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Sunday, Jul 25, 2010
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Virtual hospital for advanced monitoring

Vasudha Venugopal

‘Intellispace' will help to minimise human intervention in hospitals

— Photo: S.S.Kumar

Paramedics, doctors and students have a look at the patient monitoring and healthcare informatics solutions, ‘Intellispace,' launched by Philips Healthcare, in a virtual hospital setup in Chennai.

CHENNAI: An advanced patient monitoring and healthcare informatics solutions, ‘Intellispace,' was launched by Philips Healthcare, in a virtual hospital setup here last week.

Touted as the ‘hospital of the future,' the system is aimed at providing accessible and advanced healthcare through wireless networking monitoring, automatic electronic charting and, thereby, minimising human interventions in hospitals.

Jitesh Mathur, general manager (patient care & clinical information and ultra sound), Philips Healthcare, said wireless networking and monitoring would help to keep a patient under constant surveillance.

While the patient's vital statistics would be seamlessly monitored through portable devices without keeping the patient wired, the system would also have a virtual ICU that would enable expert doctors and specialists to stay connected to patients admitted in critical units of the hospital, he said.

“The patient will not be required to carry files when he moves from the OT to another room because the data acquisition device, mounted close to the patient, requires just a cable while the monitoring is done though a small, light-weight device attached to the patient,” he explained.

Auto-charging

Mr. Mathur said the ICIP ( IntelliVue Clinical Information Portfolio) of the system would enable doctors to get an error-free auto-charting of patient details without any information gap. “This would aid nurses in managing resources efficiently, preparing summary sheets, and coordinating with doctors.”

On the eICU feature of the Intellispace, he said the system would enable the ICUs of several hospitals to be connected to a big specialist ICU where the best critical care specialists would monitor the patients remotely through online data connected from patient monitors and real-time video images of a patient's condition.

“Special algorithms have been embedded in the system to check the patient for coronary artery diseases to prevent the loss of time in extending medication,” Mr. Mathur said. ‘Intellispace' would transmit the ECG and other vital details of a patient, from the ambulance to the hospital, alerting doctors and paramedics to the need for keeping the required facility ready.

Apart from portable holters to monitor patients, cordless medical transducers and foetal monitoring devices to prevent last-minute complications in the delivery, the virtual set-up has a range of affordable value segment inter-connected monitors.

This is part of Philips' range of solutions to provide customers in Tier-II/III towns with quality healthcare at affordable prices.

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