ISRAEL: Bed sensor keeps unobtrusive eye on vital signs

Record ID: 398580

  • Title: ISRAEL: Bed sensor keeps unobtrusive eye on vital signs
  • Date: 25th May 2014
  • Summary: NETANYA, ISRAEL (RECENT) EXTERIORS OF DOROT GERIATRIC HOSPITAL DR. GADI MENDELSON, DIRECTOR OF DOROT GERIATRIC HOSPITAL, TALKING TO REPORTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. GADI MENDELSON, DIRECTOR OF DOROT GERIATRIC HOSPITAL, SAYING: "I must say that we are extremely pleased so far from the system. It allows us to have a good control of patients in the department. If there is
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA5ESVRONFOM0ELDFLJBDNUQ0LW
  • Story Text: Israeli wireless hospital bed monitor maker EarlySense is evaluating a possible initial public offering in 2015 after already raising $46 million, the company's CEO Avner Halperin has told Reuters.
    EarlySense says it is the market leader of the system, the only one cleared for use by the U.S.'s Food and Drugs Administration, which from under a mattress, unobtrusively detects a patient's heart and respiratory rate and movement. Halperin says the sensor is an effective and safer alternative to conventional monitors which require the attachment of wires to a patient's skin.
    "We developed a system that makes doctors and nurses much more effective in keeping their patients safe and out of trouble. It's based on a sensor, which is this one you see it here, which is placed under the mattress of a bed and monitors the patient continuously without ever touching his body, of heart, respiratory and motion. And gives alerts when the earliest warning signs of deterioration are present. And that makes the nurses and doctors much more effective in intervening early and keeping them out of trouble," Halperin told Reuters.
    EarlySense has declined to give precise sales figures but says it has already delivered over a thousand units and expects to install "tens of thousands more in the next three years."
    More than 10 years of research have gone into developing the device. It is in use in about two dozen hospitals across the United States. .
    The cost of the device stands at around $7,000 per bed but Halperin says he expects prices to drop with increased sales. A sensor for home use is also in development.
    He added that the EarlySense device is the only one in the market that has proven clinical data from over 100,000 patients monitored.
    The sensor, a flat metal plate, is connected to a bedside monitor where the data is processed and relayed to a central monitor or a mobile device where a carer can be alerted.
    "This sensor, which as we said never touches the patient, actually detects vibration signals that come out of the body of the patient. Three types of signals: the general large body movements, the motion of the chest as we breath and something called the cardio ballistic effect which, as the name suggests, cardio and ballistic, every time the heart beats there is like a small recoil of the whole body. These three signals go through the mattress, are collected by this passive plaque which is like a passive antenna, digitized and then algorithms that we developed over ten years make that into very accurate vital signs that then are analysed and based on that, when something begins to go wrong an alert is indicated to the nurse and physicians," said Halperin.
    He says the system generates many times fewer false alarms than other monitors currently in use and says it also reduces "alarm fatigue" among carers who might otherwise often ignore alerts, believing them to be bogus.
    Dr. Gadi Mendelson, director of the Dorot geriatric hospital in Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, says the system is being used in the short-rehab department where patients are hospitalised largely because of falls.
    "I must say that we are extremely please so far from the system. It allows us to have a good control of patients in the department. If there is patient safety issues, he is trying to get out of bed or fall out of bed, our staff can get very quickly and catch him," Mendelson said.
    A nurse in charge of patient safety in the hospital, Anat Margel, says that the sensor has actually helped the carers save lives of patients in dangerous situations.
    "Two and a half years ago, before we started working with the system, we unfortunately had two incidents of patients that were found dead in their beds. Ever since we've been using the system and we monitor the patients, we identify the difficult condition of those patients. We had at least three of four incidents of ventricular fibrillation that the crew literally saved patients' lives," she said.
    According to Mendelson, the system has reduced falls out of bed by 27 percent and referrals back to emergency by 19 percent.
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