OBS Medical hosted its first-ever Visensia(R) Summit on September 8. It welcomed key leaders in patient safety to its hometown of Indianapolis. Nurses, physicians and administrators that use and/or support Visensia had the opportunity to meet and learn from each other's experiences while actively participating in its exciting growth (see also OBS Medical).
Formerly known as BioSign, Visensia fuses up to five vital signs - heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation and blood pressure - into a numerical index, the Visensia Index. This Index is an indication of a patient's wellness and enables significant improvement in clinical outcome and optimization of hospital resource utilization.
The day began with a welcome by CEO Frank Cheng and was followed by Clarian Health CEO & President Daniel F. Evans, Jr. who spoke about patient safety challenges and opportunities. The keynote speaker was Dr. Michael R. Pinsky, professor and vice chairman of Academic Affairs in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). He presented on 'Rapid Response Systems and the Use of Electronic Integrated Monitoring' and shared findings from a large UPMC study and peer-reviewed paper published in Archives of Internal Medicine - 'Defining the Incidence of Cardiorespiratory Instability in Patients in Step-down Units Using an Electronic Integrated Monitoring System'. Involving 1,000 patients (18,248 hours of continuous monitoring in Phase I), the study became the largest ever continuous monitoring study for cardiorespiratory variables in non-ICU patients. This new evidence strongly supports Visensia's ability to detect clinical instability early and thereby avert a clinical crisis.
The nurses' round table was hosted by Lisbeth Vortuba, RN, MSN of St. Mary's Health Care, Marilyn Hravnak, RN, PhD and Leslie Edwards, BSN, CMSRN both from UPMC. The discussion focused on workflow and implementation. Additional user feedback, best practices and anecdotes were also shared. OBS Medical provided insight into future research and development, feature expansions, and implementation opportunities.
Summit attendees were from Clarian Health, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Saint Mary's Health Care, Saint Joseph Mercy Oakland, Parkview Health, Bloomington Hospital, Community Health Network, Allegheny General Hospital, Saint Joseph's, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Borgess Health.
Keywords: OBS Medical, Blood Pressure, Critical Care, Wellness.
This article was prepared by Blood Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2008, Blood Weekly via NewsRx.com.
