Monitoring+patients

Evgeny Rezunenko 11D Information Technology is used in the medicine for years now. One of the implications is monitoring patients using the IT systemsBefore hand it used to be a difficult and extremely time consuming task, but with the development of the IT systems, it has almost become autonomous. Monitoring of the patients is of a great importance in such aspects as intensive care, operations, and recovery. Basic patient monitoring involves the tracking of vital stats such as blood pressure, heart rate, oxygenation. Nowadays more complex patient monitoring involves brain waves and sleeping patterns, blood-chemical and oxygen levels, and some more complicated things, which make sense only to doctors. The idea is that the device would send alarm signal to a nurse or a doctor if the patient's vitals have gone into a dangerous range. This way the medical personal does not have to stay near patient all the time. Also when the patient is critical, it enables to monitor even slight changes in the condition, which, if spotted in time, might save one's life.
 * Monitoring Patients **

=**Mobile Patient Monitoring**= On a diagram below one can see how the IT systems are used in different networks of hospital, home and the body itself. So these systems are used for monitoring mobile patients, so they do not necessarily have to stay at home or at the hospital to have specialist watching their current condition.

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So in what cases is the mobile patient monitoring used?
As an example could serve the scenario of a home care patient after hospitalization for cardiac infarction. After the operation, the patient still needs to be in constant contact with an expert physician so that their cardiac activity (e.g. the heart rate and peripheral blood pressure), body temperature and breathing frequency can be continuously monitored.

"However, the health condition of a patient can only be partially evaluated through his vital signals and must be mediated and integrated by other signals and information coming both from personal characteristics (risk factors, degree of disease, age, sex, family history, psychological features, etc.) and from the environmental context (eg whether in bed or mobile, by him/herself or in company, at work or at home, the season and the temperature, etc.). The monitoring system should be able to provide a feedback to the patient as well as notifying his status to somebody else, such as a relative, the family doctor, or the hospital, depending on the degree of alert detected, and possibly adapting the level of service (ie the intensity of the monitoring activity)."

=Patient Monitoring Equipment=

One of the examples of usual patient monitoring equipment can be the product by the NewTech company. This system provides ECG, Pulse Oximetry, NIBP, SpO2, Respiration, IBP, etCO2, multi-gas, cardiac output, and printing of the current patient condition.

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Some of NewTech patient monitors can be mounted easily on a wall or medical cart, while some are portable for inhouse transportation. They are designed for hospital, transport and home use, for neonate, pediatric and adult patient applications. They are compact, light-weight and very easy to use.======

=Body Check Exhibition=

Nobody wants to give up their independence or mobility even in old age or if disease strikes. The advent of the still youthful discipline of telemedicine could make life a lot easier for the elderly or infirm. This term refers to the remote monitoring of various vital functions of a patient. Patient data and values are recorded by means of electrodes and forwarded via mini-computer directly to the doctor, who can take action in cases of emergency. The doctor can be supplied with online data on the state of health of particular patients at any time, while the latter can continue to lead a relatively normal life. Telemedicine is already used to some extent today for patients suffering from coronary heart disease, cardiac arrhythmia, high blood pressure or asthma.

Technical progress has resulted in a considerably enhanced prognosis in acute and intensive care medicine. Monitoring units are situated at every bed. Many patients are also attached to a respirator, while infusion and syringe pumps are used for the continuous administration of drugs. Additional methods of monitoring, treatment and diagnosis are also applied. Central and local workstations, networking structures and appropriate combinations of hardware and software allows network-bound and wireless operation. The high-tech environment with its monitoring and measuring systems makes it easier for both medical and nursing staff to do their jobs and enhances patient safety. =Advantages and Disadvantages of Patient Monitoring Systems= = Advantages =


 * Cheaper than using personnel
 * Quick and reliable
 * Can be used in hospitals or homes
 * Easy to learn how to use
 * Accurate and fairly precise

Disadvantages

 * Dependant on a form of electricity and electrical hardware
 * Some training needed
 * Certain things for patients can only be monitored by humans, such as skin color or swelling in a patient's body
 * Initial costs may be expensive

=Bibliograohy=  http://www.hospital-technology.com/contractors/PRODUCTS/patientmonit.htmlhttp://www.ruthtrumpold.id.au/itgswiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.MonitoringPatientshttp://smiths-medical.com/products/patient-monitoring/http://www.newtech-medical.com/patient_monitor/http://www.ercim.eu/publication/Ercim_News/enw60/amato.html