CLEVELAND — University Hospitals has launched new mobile technology that will allow health care workers to monitor COVID-19 patients on ventilators, reducing exposure time to the virus and helping to preserve the limited supply of personal protective equipment
The Advanced Clinical Guidance (ACG)-Remote View ICUTM captures patient monitor waveforms, ventilator waveforms, electronic medical record details and lab results that can be analyzed using a mobile device, the hospital said.
Patients on mechanical ventilation will still receive in-person care. The manufacturer of the technology, Talis Clinical, will help ensure patients are being treated according to University Hospitals best practices, but the mobile system will allow health care workers to monitor patients, reducing their exposure to the virus. It also does not require them to use PPE while monitoring the patient.
While other systems similar to the ACG-Remote exist, the number of devices able to connect to the system is limited and requires a fixed command center. More health care workers can access ACG-Remote’s system and can do it from anywhere, University Hospitals said.
The implementation of the ACG-Remote will be phased into University Hospitals’ ICUs over the next few weeks and full-scale deployment will be completed over the next few months, according to the hospital.
“At UH we continue to expand our web of technology supporting our patients from the ICU to the home, which allows them to optimally heal and provides us the earliest opportunity to identify changes needing quick intervention. The COVID pandemic has focused a spotlight on how ICU care is delivered across the country,” noted Jeffrey Sunshine, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at University Hospitals. “A silver lining in all of this is that we are establishing a platform that sets us up for more success as we manage the COVID response, even if we face a late surge. We now have the ability to rapidly scale the most state-of-the-art ICU care.”
