A Mobile Wireless Electrocardiogram System for Health Care Facilities

Innovations in mobile technology have brought remote healthcare management to the forefront of advanced medical care. The ability to record the cardiac activity of a patient at home has been available for some time. But that method utilized a recording device worn by the patient, which needed to be brought in to a hospital or doctor’s office for a healthcare professional to analyze. Today, real-time monitoring in the patient’s home is a reality.

As consumers utilize smartphones, tablets, and other devices for other functions like social media and email, they are starting to look at these features to assist them with their healthcare. Mobile body area network devices will be a growing trend in the coming years as a way to get patients engaged in their healthcare and also to give providers routine updates on the status of patients with chronic conditions. As DeGaspari (2014) indicates, these devices can lead to improved functionality for other devices used in hospitals, such as sensors for monitoring patients that might get up and wander or be a fall risk. Telemedicine will continue to grow as payers, providers, and patients all start to realize the mutual benefits that can be

The use of telephones, which is commonly used by patients can help deliver important aspects of health care, including education, emotional support, and psychosocial support. Two-way audio, video and the use of teleconferencing equipment allows patients and caregivers the opportunity to communicate effectively, while allowing the caregiver the benefit to see the patient. The technology of transmitting the patients blood pressure and heart rate can also be incorporated in the audio or video. (Deickman A., Elfrink V., Schlachta-Fairchild L, 2008)

The name of their electronic monitoring system is the VitalPAC. The VitalPAC allows nurses to plug in information about their patients easily onto an iPAD. This accurately records what time treatment was giving and what dosages were given. This method helps staff members do their jobs but also holds them accountable for their actions. With electronic monitoring a timestamp records exactly when a patient received treatment. Electronic monitoring records who the caregiver was taking care of the patient and where the treatment took place. The benefits of electronic monitoring are immeasurable. “We welcome technology that improves the care we can offer, but it will never replace the face-to-face contact that our patients value” (Downey, 2015). Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital is the first orthopaedic provider to adopt the electronic system. The system replaces all paper charts and makes everything paperless which is beneficial to the facility keeping everything organized and taking up less space. Electronic file saving also reduces the loss of records in case of a fire or other natural disaster. VitalPAC is very helpful to nurses producing an observation chart automatically and calculating an early warning score. Calculating a warning score can be very time consuming if done manually. “Recording vital signs data regularly and accurately is central

Cerner integrates patient information throughout all of the departments within a hospital setting. This program also has the ability to expand into other health care facilities within a community, such as long term care, hospice, and home health (Cerner, 2015). Cerner offers community hospitals solutions in their “Software as a Service” model. Cerner will host the software program, provide upgrades, and monitor performance to ensure stability. This will allow community hospitals to have a predictable cost for the software (Cerner, 2015). Another advantage of this system is the “Smart Room”. Wireless devices such as infusion pumps, and vital sign monitoring devices can access the system. This allows for instant documentation of this information into a patient chart and will alert if abnormalities are noted. Bar code scanners and carts are available as well. These items improve patient safety (Cerner, 2015). Cerner is capable of CPOE, electronic prescription transmitting, and has the ability to capture data and immunization statuses to meet reporting regulations.

Technology is the key to the future of health care and the world. Technology is doubling every few years and with these advancements of modern medicine, many lives will be saved. Our book explains one of these emerging technology advancements, Telecare. Telecare is “the remote delivery of healthcare services into the person’s home facilitated by communication technologies that include the use of person-centered reactive monitoring devices.”(Hebda & Czar, 2013, p. 506) This advancement in healthcare will allow patients who are house bound receive the care they deserve. In addition to telecare, electronic aspirin is another emerging technology.

The typical daily cost for single in patients in hospitals was over $1,700 in 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation [10]. Remote monitoring products such as the BodyGuardian provide the healthcare advantages such as the option to move patients to their home and retain monitoring of their status by doctors and nurses. A paper [11] proposes an original, IoT-aware, smart architecture for automatic monitoring and tracking of patients, personnel, and biomedical devices within medical

The QardioArm and QardioBase 2 devices have several advantages. Each product is user-friendly, affordable, has a modern design, utilizes advanced technology, reports, and tracks accurate results through a wireless connection, and allows for patients and healthcare providers to communicate at a distance. Although the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, one cannot ignore the fact that if users do not own a smart cellphone the device data cannot be communicated timely and accurately.

