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Monitoring Device Debuts at Palomar

Palomar Medical Center has recently deployed a new wrist-worn device developed by San Diego’s Sotera Wireless Inc. that allows clinicians to continuously and remotely monitor their patients’ well-being.

The Escondido-based hospital is the first in the country to use the Sotera Wireless ViSi Mobile system, which allows nurses and doctors to measure a patient’s temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and blood oxygenation levels.

“Having reliable data about the patient’s condition is essential to responding to changes at the earliest possible time and thereby preventing deterioration or even death,” said Ben Kanter, Palomar Health’s chief medical information officer. “The ViSi Mobile allows for the delivery of accurate data in a consistent, noninvasive manner.”

Blood Pressure Monitoring?

Sotera Wireless said it soon expects to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to activate its blood pressure monitoring feature, as well as a patient posture and activity monitor that will alert clinicians when an unattended patient has been immobile too long, which could increase the risk of pressure ulcers.

The ViSi device has been under development for the past four years, during which time Sotera Wireless worked with Palomar Health to build its robust platform and tailor it to fit clinical needs.

The lightweight device can connect wirelessly to a computer in a nurse’s station, or to a physician’s tablet or cellphone. All data can be transmitted to an electronic health record system, which reduces the need to manually document a patient’s vital signs.

Palomar Health began using the devices in mid-February, training about 100 nurses on their functionality. Only about six to 12 patients are being monitored using a ViSi device, but more will begin using it as the health system’s ancillary staff becomes more comfortable with the wireless system.

The devices retail at a comparable price to current patient spot-check monitors, costing between $2,500 and $5,000 apiece. ViSi was approved by the FDA in August 2012. The ViSi system is designed to remove the need for bulkier patient monitoring devices, which are either wall-mounted or wheeled from room to room. The compact device is also smaller and easier to clean.

The Investors

The amount invested to date in Sotera is $65 million. Founded in 2004, Sotera Wireless is venture-backed by Cerner Capital, Delphi Ventures, EDBI, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Inc. acting through its venture investment group Qualcomm Ventures, Safeguard Scientifics, Sanderling Ventures and West Health Investment Fund.

Sotera’s Vice President of Marketing and Customer Service, Gunnar Trommer, said that merely being located in San Diego has helped the company attract capital and sidestep marketing costs, because the region itself is a national driver for mobile health solutions.

The company employs 65, and is promoting the ViSi device in Singapore, Australia and Canada through a network of distributors.

“We’re working with a handful of other hospital systems around the country, and they’re either piloting it or have decided to implement it, but Palomar was the first system to put it in live use,” Trommer said.

More Applications

Sotera Wireless is developing a vast array of applications that can be used through the ViSi device.

“When you think about the different uses for that same platform in the context of emergency or trauma departments, or EMS, there are many other bodily functions you’d want to monitor in those scenarios,” Trommer said.

Lorie Shoemaker, chief nurse executive at Palomar Health, said that the system has already proven to be effective — particularly in reducing hospital readmission rates.

“We had a patient who was scheduled to go home, and then through ViSi mobile the nursing staff noticed that her heart rate was erratic,” Shoemaker said. “A charge nurse found that she was having a (potentially) lethal arrhythmia — a dangerous irregular heart beat — and transferred the patient to a higher level of care. If the patient had gone home, she could have died, or certainly been readmitted to the hospital.”

Shoemaker said the technology will also help patients to become mobile more quickly after surgery. By continuously monitoring a patient, the staff can determine how quickly a patient can be discharged —reducing the rate of complications or hospital acquired infections.

“By getting patients up sooner, it decreases complications, decreases the length of a patient’s stay, and ultimately it decreases costs of health care,” she said.

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