Academic literature on the topic 'Patient monitoring Victoria Equipment and supplies'

Introduction:The public ambulance system in Ukraine is the primary deliverer of prehospital care for trauma patients in this Eastern European country, but no national assessment has previously been made to ensure the presence of essential medical equipment on these ambulances.Aim:Working with the Ukraine Ministry of Health, our aim was to assess the availability of public ambulances of medical equipment essential for managing traumatic injury using an internationally recognized standard for prehospital care.Methods:We identified 53 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances from randomly selected cities for evaluation. We performed an inventory of available medical equipment and supplies on these ambulances against a matrix of essential equipment for prehospital providers developed by the World Health Organization (WHO).Results:Essential medical equipment in the categories of personal protection, patient monitoring, hemorrhage control, and immobilization were generally available in the ALS public ambulances surveyed. Deficiencies were noted in equipment and supplies for basic and advanced airway monitoring and management.Discussion:Public ALS ambulances across Ukraine are adequately equipped with many essential medical supplies to manage traumatic injury, but have deficiencies in both basic and advanced airway management. Correcting these deficiencies may improve prehospital survival of the traumatically injured patient. The results of this study will enable the Ukraine Ministry of Health to develop requirements of essential medical equipment for all public ALS ambulances in the country, to inform resource allocation decisions, and to guide public health policy regarding prehospital trauma care.

Five years (1978 to 1982) of respiratory care data were reviewed to determine the changes in patient charges, hospital costs, and frequency of neonatal blood gas analysis created by the introduction of transcutaneous oxygen monitoring. During the 4 years of transcutaneous oxygen monitoring (1979 to 1982), an estimated $196,000 reduction in patient charges was accomplished. When reduced patient charges were balanced with the increased cost to the hospital for equipment, supplies, and personnel time, a net reduction of more than $100,000 for health care delivery was achieved. Transcutaneous oxygen monitoring is an example of technologic achievement in which society receives both economic and medical benefits.

Mobile medical environments, such as ground and air ambulances, have unique design challenges that can affect safe and effective patient care. Members of a provincial human factors department completed five evaluation projects on the interior design of these environments, resulting in the generation of more than 250 design recommendations. An inductive content analysis informed the development of a list of human factors guidelines for designing various mobile medical environments. Guidelines address equipment and supplies, patient visibility and monitoring, practitioner and patient comfort and ergonomics, communication, and working in motion.

We present our approach to rapidly establishing a standardized, multi-site, nation-wide COVID-19 screening program in Belgium. Under auspices of a federal government Task Force responsible for upscaling the country’s testing capacity, we were able to set up a national testing initiative with readily available resources, putting in place a robust, validated, high-throughput, and decentralized qPCR molecular testing platform with embedded proficiency testing. We demonstrate how during an acute scarcity of equipment, kits, reagents, personnel, protective equipment, and sterile plastic supplies, we introduced an approach to rapidly build a reliable, validated, high-volume, high-confidence workflow based on heterogeneous instrumentation and diverse assays, assay components, and protocols. The workflow was set up with continuous quality control monitoring, tied together through a clinical-grade information management platform for automated data analysis, real-time result reporting across different participating sites, qc monitoring, and making result data available to the requesting physician and the patient. In this overview, we address challenges in optimizing high-throughput cross-laboratory workflows with minimal manual intervention through software, instrument and assay validation and standardization, and a process for harmonized result reporting and nation-level infection statistics monitoring across the disparate testing methodologies and workflows, necessitated by a rapid scale-up as a response to the pandemic.

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the need for global efforts to grant universal health coverage and access, which imposes management challenges for Primary Health Care (PHC). This study aimed to develop and apply an instrument to assess the PHC Units’ responsiveness to COVID-19, based on co-production efforts between university researchers and PHC technical teams. The instrument composed of two modules, included identification, operating hours, workforce, work process, structure, equipment, furniture, supplies, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), Symptomatic Respiratory Patient (SRP) examinations and follow-up, information, surveillance, integration, communication, and management. All the 165 PHC Units in Brasília were invited to complete the instrument. Main results: there was physical structure adaptation (adequate configuration of waiting rooms, internal and external spaces allowing safe distance); provision of PPE and COVID-19 tests; active search for SRP/COVID-19 suspects by phone, mobile or home visits; monitoring flows of patient transfer and telehealth implementation. In conclusion, the PHC Units reorganized their services to meet the demands of the pandemic context. Providing information about structure and responsiveness of PHC Units may subside health systems for planning and decision-making at different levels of management, which is crucial to determine strategies to empower and reinforce PHC responsivity in situations of pandemics and other calamities.

