Staff writer
Mick Coster described Hillsboro Community Hospital’s new cardiac monitoring system as “Jetson’s technology.”
Coster, an ICU nurse in Denver, presented the hospital’s new Mindray monitoring system to nurses at Hillsboro Hospital Monday.
The system allows nurses to view information gathered by monitors and telemetery packs at a central station. Hospital personnel can view up to eight patients’ information from different points in the hospital. The central computer records numeric trends and can save 24 hours worth of heart beat information.
“It gives you real time analysis of cardiac anomalies,” Chief Nursing Officer Johna Magnuson said.
Monitors and central computer use a touch screen.
“With a touch screen (nurses) will be able to adapt to it very easily,” Magnuson said. “For the nurses, it gets simpler (to use).”
The system is complete with eight, wheeled bedside monitors that connect to patients to show their vitals. The monitors record heart rhythm using a 12-lead EKG. They record pulse and pulse oximetry using a clip that is placed on a patient’s finger. The machine can take blood pressure at the press of a button and can be set up to measure blood pressure periodically.
The hospital also purchased four handheld telemetery packs that can read a patients’ heart rate while they are walking. The telemetery packs are powered by double A batteries and come with accessories to monitor pulse and pulse oximetry.
If the technology were to malfunction, Mindray can send a repairperson from Wichita to fix the problem.
The Mindray cardiac monitoring system replaces an eight-year-old system.
“They used to say that you should replace systems every seven years. Now they say every five years,” Coster said. “New stuff is coming out all the time.”