January / February 2006
NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES
TRENDS
FDA Clearance for SmartCareTM Knowledge-Based Weaning System
Dräger Medical has announced that its SmartCareTM/PS option for the EvitaXL ventilator has received 510(k) market clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is available for sales in the United States. SmartCare is a knowledge-based ventilation system developed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the weaning process. SmartCare can reduce patient intensive care days as well as ventilator days by integrating protocolized care into ventilation weaning.
SmartCare automates the weaning process, based on the user's input, using continuously measured parameters and patient respiratory profiles. As the level of ventilator support is adjusted automatically, the patient's response and ability to adapt to each change in support is evaluated.
Traditional methods of weaning vary greatly, do not always progress with the patient's ability to wean, and are labor-intensive for hospital staff. Unlike these intermittent processes, SmartCare continuously monitors the patient, interprets the data, and adjusts the level of ventilator in 2- or 5-minute intervals.
This knowledge-based system was developed through extensive testing by clinicians working with Dräger Medical, allowing SmartCare to become fully interactive and responsive to the demands of the patient. SmartCare provides the potential to improve clinical outcomes and workflow while decreasing costs at the same time.
Nader M. Habashi, MD, FACP, FCCP, director of the multi-trauma critical care ICU at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says, "Knowledge-based weaning defines and standardizes the process for ventilator adjustments, expected outcomes, and patient monitoring during weaning. Several studies have shown that many patients are ventilated longer than necessary, and the implementation of multidisciplinary protocols to aid the weaning process results in a significant reduction in ventilation days."
In addition, by reducing weaning time, SmartCare may lower the risk of complications such as ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and lung injury, leading to reductions in the cost of care, improved resource utilization, and decreased incidence of ventilator morbidity.
"Literature suggests that a significant amount of clinicians' time is spent in attempts to wean patients off ventilator support," says Brad Saunders, director of marketing, critical care area for Dräeger Medical. "SmartCare is a reengineering of the weaning process through automation of accepted clinical protocols. It is a tool that extends the clinician's ability to make necessary adjustments required to progress care of the weaning patient. By simply observing, adapting, and maintaining the patient, SmartCare provides the potential to improve outcome while decreasing cost. It is our belief that a knowledge-based weaning system will provide a foundation for weaning now and in the future."
Source: Dräeger Medical
New enTouchTM Handle Offers Improved Ergonomics
Encision Inc., a medical device company with patented surgical technology that is emerging as a standard of care in minimally invasive surgery, announced the launch of its new enTouch handle for its articulating instruments.
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AEM® Monitor and the new ergonomically designed laparoscopic handle called enTouchTM.
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"We are pleased to launch this new handle, which is designed to address customer satisfaction and retention," says Jack Serino, president and CEO of Encision. "EnTouch handles offer improved ergonomics and less hand fatigue for surgeons. The enTouch family of laparoscopic instrumentation combines active electrode monitoring for patient safety with smooth and predictable control in a lightweight design for surgeon satisfaction."
Encision Inc. designs and manufactures innovative surgical devices that allow the surgeon to optimize technique and patient safety during a broad range of surgical procedures. Based in Boulder, Colorado, the company pioneered the development of patented AEM® laparoscopic instruments to improve electrosurgery and reduce the chance for patient injury in minimally invasive surgery.
Encision Inc. focuses on promoting patient safety through both its products and through education. Encision laparoscopic instruments are designed to protect the patient from stray energy burns during laparoscopic procedures. AEM instruments are shielded by two layers of insulation unlike the single layer of conventional instruments. Encision instruments are also continuously monitored by the AEM Monitor, therefore eliminating the risk of stray energy burns. In the event that capacitive coupling should occur, the AEM Monitor will shut down power to the generator preventing any further use of the instrument.
For information about a free online educational course from Encision on "Preventing Electrosurgical Burns During Laparoscopy," call 800-521-0574.
Source: Encision
AED Recall Information Available to the Public
After noting an unusually high number of Automated External Defibrillators (AED) recalls — 18 recalls of 70,000 devices over a 24-month period — the Risk and Safety Management Alert System (RASMAS) is making a list of recalled devices available to the public.
AEDs are available over the counter and are found not only in private homes and hospitals but also in many public facilities such as airports, shopping malls, convention centers, and schools. "The increasing availability of these sophisticated devices to the general public and the critical role they play in emergency care makes their maintenance extremely important," says Bill Klein, director of alert quality control at the National RASMAS Center. "Every organization that makes these devices available to staff and visitors should make sure a maintenance schedule is in place and that their policy and procedures reflect a means for dealing with manufacturer recalls."
As a public service, Mitretek Systems is making the list of the 18 various AED makes and models and related details available to the public on its RASMAS Web site (http://rasmas.mitretek.org).
RASMAS is a subscription-based patient safety service for recall management, which has received wide-spread recognition and acceptance in the healthcare community. RASMAS was developed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Health System and is now in use by numerous leading healthcare organizations across the United States and, more recently, Canada. Subscribers report an average 80% reduction in alert processing time and a dramatic decrease in the number of days from notification to removal of products from use. RASMAS is endorsed by The American Hospital Association (AHA) and was awarded the "Best New Advancement in Patient Safety and Disclosures" by the Health Care Research and Innovation Congress.
Source: Mitretek Systems
Barcode Tag is First of Its Kind for Infant Identification
Precision Dynamics Corporation (PDC), a global leader in automatic wristband identification, has introduced its new Precision Bar Code Tags for infants. PDC created the barcode tag to meet the needs of hospital labor and delivery, pediatric, and NICU departments asking for a reliable barcode identification solution for infants.