Infection control is an essential factor for improving the quality of acute and long-term care facilities, including patient safety. Infection control should be implemented in all medical facility sectors, and participation of all healthcare workers is required. For efficient infection control, securing and maintaining professionals with sufficient experience and training to establish and implement infection control plans focusing the infection control unit is imperative. Moreover, there should be no shortage of infection control supplies, including consumables and disposables necessary for hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, and isolation. The fee for infection prevention and control should be resourced as necessary funding to establish such infection control infrastructure. Moreover, re-evaluating whether the standard for the fee for infection prevention and control is appropriate, improving the current payment mode, and monitoring whether the fee used is executed as infection control costs are necessary.

Drones have evolved significantly in recent years, acquiring greater autonomy and carrier capacity. Therefore, drones can play a substantial role in civil medicine, especially in emergency situations or for the detection and monitoring of disease spread, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper is to present the real possibilities of using drones in field rescue operations, as well as in nonsegregated airspace, in order to obtain solutions for monitoring activities and aerial work in support of the public health system in crisis situations. The particularity of our conceptual system is the use of a “swarm” of fast drones for aerial reconnaissance that operate in conjunction, thus optimizing both the search and identification time while also increasing the information area and the operability of the system. We also included a drone with an RF relay, which was connected to a hub drone. If needed, a carrier drone with medical supplies or portable devices can be integrated, which can also offer two-way audio and video communication capabilities. All of these are controlled from a mobile command center, in real time, connected also to the national dispatch center to shorten the travel time to the patient, provide support with basic but life-saving equipment, and offer the opportunity to access remote or difficult-to-reach places. In conclusion, the use of drones for medical purposes brings many advantages, such as quick help, shortened travel time to the patient, support with basic but life-saving equipment, and the opportunity to access remote or difficult-to-reach places.

Background and aims: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed many challenges for healthcare workers around the world. This study aims to present the most appropriate and evidence-based scientific advice for safe regional anesthesia practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: To perform regional anesthesia during respiratory disease outbreaks, several databases were investigated, including PubMed, Google Scholar, Up-to-date, and ScienceDirect. Searches were in English during a timeframe spanning from February 15, 2019, until February 15, 2021, and the applied keywords were "COVID-19 anesthesia", "surgery", and "operating room" Results: We have focused on definite areas such as workforce and resource planning, modification of clinical setting, preparation of equipment, supplies, and medications, selection of proper personal protective equipment (PPE), cardiorespiratory monitoring of the patient, and sedation and oxygen therapy. Other fields were assessing safe regional anesthesia techniques and monitoring during anesthesia, post-anesthesia care, and follow-ups. In these recommendations, keeping the patients safe while protecting healthcare providers from potential exposure to infection is of particular interest. Conclusion: The safety of healthcare workers and patients during the anesthesia management of suspected and positive COVID-19 cases is of utmost importance. Although there is limited evidence regarding performing regional anesthesia, these presented suggestions summarize the best accessible data and explain some doubts in this respect.

Abstract The pandemic of COVID-19 has presented new challenges to hospital personnel providing care for infected patients with diabetes who represent more than 20% of critically ill patients in intensive care units. Appropriate glycemic management contributes to a reduction in adverse clinical outcomes in acute illness but also requires intensive patient interactions for bedside glucose monitoring, intravenous and subcutaneous insulin administration, as well as rapid intervention for hypoglycemia events. These tasks are required at a time when minimizing patient interactions is recommended as a way of avoiding prolonged exposure to COVID-19 by health care personnel who often practice in settings with limited supplies of personal protective equipment. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide guidance for clinicians for reconciling recommended standards of care for infected hospitalized patients with diabetes while also addressing the daily realities of an overwhelmed health care system in many areas of the country. The use of modified protocols for insulin administration, bedside glucose monitoring, and medications such as glucocorticoids and hydroxychloroquine that may affect glycemic control are discussed. Continuous glucose monitoring systems have been proposed as an option for reducing time spent with patients, but there are important issues that need to be addressed if these are used in hospitalized patients. On-site and remote glucose management teams have potential to provide guidance in areas where there are shortages of personnel who have expertise in inpatient glycemic management.

