ViSi Mobile Presented During Eric Dishman's mHealth Summit Keynote Address

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Following his keynote address at the mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C., Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow and general manager of Intel's Health & Life Sciences Group, reiterated Intel's belief that next generation technology for continuous monitoring of patient vital signs, such as ViSi^® Mobile by Sotera^® Wireless shown live during the keynote, could transform the delivery of care and benefit health outcomes, patient satisfaction, and healthcare costs.

"A great example of mobile technology that holds promise to improve patient safety and the whole experience of being a high-risk patient is continuous monitoring of vital signs in the hospital," said Dishman. "Rather than inconvenient manual spot checks that yield intermittent data, this mobile technology makes it possible for the first time to monitor all vital signs continuously through a small, wearable device that transmits data wirelessly."

A finalist for CONNECT's 2013 "Most Innovative Product" Award, the ViSi Mobile System packs powerful patient monitoring capabilities into a 4 ounce wrist-worn device ensuring clinicians anytime, anywhere access to accurate and trended vital sign information. With the recent addition of continuous, cuffless non-invasive blood pressure (cNIBP) technology, the ViSi Mobile System is the first body-worn monitor able to non-invasively measure all core vital signs on a highly accurate, beat-to-beat basis.

Today, most patients who reside on general medical/surgical floors in hospitals lack access to continuous monitoring and instead receive infrequent vital sign spot checks throughout the day and night approximately every 4 hours.

To collect vital sign measurements hospital clinicians must wheel monitoring equipment from patient to patient and use various tools, such as a blood pressure cuff, and finger clip to obtain vital sign readings at finite time points. Patients often complain that the process is disturbing, especially to measure blood pressure with a cuff, while clinicians must rely on limited, sometimes hours-old data to evaluate their patients' health.

"Spot checks are labor-intensive and analogous to driving a car and opening your eyes every 4 hours to make sure you are still on the road," said Gunnar Trommer, Ph.D., Sotera Wireless vice president of marketing. "Potentially dangerous patient deterioration can occur unnoticed in the intervals between manual vital sign spot check measurements."

Trommer believes that the ViSi Mobile System's unique capabilities will eventually change the standard of care by which non-ICU hospital patients will be monitored in the very near future:

• ViSi Mobile is the only monitor on the market that allows continuous monitoring of all five core vital signs (SpO2/PR, ECG/HR, Resp, BP, Skin Temp) with ICU-level accuracy in a wearable package that does not limit patient mobility.
• The nurse has access to the vital sign information "whenever wanted", meaning he or she can view patients' vital signs on the wrist monitor itself, or on various remote viewing devices (central station, mobile tablet PC). The vital sign information can also be automatically fed into the patient record in the EMR.
• If a patient deteriorates, and a notification to the nurse is needed to prevent worsening of the patient's condition, an automatic alert is sent to the remote viewing/alarming device of choice.

The resulting clinical / economical value includes:

• Avoiding expensive, preventable adverse events.
• Keeping patients in lower cost beds (e.g. out of the ICU) and allowing for faster patient disposition due to greater availability of "monitored beds" on the general floors.
• Not waking patients up in the middle of the night only to check their vitals, allowing for restful sleep – which will also increase financially relevant patient satisfaction.
• More efficient use of clinicians' time – avoiding human error and time gaps in measuring, documenting and interpreting vital signs.

"Eric Dishman's vision of care anywhere aligns with our long-term strategy of connecting patients to clinicians across a multitude of healthcare settings – including the home. Adapting our healthcare system to such change begins in the hospital, where the advantages and benefits of comprehensive and wireless patient monitoring are imminent," said Trommer.

Not attending mHealth Summit? For more information visit soterawireless.com and stay connected with Sotera Wireless via:

Visi Mobile on Facebook 
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Visi Mobile on YouTube

About Sotera Wireless
Sotera Wireless, Inc. is a San Diego based medical device company dedicated to the development, marketing and sale of a new generation of comprehensive vital signs monitoring. Sotera's mission is to improve patient safety by empowering clinicians to detect early signs of deterioration in virtually any care setting and enable early intervention and rapid response, all without limiting the patient's freedom of movement. More information on the company or its ViSi Mobile System can be obtained at soterawireless.com or by sending an email to [email protected].

Sotera^® and ViSi Mobile^® are registered trademarks of Sotera Wireless, Inc. 

SOURCE Sotera Wireless, Inc.