Want to Move around in the Hospital, Yet Still be Monitored? Philips Healthcare Makes it Possible

What if your mom’s in the hospital with a monitor strapped to her but she’s well enough to walk the halls? Philips Healthcare in August introduced its IntelliVue MX40 solution, a monitor that allows hospital patients to move around and still be constantly monitored, Eric Wicklund writes at healthcareitnews.com.

The IntelliVue MX40 displays a patient’s name, vital signs and alerts on a color touch-screen display, according to Wicklund. Wearers can be monitored not only in the hospital but during transport by ambulance “for real-time surveillance, reporting, data storage and interfacing with the hospital’s electronic medical record through the IntelliVue Information Center,” Wicklund writes.

Now Philips Healthcare has announced the first healthcare facility to implement this solution, the Hurley Medical Center, a 443-bed public, non-profit, teaching medical center in Flint, Mich., according to a company press release.

IntelliVue MX40 allows healthcare providers to view vital cardiac patient information at the patient's side, whether that patient is in bed or up and moving around, according to the press release. The IntelliVue MX40 system will be used across four floors of the hospital, allowing flexible assignment of monitoring throughout a patient’s experience, the press release reports. Patients start out in the coronary care unit and continue on to intermediate care units, with the remainder of the stay in the medical surgical units, wearing the monitors through their whole stay.

The size of a deck of cards, these mobile monitors help clinicians to check ECG rhythm, rate, pulse oximetry, trends and monitoring status just by looking at the display screen. And what if a patient moves to a different floor or area of the hospital? The monitors go right with them.

Philips Healthcare says in the press release that it has multiple orders for the IntelliVue MX40 systems, but Hurley is the first installation.

Hurley Medical Center treats more than 20,000 patients who stay at their hospitals. Many spend more than one night in different sections of the hospital while going through treatment, according to the press release. In the past, this posed challenges when it comes to monitoring.

Clinicians at Hurley were early adopters of Philips telemetry offerings, according to the press release, and quickly turned to Philips again to address those challenges with IntelliVue MX40 technology.

“Allowing our clinicians to get closer to those they care for by providing this kind of monitor to patients underscores our mission: clinical excellence, service to people,” said Syed I. Ahmed, M.D., F.A.C.C., medical coordinator, department of cardiology, Hurley Medical Center, in the press release. “Moreover, while the monitors allow mobility for patients, Philips has taken steps to help ensure data will be available when we need it with technology designed to maintain a signal and only switch frequencies when a clear one is available.”

“MX40 is a game-changing device, saving clinicians time by allowing them to view vital patient data on the MX40 display, rather than repeatedly walking away from the patient to check the central station monitor,” said Dale Wiggins, CTO of patient care and clinical informatics at Philips Healthcare told HospiMedia writers. August when the solution was introduced. “It’s a forward-thinking piece of technology that brings clinicians and patients closer together.”