Abstract Background In January 2018, the first case of anOXA-48 carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (OXA-48 CRKP) was identified in a North Carolina hospital in a patient arriving from Eastern Europe. Over the next year across multiple inpatient adult units, 14 patients had clinical isolates and 2 patients had positive rectal surveillance screens for OXA-48 CRKP. Methods Investigation activities to characterize the OXA-48 CRKP epidemiology included: >1000 rectal colonization screens of epidemiologically linked patients, chart reviews of infected and colonized patients, hand hygiene and environmental cleaning observations on affected units, environmental sampling to include endoscopes, sinks and toilets, and molecular analyses (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and whole-genome sequencing). Results Molecular analyses confirmed a clonal outbreak. All environmental cultures including endoscope cultures performed were negative for OXA-48 CRKP. All cases were explained by at least one of three mechanisms: (1) time/space overlap on same unit (presumed lack of hand hygiene or contamination of shared patient equipment), (2) patient housed in room where previously infected patient was housed (presumed inadequate terminal disinfection/contaminated environment), or (3) a single upper gastrointestinal endoscope. Interventions included surveillance to identify and isolate colonized patients, discharge room cleaning of OXA-48 CRKP patients enhanced by ultraviolet light disinfection, curtain laundering, and discarding unused patient supplies, and monitoring and feedback for compliance with hand hygiene, cleaning, and use of personal protective equipment. A single endoscope used between multiple OXA-48 CRKP patients with no other known transmission link was quarantined upon identification, sterilized with ethylene oxide, and ultimately placed out of service. Conclusion A clonal outbreak of a novel carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae likely spread via multiple modes of transmission. The investigation was complicated by infrequent identification of colonization among patients epidemiologically linked to known cases. Multiple interventions based on epidemiological links were necessary to halt hospital-wide transmission. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

A patient monitor device for use during open heart surgery has been designed and constructed. The device uses a VIC 20 microcomputer along with some additional circuitry to monitor 3 separate functions. The first patient variable monitored is the blood flow rate through the extracorporeal blood circuit during surgery. The device also continuously monitors and displays 6 separate temperatures. Finally, 3 individual timers are monitored and displayed with the device. Both the hardware and the software used in the design are fully described.
Master of Science

The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate the utility of portable, small-scale diffuse optical spectroscopic (DOS) systems for the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of various diseases. These systems employ near-infrared light (wavelength range of 650nm to 950nm) to probe human tissue and are sensitive to changes in scattering and absorption properties of tissues. The absorption is mainly influenced by the components of blood, namely oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin (HbO2 and Hb) and parameters that can be derived from them (e.g. total hemoglobin concentration [THb] and oxygen saturation, StO2). Therefore, I focused on diseases in which these parameters change, which includes vascular diseases such as Peripheral Atrial Disease (PAD) and Infantile Hemangiomas (IH) as well as musculoskeletal autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). In each of these specific diseases, current monitoring techniques are limited by their sensitivity to disease progression or simply do not exist as a quantitative metric. As part of this project, I first designed and built a wireless handheld DOS device (WHDD) that can perform DOS measurements at various tissue depths. This device was used in a 15-patient pilot study for infantile hemangiomas (IH) to differentiate diseased skin from normal skin and monitor the vascular changes during intervention. In another study, I compare the ultra-small form- factor WHDD’s ability to monitor synovitis and disease progression during a patient’s treatment of RA against the capabilities of a proven frequency domain optical tomographic (FDOT) system that has shown to differentiate patients with and without RA. Learning from clinical utility of the WHDD from these two studies, I adapted the WHDD technology to develop a compact multi- channel DOS measurement system to monitor perfusion changes in the lower extremities before and after surgical intervention for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Using this multi- channel system, which we called the vascular optical spectroscopic measurement (VOSM) system, our group conducted a 20-subject pilot study to quantify its ability to monitor blood perfusion before and after revascularization of stenotic arteries in the lower extremities. This proof-of- concept study demonstrated how DOS may help vascular surgeons perform revascularization procedures in the operating room and assists in post-operative treatment monitoring of vascular diseases.