They use their laptops to perform an EKG. I found an article about this type of EKGs and it’s called PC-based ECGs (WelchAllyn, 2015). They hook the patient up with the ten leads and at the opposite end of the leads is a USB port that they plug into the computer. Once they are hooked up they click on the order that is in the patient chart on the EMR and perform the reading. When I saw this I thought it was pretty neat, until the clinic EMR was down for four days. During the computer downtime we couldn’t do any EKGS. If it was an emergency the patient would have had to go to the emergency room. One good thing I can think of by them using this type of system for EKG is the reading is automatically saved in the patient

This technological advancement facilitates the potential use of a \ac{WHTD} as a solution to relieve the burden on the health care system. The \ac{WHTD} refers to the devices which are capable of monitoring the physiological signs (e.g., heart activity, \ac{ECG}, \ac{EMG}, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen saturation, etc.) of the human body and its surrounding environment (e.g., light, humidity, temperature, etc.) using a number of sensors located on or/and in the human body using \ac{BAN} \cite{movassaghi2014wireless,bangash2014survey,jovanov2011body}. This has been employed in various applications, such as military and sports training, \ac{HCI}, entertainment (interactive gaming), home and office automation, environmental monitoring, and \ac{VR}. It has also shown a tremendous potential as a personal healthcare system, which can provide services such as remote patient and elderly people monitoring, activity monitoring, rehabilitation, and disability assistance services as these devices can monitor health status seamlessly in real-time without disturbing users daily life. Consequently, major \ac{ICT} companies are introducing various wearable devices and services with Personalised Health Data management systems. Apple iWatch with HealthKit, Samsung Galaxy fit and Samsung Digital Health, and Google Fit are some of the

This technology would help doctors easily monitor their patients at the hospital as well as after they are released. They would be able to not only record a patient’s heart rate but also their body temperature, the patients would also be able to prick their finger with a utensil in the watch. The watch would be able to do a basic analysis of the blood and it would be sent to their doctor so that the patient would not be required to constantly

A procedure that in the past ten years with technology and advancements in medicine is now considered a routine outpatient procedure. Not long ago, people started wearing wristbands that recorded the number of steps they took, their heart rates and sleep cycles. But if the now-ubiquitous bands and accompanying apps that stored biorhythms started out as novelties, they paved the way for a new generation of gadgets that have become serious tools to improve health care delivery and outcomes. These newfangled contraptions will change how and where care is delivered and will enable providers to stay continuously connected with patients wherever they may be — or at least connected to the devices that indicate whether a patient is abiding by prescription

Cardiovascular arrhythmias are common among both males and females and over a wide age range. As a former cardiac nurse, I know firsthand how often people develop new and reoccurring irregular rhythms. These patients would be ordered a cardiac monitoring device, such as the ones that were mentioned above. However, without access to advanced technology systems such as ZywiePro, there is a risk for adverse outcomes for both the providers and the patients. For example, the patient with a standard telemetry monitoring system would have to turn in the device, wait for the results to be read, and then return to the office to discuss the results and management options. This becomes time consuming, costly, and inconvenient to both the provider and the patient. In addition, it delays treatment. I believe with the evolving healthcare demands and increasing shortage of providers, we need to take advantage of the technology that has been designed to meet our healthcare needs. ZywiePro has been designed to do just that. It offers immediate diagnostic results that makes communicating and treating patients more

Palmetto Health is continually trying to improve the workflow of the clinical staff. In furthering this cause, we are introducing PowerChart ECG. This new addition to our documentation process will streamline the administration and analysis of the 12 lead EKG, which would lead to timely delivery of health care. The new process does not change the good aspects of our current work flow, e.g. obtaining and sending ECG of a Pt. will not change. What will change is how quickly this ECG will be available for all clinicians to analyze. Let us look at these changes in

Recording an electrocardiogram or ECG, is a procedure which is performed daily all over the United Kingdom by thousands of healthcare workers and in particular nurses (Jacobson, 2000). The way in which this procedure is performed varies from geographical location to location and occasionally even more so, between staff on the same ward (Amos, 2000). This reason stated by Amos (2000), formed the basis of my decision to choose this topic.