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Intelligent Ventilation solutions: devices,consumables, and digital solutions for the ventilation of all critically ill patients – from neonates to adults.

Ascom Digistat 7.2 (and beyond) provides a reliable alarm connection to the Hamilton Medical HAMILTON-G5/S1 and HAMILTON-C6 ventilators (also called DAS: Distributed Alarm System).

This solution contributes to a more silent medical environment in the hospital.

Challenges

The Impact of noise levels on patients

At the patient’s bedside, WHO (World Health Organization) suggests keeping noise level at or below 40 dB during the day and 35 dB during the night1. But the average ICU sound levels within a 24-hour time interval range from 53 dB2 to 60 dB3. Noise is a major concern for a majority of ICU patients as it increases the risk of delirium4. Delirium can lead to prolonged length of stay and long-lasting neurocognitive impairments5.

The impact of alarm fatigue* on caregivers

In critical care, the ever-increasing number of alarms - all possibly very urgent - must be managed in a productive way. AAMI research6 indicates that the average number of alarms per patient per day equals 350. This numbers goes up to 771 in an ICU. An estimated 80-95% of these alarms are not clinically significant7,9.

Solution

Distributed Alarm System (DAS)**

  • Reduce noises levels at the patient's bedside enabling silent (audio off) HAMILTON-G5/S1 and HAMILTON-C6 ventilators.
  • Mixed environments: Visualize both DAS and non-DAS medical devices data and alarms on the same dashboard / mobile application.

Real Time clinical data and medical alarms visualization

  • Holistic Central Display: View patient medical device data and alarm status in real time on a central display regrouping e.g., monitor, ventilator, infusion pump, etc.
  • Mobility: View patient-specific physiological data, waveforms and alarm status conveniently on mobile application and in real time.

Features and Benefits

The solution helps caregivers to streamline their clinical workflows and reduces the noises levels at the patient’s bedside which impacts patient recovery4,5:

  • Reducing noises levels at the bedside: In the Global AUDIO OFF setting, the alarms from the HAMILTON-G5/S1 and HAMILTON-C6 ventilators are silent at the bedside. 
  • Intelligent alarm management: customizable alarm filtering and screening to reduce non-actionable alarm notifications. Alarm notifications are prioritized and filtered to distinguish between high and low priority alarms.
  • Flexibility and mobility: nurses only receives the alarm notifications associated with their assigned patients. The system also redirects and escalates in case the assigned caregiver is not able to assist the patient.

*Alarm fatigue can be defined by an exposition to such a large number of non-actionable alarms, that the nurses become desensitized to them (8). This can lead to increased risk of patient harm and dissatisfaction among patients and medical staff (8,10).

**The Ascom software as medical device (EU/EFTA Class IIb) interfaces to the HAMILTON-G5/S1 and HAMILTON-C6 ventilators as a DAS. The solution delivers a fully reliable alarm management system where the Ascom alarm management system receives full delegation of alarms from the HAMILTON-G5/S1 and HAMILTON-C6 ventilators. 

 

Supported Market

Please visit the Hamilton Medical website or reach out to your local Ascom contact for up-to-date information. 

About Hamilton Medical

We live for ventilation technology that helps caregivers improve the lives of their critically ill patients. We believe that innovation is essential to meet the demands of critical care. To us, innovation is about realizing visionary new ideas and continuously improving existing products, always keeping patient safety and ease of use in focus.

We learn from our customers and from multi-disciplinary experts. And we invest in long-term research and development. We develop Intelligent Ventilation solutions: devices,consumables, and digital solutions for the ventilation of all critically ill patients – from neonates to adults.

www.hamilton-medical.com

References

1. WHO noise levels: Falk SA, Woods N. Hospital noise: levels and potential health hazards. The New England Journal of Medicine. 1973;289:774–81.

2. 10. Johansson L, Bergbom I, Waye KP, Ryherd E, Lindahl B. The sound environment in an ICU patient room—a content analysis of sound levels and patient experiences. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2012;28(5):269–279.

3. 11. Khademi G, Roudi M, Shah Farhat A, Shahabian M. Noise pollution in intensive care units and emergency wards. Iran J Otorhinolaryngol. 2011;23(65):141–148. 

4. Delirium: Clinical review: The impact of noise on patients' sleep and the effectiveness of noise reduction strategies in intensive care units, Hui Xie, Jian Kang and Gary H Mills. Crit Care. 2009; 13(2): 208.

5. Promoting Sleep to Improve Delirium in the ICU. Biren B. Kamdar, Jennifer L. Martin, Dale M. Needham and Michael K. Ong. Crit Care Med. 2016 December ; 44(12): 2290–2291.

6. AAMI Foundation (2012) Using Data to Drive Alarm System Improvement Efforts; The Johns Hopkins Hospital Experience [online] Available at http://www.premiersafetyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Johns-Hopkins-White-Paper.pdf > [16 March 2016] - The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation® (AAMI) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1967

7. Cvach, M. (2012). Monitor Alarm Fatigue : An Integrative Review. Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, 46(4), pp.268-277.

8. Sound the Alarm. Leah M. Addis, Vladimir N. Cadet, and Kelly C. Graham. ECRI. PSQH publication May/June 2014. https://www.ecri.org/Resources/In_the_News/Sound_the_Alarm(PSQH).pdf

9. McBride DL, LeVasseur SA. Personal Communication Device Use by Nurses Providing In-Patient Care:  Survey of Prevalence, Patterns, and Distraction Potential. JMIR Hum Factors. 2017 Apr 13

10. Woo M, Bacon O. Alarm Fatigue. In: Hall KK, Shoemaker-Hunt S, Hoffman L, et al. Making Healthcare  Safer III: A Critical Analysis of Existing and Emerging Patient Safety Practices [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2020 Mar. 13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555522/

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