The proliferation of body worn autometric devices has been enabled by advances in low-power electronics and fueled by the quantified-self movement. These devices range in complexity from pedometers to clinical vital sign measurement. They all share the same drawback, typically the most expensive and heaviest component, the battery. The future of autometric devices lies in wireless power. This work explores what is required from autometric devices and presents the results of testing both an embedded version and an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) version of a wirelessly powered autometric device.
Graduation date: 2013

Chen, Xijun.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-77).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 1.1 --- Design Challenges --- p.2
Chapter 1.2 --- Wireless Sensor Network Applications --- p.6
Chapter 1.2.1 --- Military Applications --- p.7
Chapter 1.2.2 --- Environmental Applications --- p.9
Chapter 1.2.3 --- Health Applications --- p.11
Chapter 1.3 --- Wireless Biomedical Sensor Networks (WBSN) --- p.12
Chapter 1.4 --- Text Organization --- p.13
Chapter Chapter 2 --- Design a Wearable Platform for Wireless Biomedical Sensor Networks --- p.15
Chapter 2.1 --- Objective --- p.17
Chapter 2.2 --- Requirements for Wireless Medical Sensors --- p.19
Chapter 2.3 --- Hardware design --- p.21
Chapter 2.3.1 --- Materials and Methods --- p.21
Chapter 2.3.2 --- Results --- p.24
Chapter 2.3.3 --- Conclusion --- p.27
Chapter 2.4 --- Software design --- p.28
Chapter 2.4.1 --- TinyOS --- p.28
Chapter 2.4.2 --- Software Organization --- p.28
Chapter Chapter 3 --- Wireless Medical Sensors --- p.32
Chapter 3.1 --- Sensing Physiological Information --- p.32
Chapter 3.1.1 --- Pulse Oximetry --- p.32
Chapter 3.1.2 --- Electrocardiograph --- p.36
Chapter 3.1.3 --- Galvanic Skin Response --- p.41
Chapter 3.2 --- Location Tracking --- p.43
Chapter 3.2.1 --- Outdoor Location Tracking --- p.43
Chapter 3.2.2 --- Indoor Location Tracking --- p.44
Chapter 3.3 --- Motion Tracking --- p.49
Chapter 3.3.1 --- Technology --- p.50
Chapter 3.3.2 --- Motion Analysis Sensor Board --- p.51
Chapter 3.4 --- Discussions --- p.52
Chapter Chapter 4 --- Applications in Medical Care --- p.54
Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.54
Chapter 4.2 --- Wearable Wireless Body Area Network --- p.56
Chapter 4.2.1 --- Architecture --- p.58
Chapter 4.2.2 --- Deployment Scenarios --- p.62
Chapter 4.3 --- Application in Ambulatory Setting --- p.63
Chapter 4.3.1 --- Method --- p.64
Chapter 4.3.2 --- The Software Architecture --- p.66
Chapter Chapter 5 --- Conclusions and Future Work --- p.69
References --- p.72
Appendix --- p.78

