Wireless technology breathes new life into medical practices

Dr Heather Duncan, intensive care consultation and lead of the RAPID (Real-time Adaptive and Predictive Indicator of Deterioration) project at the Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust says this new wireless technology is “reshaping the future of healthcare for both patients and healthcare professionals” and “offering so many benefits to everyone”.

In an article featured in the Clinical Services Journal, she says: “Wireless technology is enabling healthcare providers to monitor patients in real-time and continuously, while being able to act more quickly on critical patient data. Now, for the first time ever, clinicians can look at each patient’s vital signs and see how they change over a longer period of time.”

Dr Duncan is currently leading the RAPID project in which she is using the Patient Status Engine, a CE marked, Class IIa continuous monitoring platform, and the Lifetouch wearable patch sensor, to take wireless continuous observations from patients and then use this data to understand, in real-time, what is normal for each patient and to detect the changing patterns in their physiology.

“This continuous monitoring allows deterioration to be recognised, triggering an alert and provoking timely intervention to prevent patients suffering further deterioration and death,” she says. “This is the first time this technology has been used anywhere in the world.”

Since starting the project, doctors and nurses in the hospital can now analyse and model large volumes of data and focus on a more proactive care delivery model rather than a reactive one.

Dr Duncan says the benefits of using this technology are vast:

“Looking to the future, I think for children, wireless monitoring is the way forward,” she says. “It will have wide applications across the NHS and healthcare globally and could help save money currently spent on expensive monitors. This type of technology is changing the face of healthcare as we know it.”

The PSE, which is in hospitals globally, has monitored more than 1,200 patients at the Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust in the last 18 months.

Please download the full article in the Clinical Services Journal.

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Note to Editors

RAPID is a partnership between Birmingham Children’s Hospital, McLaren Applied Technologies, Aston University, University of Birmingham and Isansys Lifecare Ltd. McLaren Applied Technologies has contributed its unique LIFEINSIGHT platform which processes the data collected in real-time and contains a dashboard to display the relevant information and alerts to hospital staff. Aston University develops and tests the predictive and adaptive algorithm alarm system RAPID, the University of Birmingham ensures the statistics and health outcomes are tracked properly and Isansys Lifecare Ltd are responsible for providing the wireless platform to collect the physiologic data from the patients, and transmit this data to McLaren’s Lifeinsight platform for processing/ analysis and distribution to clinical and nursing staff.

RAPID is funded through the Health Innovation Challenge Fund - a parallel funding partnership between the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health to stimulate the creation of innovative healthcare products, technologies and interventions and to facilitate their development for the benefit of patients in the NHS and beyond.

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Innovations/Awards/Health-Innovation-Challenge-Fund/index.htm or www.hicfund.org.uk

About Isansys Lifecare Limited

Isansys Lifecare Ltd is a new generation healthcare company that provides patient surveillance and monitoring services built on an innovative, low cost and scalable digital platform.

We are working with a number of hospitals in the NHS and other leading healthcare professionals and institutes to deliver patient monitoring services and patient status solutions using the Patient Status Engine platform and new generation wireless vital signs monitors.

We operate in a wide range of healthcare settings which want to employ new patient monitoring technologies and methods to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.

For more information about Isansys please log into www.isansys.com

About the Patient Status Engine (PSE)

The PSE system incorporates the Lifetouch cardiac monitor – a lightweight and unobtrusive smart patch that collects data directly from the patient and analyses every heartbeat to provide continuous heart rate, respiration rate and heart rate variability. It also includes a remotely triggerable ECG visualisation function for set-up and verification that may also be used as an event marker. With the Lifetemp continuous wireless clinical thermometer, a wireless pulse oximeter and blood pressure monitor, a patient’s physiology is automatically uploaded as a series of secure digital files to a patient record. The PSE kit also comes pre-bundled with several apps, such as patient charting, early warning scores and real-time HRV plots, useful for determination of autonomic function.