The following is a guest blog post by Kevin Phillips, Vice President – Marketing and Product Management at CapsuleTech.
When it comes to medical devices, most people think of patient monitoring and physiologic data such as HR, SPO2, respiration rate waveforms and physiologic alarms. But there’s a lot more “under the hood” of a device – a lot more than just physiologic data that, when applied in new ways, can contribute to patient safety efforts and help with operational efficiencies.
Under the hood are three types of data. The first, and most often understood and used, is patient data that provides information on the physiologic status of the patient; a snapshot, if you will, of a patient’s condition at a given moment in time. The second type of data is treatment details. These details provide a comprehensive view of treatments being administered to a patient, and include the names of drugs or anesthetic agents, drug concentration, the volume to be infused, or volume of air being delivered via a ventilator. The third type of data is about the devices themselves. This information includes not only modes of operation, technical alarms, and battery level, but also data, such as firmware versions and unique device identifiers, that is useful to the clinical engineers responsible for maintaining these devices.
Of course, all of this data is meaningless without context. This “contextual device data” can be added by external systems such as an EMR or by Capsule’s SmartLinx Medical Device Information System®. We define context as key information for each device: how the device is being used; where it is located; to which patient it is connected; and the identity of the primary clinician responsible for this patient. We also want to know information about the device itself including its unique device identifier, synchronized time (e.g. measurement time, device time, and NTP server time). Last, of course, are the clinical observations of the patient.
Today, only a fraction of this data…maybe 10%…is being used by a hospital; what is being used is typically only that data specified by the hospital by its EMR. And while not all of the remaining 90% of the data is useable in some cases, there is a fair amount of significant value if mined and delivered to the appropriate system or user when it is needed. Some examples include:
- Alarm Management Systems – Well-documented patient safety risks posed by the failure to adequately address medical device alarms management by publications such as ECRI has led the Joint Commission to create a National Patient Safety Goal. This goal requires all hospitals to have a policy in place to manage alarms appropriately by 1/01/2016. This has driven a demand for medical device data like near real-time notification of high priority physiologic and technical alarms from each device. The art to these data integrations is close collaboration to deliver the proper alarms so not to overwhelm the clinician with nuisances (low priority alarms).
- Device utilization – While solutions exist to help identify the location of expensive, high-maintenance devices, determining which devices are in use is difficult. Providing timely and appropriate device data to biomedical teams can ensure optimal device management, use and health, easing patient throughput and contributing to patient safety and care.
- Clinical Decision Support Systems – Whether hospitals have created their own algorithms or purchased a turn-key solution, CDSS’s require high frequency physiologic medical device measurements to properly power their specific algorithms to enable them to identity patients at risk of sepsis or deterioration.
- Patient Surveillance Applications – Automated patient surveillance helps clinicians to remotely wade through vast information stores to quickly discern data of the greatest value. With the addition of real-time device data, patient surveillance applications can better identify data clusters and trends consistent with patient deterioration and specific disease conditions, prompting clinical intervention.
- Asset Management – While asset-tracking solutions can help identify the current location of devices, determining which devices are in use or underutilized is difficult. Devices offer a range of built-in operational checks, or support remote monitoring to ensure device readiness and status of any required supplies. The availability of this data to biomedical teams will ensure optimal device management and health, easing patient throughput and boosting patient safety and care.
So what’s under the hood of all of your medical devices? Probably a whole lot more that you ever imagined that can be of immense value throughout your hospital. Why don’t you take a look today to see what value can be derived.
About Kevin Phillips
Kevin Phillips is the Vice President – Marketing and Product Management at CapsuleTech with over 10 years of experience in various roles within the healthcare, medical device and diagnostic industries. His career has been focused on new product development, product marketing, market analysis, strategic alliances, corporate operations, and sales. Prior to joining Capsule, Mr. Phillips held positions at TransMedics and PathoGenetix (formerly US Genomics). His career has been focused on new product development, product marketing, market analysis, strategic alliances, corporate operations, and sales.