1. An explicit mathematical description of PEP in terms of DBP was proposed, which in the first time quantitatively clarified the ventricular and arterial effects on PEP timing.
2. A nonlinear pressure-volume relationship which reflected the natural arterial wall properties was introduced into the asymmetric T-tube arterial model, which effectively and quantitatively described the effect of pulsatile BP on arterial parameters, e.g., compliance, PTT etc.
3. A mathematical relationship between PAT and BP was firstly proposed as a result of the heart-arterial interaction, which simulated a significantly strong and negative relationship between PAT and SBP and between PAT and MBP but a much weaker negative relationship between PAT and DBP during exercise. The hypothesis was supported by the experiment data. To our knowledge, it is the first study describing the quantitative relation of PAT and BP by both model-based study and experimental data.
4. A novel wearable measurable CO parameter, PTRR, was proposed and it successfully showed a significantly high and positive correlation with CO during exercise both in model simulation and in the experiments.
5. Linear prediction models using PAT to estimate MBP and using PTRR to estimate CO were proposed and evaluated in two exercise experiments conducted on 84 subjects with different ages and cardiovascular diseases. Results showed the proposed method could achieve the accuracy required for medical diagnosis.
6. Taken the findings in 3, 4 and 5 together, this study in the first time provided both the theoretical basis and experimental verifications of developing a wearable and direct measurement technique of CPO in dynamic exercise using multiple physiological signals measured on body surface.
Cardiac power output (CPO) is defmed as the product of mean arterial blood pressure (MBP) and cardiac output (CO), and CPO measured during peak dynamic exercise (i.e. peak CPO) has been shown as a powerful predictor of death for heart failure patients. However, so far there has been no existing device which directly measures CPO, and CPO is acquired from simultaneous measurement of MBP and CO. Further, simultaneous MBP and CO measurement during dynamic exercise is a challenge for current BP and CO methods. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new devices which are fully wearable and unobtrusive for monitoring of CPO during dynamic exercise. Since the core problem in most wearable devices is how to estimate the target cardiovascular parameter, e.g. CPO in this study, through physiological signals measured from body surface, this thesis focus on developing a direct measurement technique of CPO in dynamic exercise using multiple physiological signals measured on body surface, specifically, electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplehtysmogram (PPG).
Finally, based on the theoretical and experimental verifications, linear prediction models were proposed to estimate MBP from PAT and estimate CO from PTRR. The results showed that PAT can estimate MBP with a standard deviation of 7.42 mmHg, indicating PAT model has the potential to achieve the accuracy required by AMMI standard (mean error within +/- 5 mmHg and SD less than 8 mmHg). The results also showed that PTRR can estimate CO with a percent error of 22.57%, showing an accuracy which was considered as clinically acceptable (percent error less than 30%).
Heart failure is the end stage of many cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, etc. Around 5.8 million people in the United States have heart failure and about 670,000 people are diagnosed with it each year. In 2010, heart failure will cost the United States $30.2 billion, and the cost of healthcare services is a major component of this total. With the resultant burden on health care resources it is imperative that heart failure patients with different risk stages are identified, ideally with objective indicators of cardiac dysfunction, in order that appropriate and effective treatment can be instituted.
In order to verify the theoretical findings, two experiments were carried out. One was incremental supine bicycle exercise conducted on 19 young healthy subjects and the other was incremental to maximum supine bicycle exercise conducted on 65 subjects, including heart failure patients, cardiovascular patients and healthy elderly. PAT showed significantly high and negative correlation with SBP and MBP, but lower correlation with DBP. PTRR showed significantly high and positive correlation with CO.
In this thesis, a model based study is conducted to address the above problem. Firstly, we deduced the mathematical expression of PEP as a function of DBP by introducing the arbitrary heart rate into the exponential mathematical description of a pressure-source model. Secondly, an asymmetric T-tube model was modified by introducing a nonlinear pressure-volume relationship where PTT was expressed as a dependent variant of BP. Thirdly, we proposed the mathematical equation between PAT and BP by coupling the modified ventricular and arterial models. Then, the relationships between PAT with systolic blood pressure (SBP), MBP and DBP were simulated under changing heart contractility, preload, heart rate, peripheral resistance, arterial stiffness and a mimic exercise condition. The simulation results indicated significantly high and negative correlations between PAT and SBP and between PAT and MBP whereas the correlation between DBP and PAT was low.
Next, we developed a novel CO index, namely pulse time reflection ratio (PTRR), expressed in terms of MBP and mean aortic reflection coefficient (Gamma(0)), from the modified asymmetric T-tube model. PTRR was further expressed in terms of PAT and inflection point area (IPA), a surrogate of Gamma(0) from the shape feature of PPG. The simulation results suggested significantly and positive relationship between PTRR and CO and between IPA and Gamma(0) during dynamic exercise.
Recently, a wearable measurable parameter, pulse arrival time or PAT, has been developed for BP measurement. PAT is the time delay from the R peak of ECG to the systolic foot of PPG. PAT consists of two timing components, the pre-ejection period (PEP) of the heart and pulse transit time (PTT). PTT is related to BP by an arterial elastic model and thus can be used to estimate beat-to-beat BP. However, PTT is difficult to be measured through a wearable device, and thus PAT is usually used as a surrogate of PTT for BP estimation, under the assumption of a constant PEP. However, PEP is not a constant but changing with physiological conditions, which may alter the PAT-BP relationship. Thus, it is important to clarify the PAT-BP relationship and address the feasibility of MBP estimation using PAT during dynamic exercise.
To summarize, the original contributions of this thesis are:
Wang, Ling.
Adviser: Y.T. Zhang.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-03, Section: B, page: .
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references.
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstract also in Chinese.