Patient monitors are key equipment in any hospital, but facilities’ needs change over time. The systems on the market are scalable and customizable depending on the care setting, whether it’s the ICU or labor and delivery.

Here’s a look at the latest from several manufacturers.

GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare recently expanded its Mural Virtual Care Solution into the labor and delivery space.

The cloud-based solution aggregates real-time clinical data from clinical systems and medical devices at the bedside and generates analytics and insights depending on the care area, so that the clinical teams can take specific action to improve clinical outcomes. In the labor and delivery space, this means providing the real-time status of various maternal risk factors, such as hypertension, hemorrhage and oxytocin management, configured to the hospital’s protocols.

“We generate those actionable insights to reduce the response times for the clinical teams to intervene proactively, so that they can adhere to those hospital-defined protocols,” said Sadiq Syed, general manager for digital business within Life Care Solutions at GE Healthcare. “That's done real-time instead of as a retrospective analysis a month later, or two weeks later, when they would see that early intervention could have made sense.”

The solution is vendor-agnostic and can be deployed in a facility with medical equipment from other vendors.

“Research has shown that a 10% increase in compliance with recommended care protocols could be potentially linked to almost a 14% reduction in the risk of death,” Syed said. “If we can help the healthcare providers deploy this capability, we'll move the needle on the maternal health outcomes for patients.”

Infinium Medical
Infinium Medical is releasing the Omega series patient monitors. The Omega is a high-acuity, modular patient monitor designed for hospital use in the OR, post-surgical care area or ICU. It will perform standard vital signs measurement plus 12-lead ECG monitoring, cardiac output, anesthetic gas measurements and BIS.

“The Omega will be a higher-quality build based on much more modern software and hardware technology platforms,” said Suleyman Bilgutay, managing partner of Infinium Medical.

The series is expected to be available in 2023.

Infinium Medical has also worked on moving its manufacturing to its Florida facility, achieving the goal of manufacturing all Infinium monitoring products in the U.S.

“Our core market’s really in the outpatient surgery market,” Bilgutay said. “So we wanted to offer a high-quality, U.S.-made monitor at a low cost, and that's where our focus was over the last few years, and we were able to accomplish that.”

Mindray North America
Mindray recently released a new line of BeneVision N-Series Patient Monitors tailored for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the BeneVision N12/N15/N17 Neonatal Patient Monitors.

The NICU-tailored BeneVision N-Series monitors use Mindray’s N1 Transport Monitor/Module as their core parameter module. The N-Series offers three multiparameter monitor sizes — 12-inch, 15-inch, and 18.5-inch. They are equipped with features, functionality, and clinical tools designed to support neonatal patient care. From the first moments in the delivery room through transport to the NICU, the N1’s neonatal arrhythmia analysis and continuous vital sign measurements, such as heart rate, respiration, oxygen saturation, and invasive pressures are displayed on a 5.5-inch multi-gesture touchscreen.

“The BeneVision N-Series elevates NICU monitoring to the next level by providing caregivers unmatched usability and access to comprehensive, meaningful patient data at their fingertips, empowering them to make informed decisions at the bedside,” said Beth Aquaviva, Mindray’s senior marketing product manager for Monitoring Solutions.

The NICU N-Series models feature multi-gesture, capacitive touchscreen technology that works like a smartphone to incorporate ease and speed into clinical workflow, Aquaviva said. Users can see the patient’s historical vital signs data and real-time monitoring information with one or two swipes, supporting clinical diagnosis and informed decision-making, and information sharing with the family at the point of care.

The BeneVision N-Series Monitors are equipped with privacy and night-mode display settings, designed to help NICU teams create a calm and soothing environment for patients and family members.

Other NICU-specific features include an OxyCRG with ABD Events review window, customizable gestational age-appropriate alarm features, configurable alarm settings and a Targeted Goal screen with SpO2 histogram view.

