McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Michael R. Pinsky, MD (pictured), Professor of Critical Care Medicine, Anesthesiology and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues recently reported the results of the largest ever continuous monitoring study (1,000 patients--18,248 hours) for cardiorespiratory variables in non-ICU patients. The predictive patient safety technology, named Visensia, fuses up to five vital signs - heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure - into a numerical index. This index is an indication of a patient's wellness and enables significant improvement in clinical outcome and optimization of hospital resource utilization.
Use of the technology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) decreased the length of time patients were unstable, from an average of 113 minutes to 60 minutes -- a 67 percent decrease, Dr. Pinsky and study colleague, Marilyn Hravnak, RN, PhD, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, said. In addition, Dr. Pinsky said, no patient on the Visensia monitor has had an unexpected fatal cardiac event. "We've had people die who were expected to die from their illness, but no one died unexpectedly."
The Archives of Internal Medicine paper provided new evidence supporting the monitoring system’s ability to detect clinical instability early and thereby avert a clinical crisis. UPMC has a long-standing, comprehensive, and world-class Medical Emergency Team (MET) program. Visensia was able to demonstrate an improvement of MET reliability and results – 4- to 5-fold improvement. Similarly, there was significant reduction in clinical crisis - 3-fold reduction in quantity and 50% reduction in duration. Of the clinical events requiring MET activation, Visensia detected 100% of the events and provided an early warning (average 6.3 hours) of the patients' deteriorating status.
As concluded in the study, cardiorespiratory instability, while uncommon and often unrecognized, was preceded by elevation of the integrated monitoring system (IMS) index. Continuous, noninvasive monitoring augmented by IMS provides sensitive detection of early instability in patients in hospital step-down units.
Illustration: McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
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Reuters (06/27/08)
The Earth Times (06/27/08)
Medical News Today (06/30/08)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (07/02/08)
Visensia
Abstract (Archives of Internal Medicine. 2008; 168(12):1300-1308.)