MicroMed Cardiovascular Inc., manufacturer of the HeartAssist 5 Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) for people who suffer from congestive heart failure, recently integrated continuous wireless monitoring capability into its Conquest Controller, which is pending approval by regulatory agencies, according to a company press release.
This will allow continual remote monitoring of data from the Heart Assist LVAD, to allow patients to remain at home safely while still being followed by their healthcare providers. Clinicians, doctors and technicians will be notified automatically wherever they are without requiring the patient to come to the clinic or hospital facilities unless intervention is needed.
In the past, clinicians could only get access to device data when the patient physically plugged the HeartAssist 5 into MicroMed's HeartAttendant so that data could be transmitted via a local Internet connection. The Web solution met certain needs in terms of providing useful data, but it limited patient mobility, and meant data reporting could not be continuous, according to the press release. But telemonitoring allows patients to be just about anywhere and still be followed by their doctors.
A studyhe use of a home telemonitoring system helped reduce 30-day hospital readmission rates by 44 percent among patients with congestive heart failure, according to Geisinger Health Plan's evaluation of its patient monitoring program, according to a story at CMIO"As the only provider of such wireless remote monitoring, MicroMed is expected to enhance patients' peace of mind while providing caregivers and patients an opportunity to avoid some expensive and time consuming visits to the hospital for issues that could be managed at home,” said Sailesh Saxena, MicroMed's CFO, in the press release." . And this type of machine-to-machine (M2M) technology could not have come at a better moment, when aging populations in the US and around the world are climbing at an alarming rate. of nurse-managed patients using telemonitoring found that it helped hypertension patients significantly lower their blood presssure over a 12-month period. In another study, reported at ihealthbeat.com, t
The HeartAssist 5 was originally developed by heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey in partnership with NASA. Dr. DeBakey is known for, at 23, developing a major component of the heart-lung machine and was a pioneer in creating the artificial heart.
MicroMed's Conquest M2M application was built as a joint partnership with Numerex Corp using the Numerex FAST platform, resulting in cellular cost savings and allowing remote monitoring of the device to be constant and consistent, resulting in relevant reporting around the clock, according to the press release.
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Edited by
Rich Steeves