In addition to the new tools and features that the BeneVision N-Series Monitors bring to the NICU, they also feed into Mindray’s BeneVision Distributed Monitoring System to provide continuous centralized monitoring and surveillance.

“The N-Series continuously monitors, stores and sends patient data to the BeneVision Central Monitoring Station to provide clinicians gap-free, continuous monitoring available where and when (they) need it,” Aquaviva said. “We are excited to share these new offerings with the NICU and see how we can accompany NICU clinicians on their journey to provide better healthcare for all.”

Nihon Kohden
Last month, Nihon Kohden America released a new series of bedside monitoring systems, the Life Scope G5 and G5 Max.

The new patient monitors combine adaptable monitors with an enterprise-level server and software applications that are customizable to the clinicians’ needs, said Curtis Marks, regional vice president of sales for Nihon Kohden America.

“The consistent, easy-to-use, user interface helps streamline workflows,” Marks said. “The advanced tools were designed to help accomplish one critical goal, [which is to] allow clinicians to spend more time with their patients and less time with technology.”

The new Life Scope monitors allow users to configure the alarms to meet their clinical needs and reduce alarm fatigue.

“The recent world events have only made it more apparent that the ability to quickly change is good and needed,” Marks said. “What our equipment gives you is greater flexibility because different areas throughout the hospital have different requirements for patient care.”

Philips
In December 2021, Philips received FDA 510(k) clearance for the IntelliVue MX750 and IntelliVue MX850 patient monitors. These monitors had previously received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA for use in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MX750 and MX850 are designed to specifically support ICU/CCU, NICU, PACU and operating rooms, though they’re scalable and enable hospitals to customize the solution to a particular care setting, including virtual or decentralized environments, said Sachin Chaudhari, general manager of clinical applications and devices at Philips.

“As health systems navigate digital transformation, patient management solutions that can scale to meet hospital needs are in high demand,” Chaudhari said.

Patient data flows between the MX750 and MX850 and Philips Acute Care Telehealth command center. The monitors feature direct access to hospital applications via HTML5, Citrix and optional integrated PC, and systems are designed to support cybersecurity features such as node authentication, network data encryption, print report encryption and device data encryption, including a built-in RFID/NFC card reader.

The monitors are interoperable with other devices and applications, including Philips Patient Information Center iX and IntelliVue XDS software, to display critical patient data remotely or at the point of care.

“The approach allows for virtually gap-free patient records from admission to discharge, even during transport, and connects care from the ICU to general ward, and across care settings,” Chaudhari said.

In November of last year, Philips announced the agreement to acquire Cardiologs, a France-based medical technology company focused on using AI and cloud technology for cardiac diagnostics. The company offers a vendor-neutral heart disorder screener and electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis applications, based on machine learning algorithms. It’s designed to accelerate diagnostic reporting, decrease the occurrence of reporting errors and streamline clinician workflow and patient care.

“Cardiologs will further strengthen Philips’ cardiac monitoring and diagnostics offering with innovative software technology, ECG analysis and reporting services,” Chaudhari said. “With early detection of potential adverse events and proactive interventions, care teams have greater control over patient outcomes, while increasing both staff and patient satisfaction and reducing hospital length of stay and readmissions to control costs.”

At HIMSS 2022, Philips announced that it had received FDA clearance for the latest Philips Capsule Surveillance solution. The surveillance provides continuous analysis of medical device data to identify deteriorating patient conditions quickly and alerts care teams of changes.

The latest version of Philips Capsule Surveillance includes expanded interoperability into hospitals’ existing mobile Clinical Communication and Collaboration (CC&C) tools and eICU and virtual care population health management systems, offering more visibility on live streaming data, waveforms, device alarms and contextual alerts.

“The integration of Philips Capsule into the Philips portfolio of connected health technologies is an important step in our strategy to become a leading solutions provider across the entirety of the care continuum,” Chaudhari said. “Our objective is to empower care teams instead of overloading them with data by delivering actionable insights and earlier notifications at each point of care.”