Traditional infant identification wristbands or anklebands are small and do not provide sufficient room for patient information. What's more, barcodes on these small bands are prone to curvature, which decreases the scanability of the barcode. Precision Bar Code Tags are threaded on to the wristband thereby eliminating the curvature issue and enabling more successful first time scans.
Precision Bar Code Tags accommodate either linear or 2D barcodes, along with up to three lines of text. This frees up space on the wristband for pertinent patient information and reduces cost by eliminating the need for extra ID bands. The tags are printed using direct thermal printers, which provide high quality legibility of barcodes and text. The tags are compatible with most thermal printers that have 1.5" and 3" core sizes.
Positive patient identification is critical to patient safety. Hospitals are using Precision Bar Code Tags for medication administration, specifically to verify that the right patient is receiving the right medication. The product comes with two infant tags and slightly larger tags for mother and father wristbands, providing additional patient identifiers for nurses.
PDC wristbands come with pre-printed, alpha-numeric serial numbers which are typically used as an additional cross-match between newborn and parents. The tags accommodate any PDC mother/infant wristband; SnugFit® and Veri-Color® are recommended.
Source: Precision Dynamics Corporation
Oncology Management Product Released
Westwood, Massachusetts-based Medical Information Technology (MEDITECH), has announced the release of its oncology management product, a comprehensive system designed to help organizations manage the unique care requirements of oncology patients, who often require lengthy treatments
and frequently move between inpatient and ambulatory facilities. Through extensive integration with the MEDITECH Health Care Information System (HCIS), organizations that use oncology management will benefit from streamlined workflow, improved patient safety, and a consistent and managed approach to oncology treatments for both ambulatory patients and inpatients alike.
"Our development of this system affords healthcare organizations an opportunity to seamlessly incorporate oncology treatments into their overall information networks, rather than rely on stand-alone systems and paper-based approaches," says Hoda Sayed-Friel, MEDITECH's vice president of marketing. "This integration will provide significant benefits in areas such as tracking patients' lifetime dosages."
Serving a wide range of clinicians and administrative staff members — including oncologists, practice assistants, practice nurses, treatment room nurses, pharmacists, clinical research nurses, intake coordinators, social workers, and secretaries — this product is designed to complete the patient care record. Specific features include patient scheduling, documentation, online management of treatment plans and orders, online TNM and Staging using the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system, and chemotherapy and radiation ordering.
One of the biggest advantages of oncology management is the tight level of integration it provides across both the hospital HCIS as well as throughout the continuum. Customers benefit from role-based desktops that organize the functions and information they need so they are easily accessible. Users also have the capability to reproduce a complete patient medical profile. Oncology Management also includes a standard suite of interfaces for communicating with other vendor radiation therapy systems.
Source: Meditech
GE Healthcare Recognizes Medical Practice for Use of Centricity
In January, GE Healthcare announced that it had awarded Sound Family Medicine (SFM), a medical practice located in Puyallup, Washington, the prestigious Excellence Award in Quality Improvement for 2005.Ý The award was presented for use of GE's Centricity Digital Health Record System for reporting and monitoring to improve diastolic blood pressure control in hypertensive patients.
Helping to ensure better record keeping, this system allows the physician to enter information into the online patient medical record while still in the examination room. SFM implemented the GE Centricity system eight years ago and now uses the system to allow its three locations to function with one integrated medical record.ÝÝ
Care providers at any of the three sites can immediately access a patient's full record whether the patient is seeing his usual doctor, or one at the clinic in the next town. The system also eliminates the need to have a clerk input information from hand-written charts for insurance and patient billing purposes.
"We had high expectations for this system including increased efficiency and long-term cost savings," said Dr. Ed Pullen, medical director for SFM. GE's Centricity Digital Health Record System met our needs, providing a robust research and treatment tool."
The traditional system of charting and filing a patient's symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments in a paper file makes it difficult for physicians to easily access records and compare and contrast the patient's symptoms and care. Using the digital health record, physicians more easily view a patient's medical history at the point of care and therefore provide better counsel on the best course of treatment based on a more comprehensive look at the patient's medical history.
Centricity also allows medical researchers to access data for a very large number of patients in a variety of clinical settings, while "depersonalizing" the data to protect personal, identifiable information about those patients.Ý Access to this data reduces the cost and time of conducting a wide-scale research project and allow the implementation of the findings more quickly.
SFM also participates in the Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC) a group of more than 3,500 physicians focused on measuring and improving patient care.ÝMQIC allows the practice to compare its own record of outcomes with other healthcare providers, and to translate its findings into better patient care. Last summer, SFM analyzed how well it was treating patients with high blood pressure readings compared to other clinics across the nation.Ý SFM was among the top tier in treating patients whose systolic (top) readings were high, but was rated average in terms of treating patients with elevated diastolic (bottom) readings.
After determining that it could do more for its patients with hypertension, SFM used the Centricity system to search for patients with recent diastolic readings above recommended guidelines in order to improve its quality of care. For example, generally a patient's blood pressure is entered into the health record and advice is given only at the time of the visit.Ý With the Centricity system, the clinic was able to follow up with these patients and provide additional information and medications. The practice reduced its number of hypertensive patients with suboptimal diastolic blood pressure control by 20%.Ý
Source: GE Healthcare
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