March 9, 2018 — Philips recently announced the integration of its IntelliVue Guardian with automated Early Warning Scoring (EWS) into the general care units of Saratoga Hospital has helped improve patient safety and clinical outcomes. Since implementing Philips' patient monitoring technology in 2015, Saratoga Hospital has reduced patient transfers to the intensive care unit (ICU) by 63 percent and eliminated patient codes within its 20-bed orthopedic unit, which dropped from three or four codes per year to zero.
There are 440,000 preventable adverse events that contribute to patient deaths in U.S. hospitals every year1. Most patients are not identified until 15 minutes before they suffer cardiac arrest that often lead to an adverse event or admittance to the intensive care unit (ICU)2. In general care units, it is often difficult for caregivers to determine which patients are at the greatest risk of having an unexpected serious adverse event such as cardiac arrest or even death.
Before implementing an automated scoring solution, such as the IntelliVue Guardian Solution, for supporting detection of potential clinical deteriorations, caregivers at Saratoga Hospital would take patients' vital signs every four hours, and this information would be manually logged into the electronic medical record (EMR) to be further assessed by nurses. Using Saratoga Hospital's modified early warning score (MEWS) algorithm, the IntelliVue Guardian Solution, as implemented, streamlines the manual process by automating the scoring that aids clinicians in identifying deviations in a patient's vital signs. It also incorporates an automated respiration rate into its EWS calculations to further enhance quality and accuracy. Respiration rate, which is not always captured correctly, is an important factor in accurately predicting both sepsis and cardiac arrest3. In most cases, this early identification occurs hours before a potential adverse event, giving Saratoga's clinicians time to intervene prior to patient deterioration.
"Improving patient safety and reducing codes in the general ward is a top priority for our team," said Diane Bartos, administrative director of the Intensive Care Unit, Saratoga Hospital. "In order to provide the best care possible, we must equip our caregivers with the technological resources they need to be successful. Our caregivers use the Philips IntelliVue Guardian Solution every day, helping them to make more confident care decisions and intervene earlier."
Philips' full suite of integrated patient monitoring solutions was showcased at the 2018 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, March 5-9 in Las Vegas.
For more information: www.usa.philips.com
References
1. James, JT. A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care. Journal of Patient Safety: September 2013 - Volume 9 - Issue 3 - p 122–128.
2. Hillman K, Chen J, Cretikos M, et al. MERIT study investigators Introduction of the medical emergency team (MET) system: a cluster-randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2005;365 (9477):2091–2097.
3. Field D (2006) 'Respiratory care'. In: Sheppard M, Wright M eds. Principles and practice of high dependency nursing 2nd edn. Bailliere Tindall, Edinburgh)
August 15, 2024 
