By Christina Orlovsky, senior staff writer
It’s no secret that a quality mattress is the key to getting a
good night’s sleep. Now it may also play a part in patient safety. New
technology from Honolulu, Hawaii-based Hoana Medical provides nurses the
capability to monitor patients’ vital signs and activity through unseen and
unfelt sensors in the hospital bed.
The medical device company received approval from the United
States Food and Drug Administration in February to market its flagship product,
the LG1 Intelligent Medical Vigilance System, a patient safety technology that
tracks heart rate, breathing rate and whether a patient is in bed or trying to
get out of bed without hooking the patient up to electrodes or any other wiring
systems. The monitoring sensors are present in a pad-like device, or mattress coverlet, that can be sat
on or lain upon. The sensors respond to physiological stimuli and are able to
measure patient information through clothing, hospital gowns and sheets.
Representatives from Hoana Medical have spoken about the
benefits of the system for both patient safety and comfort and nursing
satisfaction, acknowledging that it allows the nurse to spot trouble with a
patient—whether in regard to patients’ vital signs or simply the fact that
they’re trying to get out of bed without assistance—without needing to be in the
room.
“Under a controlled research study in a commercial hospital,
clinical testing demonstrated LG1’s ability to alert a nurse that a patient was
crashing at 3:00 a.m., which may have gone unnoticed until the morning shift. It
may have helped save the patient’s life,” said Patrick Sullivan, Ph.D., chief
executive officer of Hoana Medical.
“Helping to make a difference in people’s lives makes all the
work worthwhile,” he added. “We hope to create a new standard of care in med-surg,
providing an affordable, cost-effective solution to the growing national health
care crisis.”
To this end, Hoana Medical plans to market the LG1 Intelligent
Medical Vigilance System to the med-surg units of the 8,000 hospitals in the
United States—an approximate total of 1 million med-surg beds.
During a recent announcement of his new role on the medical
advisory board at Hoana Medical, Robert M. Wachter, M.D., chief of medical
service and co-chair of the patient safety committee at the University of
California, San Francisco Medical Center, spoke about the possibilities the LG1
technology holds for the future.
“As we have come to understand the toll of medical errors in
unnecessary death and harm, we now realize that ensuring safety is largely a
systems problem,” he said.
“Technology isn’t the only answer, but it can be an important
part of the solution,” he added. “The ability to track patients’ vital signs and
position non-invasively, and monitor them remotely makes great sense in our
efforts to improve both safety and vigilance.”
For more information, visit the Hoana Medical Web site.
© 2006. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.