Patient Monitoring System Speeds Treatment

A new patient monitoring system is designed to give doctors anywhere in a hospital easy access to vital patient information at bedside and to speed treatment. The system has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA).

The system integrates a wide variety of applications from other vendors on a single screen, without the need for a second network connection. The patient monitor is networked to an information center, a surveillance system with integrated clinical support applications. The center serves as a decision-support portal to bedside monitors and telemetry units. Doctors are able to monitor patient status and consult remotely, such as from a home or office PC. Called the IntelliVue Patient Monitoring System, the system is the product of Philips Medical Systems (Best, The Netherlands).

"Critical care practitioners rely on large amounts of clinical data from various and often disparate sources throughout the hospital to make better, more informed decisions,” said Maurene Harvey, RN, president, Society of Critical Care Medicine. "Obtaining data such as lab results or x-rays from various departments throughout a hospital often wastes valuable time.”

In fact, a survey sponsored by Philips showed that doctors spend an average of 46 days each year retrieving patient information. Three out of four doctors said that the inability to pull up complete patient information remotely requires them to travel back to the hospital in order to provide timely intervention.




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Philips Medical Systems