Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Enhances Maternal and Fetal Safety with Go-Live of PeriGen's PeriWatch Vigilance

Technology is accelerating response to early warning signs of issues in labor and delivery while helping drive faster assent and recommendations for treatment

News provided by

PeriGen

Apr 07, 2020, 08:00 ET

CARY, N.C., April 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PeriGen^®, an innovator in perinatal early warning systems, today announced that Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, a 519-bed acute care teaching hospital and trauma center that is part of the not-for-profit Cottage Health system, is now using PeriGen's PeriWatch Vigilance^® automated maternal-fetal early warning system (EWS) in its labor and delivery (L&D) department.

Founded in 1888 by 50 women determined to provide a healthcare facility for the growing community of Santa Barbara, the hospital today averages more than 20,000 inpatient admissions, including 2,400 births, along with nearly 73,000 emergency department visits. It is the largest hospital of its kind between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

Since it went live in January 2020, PeriWatch Vigilance has been helping Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital enhance the care and safety of mothers and babies during L&D. Its HUB offers a consolidated view of all patients during the birthing process that helps improve acuity awareness. The HUB enables PeriWatch Vigilance to deliver monitoring and notification of developing issues that is visible at both bedside workstations and the nurses' station.

"As a director in OB, PeriWatch Vigilance helps me keep a finger on the pulse of the unit by providing a complete overview with just one click of the mouse," said Libby Smith, Director of Women's Services at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. "When I walk through the unit, the notifications are being displayed on the Vigilance HUB in a consolidated, easily viewed screen that help me prioritize where to focus my initial attention. The installation of Vigilance went so well the staff was able to continue working during the go live with minimal to no interruptions. The staff felt it was an excellent implementation and expressed they had never experienced such a smooth roll out."

Smith feels particularly fortunate that PeriWatch Vigilance went live and the staff had time to become familiar with it before the current COVID-19 crisis hit.

"Although there is a very real risk of nurses flexing in multiple assignments and L&D patients being isolated as a result of COVID-19, I am confident that PeriWatch Vigilance will continue to help us respond quickly and confidently to patients in distress," she said.

PeriWatch Vigilance is an automated early warning system for obstetrics designed to enhance clinical efficiency, timely intervention and standardization of care. It leverages artificial intelligence techniques to analyze electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) tracings continuously to show trends over time. It works seamlessly with an organization's current EFM and electronic medical records (EMR) systems, including Obix and Epic, and does not require replacing any systems in place. Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital is using the full PeriWatch Vigilance suite of tools, including:

The HUB enterprise-wide view, which delivers live, interactive listings of multiple patients across one or many sites, with color-coded notifications for quick attention.
A single patient view that consolidates critical data for one patient with the ability to trend for four or 12 hours.
Cues, the only fetal heart rate tracing analysis system that is both cleared by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and validated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It measures accelerations, decelerations, FHR baseline, variability, and contractions. A long-term tracing display that highlights regions where the tracing exceeds specific criteria set by the institution.
Curve, an FDA-cleared method to objectively assess labor progress. It shows a patient's dilation relative to a reference population, adjusting for specific factors such as contraction frequency, epidural use, and parity.
Vitals, which displays maternal vital signs and oxygen saturation measurements in numerical and graphical format.
Notifications that appear where clinicians are – in the electronic medical record (EMR), census, or through workstation pop-ups.
The ability to integrate with all major EMRs and EFMs so data is shared seamlessly.

"Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital is simply never complacent when it comes to patient care, and that has resulted in a well-earned reputation for being one of the top hospitals in the country," said PeriGen CEO Matthew Sappern. "To the Cottage team, PeriWatch Vigilance is the logical next step, and a big step, beyond the limited benefits of legacy technology into the future of using data in a continuous, quantifiable and ultimately more effective way for patient care. Libby and her team are great partners as we consider how to extend our capabilities."

ABOUT SANTA BARBARA COTTAGE HOSPITAL
Founded in 1888 by 50 women determined to provide a healthcare facility for the growing community of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital today is part of the not-for-profit Cottage Health system. The 519-bed acute care teaching hospital and trauma center is the largest of its kind between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. It averages more than 20,000 inpatient admissions, nearly 73,000 emergency department visits, and 2,400 births, and is renowned for its breadth of services. For more information, please visit https://www.cottagehealth.org.

ABOUT PERIGEN, INC.
PeriGen offers innovative perinatal software solutions that incorporate advanced statistical analysis features to enhance clinical efficiency and standardization of care during childbirth. Led by skilled OB practitioners and IT visionaries, PeriGen has created the PeriWatch® platform to provide consistent analysis and efficient display of complex data to promote better human recognition and communication about impending problems during labor. With PeriWatch®, clinicians can spend more time on direct patient care and less time on manual calculations and data manipulation. To learn more, visit www.perigen.com; visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook; or call 984.208.4250 or email.

Media Contact for PeriGen:
Stacy State
Amendola Communications for PeriGen
502.744.7409
[email protected]

SOURCE PeriGen