Masimo Patient SafetyNet

At the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting we took a close look at the new monitoring system from Masimo called Patient SafetyNet. Designed to keep an eye on up to 40 patients, the wireless system is primarily based on the company’s highly successful SET pulse oximetry monitors. Once a patient’s oxygen saturation or heart rate goes out of acceptable clinical range, the system sends a message to one or more pagers to alert a nurse or resident. Right now the system is not yet equipped with EKG telemetry, but we were assured by company reps that Masimo is poised to introduce EKG monitoring for this system very soon.
Here’s what the company says about Patient SafetyNet in a press release:

Masimo Patient SafetyNet is an easy-to-use system that combines the “gold standard” performance of Masimo SET pulse oximetry with wireless clinician notification via pager to provide a new level of safety to patients on general care floors, where nurse-to-patient ratios preclude the level of direct surveillance required and recommended to preempt sentinel events. Numerous standards bodies, including the Joint Commission (JCAHO), the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement are calling for improved patient safety standards on general care floors.
Masimo Patient SafetyNet is specifically designed to keep at-risk patients safe on general care floors by connecting them to qualified caregivers quickly, easily, and accurately. When a Patient SafetyNet-monitored patient is in respiratory distress, meaningful and actionable alarms are generated by the Masimo bedside monitor and sent wirelessly to designated clinicians for review and response. As a result, appropriate clinical intervention can be initiated quickly, preempting sentinel events-defined by the Joint Commission as “an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical injury not related to the natural course of the patient’s illness.”
The Masimo Patient SafetyNet system instantly routes bedside-generated alarms through a server to a qualified clinician’s hand-held paging device in real-time. For added safety, the system allows for automatic escalation of the alarm to additional clinicians when necessary. Each Masimo Patient SafetyNet system can support up to 40 bedside monitors and can either be integrated into a hospital’s existing IT infrastructure or operate as a stand-alone wireless network.

Press release: Masimo Launches Patient SafetyNet and Showcases the Rainbow SET Upgradable Noninvasive Monitoring Platform at 2007 ASA Annual Meeting …