "Who’s Who in Technology" for his “significant contributions to the knowledge and application of science, engineering, or technology.” He has been guest speaker or served on the faculties of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration, Sweden’s University of Lund, Northwestern University, and American Heart Association courses for Advanced Cardiac Life Support at many major universities, hospitals, and medical or civil institutions world-wide.

Mr. Heath has served on many committees of the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation participating in the development of voluntary minimum device efficacy and safety standards for the F.D.A.

Mr. Heath is a member of the American Telemedicine Association, the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, and a Professional Member of the American Heart Association, and many other industry organizations. He is currently attending the W.P. Cary School of Business at Arizona State University. He has a host of new patents and trademarks pending in the U.S. and International patent offices. He was recently awarded his thirty-first patent- the focus of the new LifeBot® telemedicine systems.

Mr. Heath, with offices based in Phoenix, Arizona and Wilmette, Illinois, was an exclusive agent for General Devices, the manufacturer of telemedicine systems for nineteen years. Mr. Heath was number one in placing installations each year during the period accounting for the substantial majority of sales for the company during the period. He introduced the opportunity to the company which eventually led to the deployment of the City of Tucson’s ER-Link EMS telemedicine system which he also helped to design and install.

In August of 2011 Mr. Heath signed an World-wide Exclusive Licensing Agreement for DREAMS™, the advanced EMS Emergency ambulance telemedicine system developed with U.S. Army Military Command, Texas A&M University, University of Texas Health Science of Houston, positioning LifeBot as the technology leader in the industry.

The $14 million of research and development behind DREAMS™ has placed it far beyond any other emergency and disaster management system in existence today. This highly developed system is now being prepared for first time commercialization after many years of development and use as a research project. The licensing also applies to an additional five related research projects.

Previous to entering the medical field Mr. Heath, a native of Tulsa, attended Oklahoma State University. He later completed courses from the Nathaniel Branden Institute and the J. Arthur Solomon Institute. He is Commissioner for the Scottish Clan Barclay in Arizona and New Mexico, pursuing interests in his Scottish and Celtic heritage, and is an avid mountain biker and Nordic skier.

Mr. Heath largely credits Dr. J. Arthur Solomon and Ayn Rand to the evolution of his life-saving ideas. He particularly credits the reading and execution of Ms. Rand’s, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" to his abilities to isolate, integrate, and conceptualize these new ideas. He now is named in a total of 9 domestic and 23 foreign patents as the exclusive inventor.

Tweet: R. Lee Heath, a biomedical engineer, has 32 patents to his credit, most relating to the use of telemedicine in ER and disaster medicine situations.