Philips to push into wireless in-hospital monitoring

By: Brian Dolan | Dec 15, 2010        

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AirStrip Physio-ControlRoyal Philips Electronics’ medical arm is planning a push into wireless monitoring of patients in hospital wards, according to a report from the Associated Press. The report characterized the market as “largely untapped.”

According to a report from Greystone Research Associates released in November, wirelessly enabled in-hospital patient monitors will grow at a modest but steady annual growth rate of 13 percent between now and 2014. Hospitals that currently own wireless monitors will be the ones spending the most on them during the period.

Philips medical chief Steve Rusckowski told the AP that the company will soon introduce a system of sensors that transmit information wirelessly from the patient to a nearby monitor that could alert nurses if vital signs worsen. According to the AP report, about 40 percent of hospital beds currently use monitors and those are not in general wards — mostly surgery or intensive care settings.

“The benefits of wireless bedside and in-patient ambulatory monitors will prompt many current facilities to include additional wireless monitors to meet the need for new equipment,” says George Perros, Greystone Research Managing Director. “The flexibility of wireless becomes a bit addictive for caregivers who’ve experienced it, particularly where patient movement is common.”

GE Healthcare, Philips, Welch-Allyn, Draeger and startups like AirStrip Technologies are already in the wireless monitoring in-hospital market. Sotera Wireless is pre-FDA approval, but focused on this market, too.) Perhaps a more aggressive push into the market by Philips will drive more adoption among hospitals who have yet to deploy wireless monitoring in-house and that will tick up overall adoption past Greystone’s estimated 13 percent annual growth rate.

Read this article for more from the AP report

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  • Anonymous

    This means “expand” wireless monitoring to more patients in a hospital. Every hospital has “telemetry” and “wireless bedside monitors already.There has been a debate for a long time about whether all inpatients should be monitored. Masimo thinks yes and it should be SPO2 mnimally (which gives pulse rate also). Others believe that it should be body movement or resp rate. The real question is will the hospitals be able to get paid more for monitoring all patients. They are attempting to squeeze more blood out of the rock when the incidence of a bad event in many in-patients is very, very small.

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    [...] To Push Into Wireless In-Hospital MonitoringRoyal Philips Electronics’ medical arm is planning a push into wireless monitoring of patients in hospital wards, according to a report from the Associated [...]

  • Anonymous

    There are other companies entering the hospital space as 24/7 monitors. One is Athena GTX, another is Empirical Technologies. The biggest problem with a 24/7 monitor is cost and the next biggest problem is patient comfort and safety. Unfortunately, most aspirants to this market rely on three lead ECG electrodes, ambulatory blood pressure cuffs, oximeters, and combinations of these. Most of these courageous companies have simply added radios to old techniques to provide a variety of vital signs. Most of these companies claim wireless systems which is erroneous because their systems require wires all over the patient. Try building inexpensive systems with so many individual parts and wires. Try sleeping in a hospital bed with three electrodes glued to the chest, wires going down the arm where more tubes and wires go to parts of the hand. And, periodically, the blood pressure cuff goes off, night and day.
    There are several reasons to monitor patients continuously. Primarily, long term data on vital signs often signals deterioration. Current studies indicate about 11% of hospital deaths could be prevented if continuous data histories were available and used. It is labor intensive and somewhat inaccurate to ask a nurse to take data even every four to six hours to get a few data points per day. With the error of conventional automatic sphygmomanometers being +/- 9.9% or worse, it takes many days to see a blood pressure trend. Another reason is nosocomial illness, which can be transmitted by caregivers moving from one patient to another, using the same devices on all patients. Continuous monitoring of patients can lead to patient drug dosages that are adjusted in very short times and are expected to lower the patient time spent in a hospital. Continuous histories of vital signs should lead to major cost savings by hospitals and insurance companies.
    Ideally monitoring vital signs continuously would be entirely wireless even without any contact, perhaps even through clothing. Various forms of RADAR can detect heart and breathing rate, but who wants to be irradiated all the time. Empirical has developed a truly wireless monitor that is small and inexpensive, yet provides continuous vital signs data using a low pressure, comfortable cuff on the finger connected to a wrist mounted or palm mounted platform. That’s it. It talks to Android phones, PCs, PDAs, and servers. Empirical’s CareTaker is also pre-FDA, what isn’t? But, CareTaker also has shown that it can detect hemorrhaging of as little as one pint. CareTaker even detected and located five of five confirmed aortic aneurysms. From the finger, you ask? Yes, and much more can be gained from this truly new method of monitoring. There are new medical vital signs monitoring technologies out there.