MULTI-PARAMETER MONITORS: INNOVATION FOR YOUR CLINICAL CENTER

15 May 2023

Multi-parameter monitors are considered one of the most helpful healthcare tools in today’s health centers. They represent a technological breakthrough allowing to offer enhanced and custom attention to patients.

Televes Corporation has kept an ongoing investment in technology of different professional areas, even though 4.0 Industry has taken major priority. Still, over the last few years, the healthcare industry and Carelife services have become more relevant, just like its corresponding technological innovation.

The strong aging of the population in the past decades, along with the needs generated by the pandemic, have revealed that healthcare devices need updating and adapting in order to find new solutions improving the patients’ care services and to automate specific tasks.

As of today, technology applied to the healthcare area contributes to perform enhanced patient follow up – even without the need of in-person care. Thanks to telecare services, users can have more independence and privacy.

Here, multi-parameter monitors play an active role as a healthcare tool, because they help health professionals better manage their time when seeing their patients.

Thanks to this technology, key information about each person can be collected. Patient care can be also customized as much as possible, as well as the type of follow up each patient requires to improve their health.

As a matter of fact, technological innovation offers a number of advantages in the healthcare field.

This kind of technology brings savings not only in terms of money, but also in terms of medical-attention time, as all the relevant patient information can be obtained from just one device.

Your patients will, therefore, benefit from more efficient and accurate healthcare services. Apart from that, healthcare professionals will be able to take care of more people while maintaining the same quality.

In addition, among all the advances made in this sector in recent years, remote healthcare has become one of the sectors that has gained the greatest momentum, which is why multi-parameter monitors have also found a favorable environment for its expansion.

What is a multi-parameter monitor?

Multi-parameter monitors are electronic medical equipment allowing to monitor the patients’ vital signs. With this high-precision solution, all kinds of physiologic parameters can be obtained and monitored in an automated way.

Multi-parameter monitors are mainly used in professional environments – hospitals, intensive-care units, etc. – even though some models can be installed at the patient’s house or at elderly homes.

They are based on standards of vital-sign monitoring and can be fully integrated onto healthcare information systems. This information is then recorded and assessed to eventually be adapted to the patient’s needs.

Besides, it is designed to be fully compatible with other solutions intended for measuring physiological parameters – including those by different manufacturers.

Televes Corporation completes its clinical solutions for biomedical monitoring based on different services and developments – among them, the multi-parameter monitor.

Below, you will find some of these:

  • Cooling control: remote monitoring solution focusing on temperature and other risk factors. This is specially designed to control critical elements such as medication, vaccines or blood banks, to name a few.
  • Follow up of chronically-ill patients: remote monitoring system of physiological parameters so the patient’s health and well being can be analyzed independently at their own home.
  • Carelife social and health integration: comprehensive overview of the user allowing to take care of their health, and also to avoid risky situations such as a fall or a domestic incident.

Multi-parameter monitor for healthcare centers: vital signs that can be monitored

Multi-parameter monitors attract attention as a technological development for monitoring patients because they can identify and follow up a wide range of parameters.

The screen will display vital signs and other variables that can be easily measured.

The most important parameters to be monitored by a multi-parameter monitor are as follows:

  • Coagulation: the patient’s coagulation levels are monitored with a coagulometer.
  • Electrocardiogram: this records and amplifies the heart’s electric pulses.
  • Glucose: it identifies the concentration of blood glucose with a glucometer.
  • Weight: by means of an intelligent scale, the multi-parameter monitor can also calculate body weight.
  • Intracranial pressure: an intracranial catheter is used to measure cranial pressure.
  • Invasive pressure: the patient’s blood pressure is analyzed, although a sensitive catheter needs to be inserted into the patient’s arteries.
  • Non-invasive pressure: an electronic sphygmomanometer can measure non-invasive blood pressure.
  • Respiration:  controls the patient’s respiratory rate based on their thoracic impedance.
  • Oxygen saturation: a pulse oximeter emits light with two different wave densities to determine the patient’s blood oxygen level.
  • Venous oxygen saturation: a catheter is inserted into the superior vena cava to obtain greater precision in determining your blood oxygen level.
  • Temperature: the patient’s temperature is checked at all times.

By analyzing these parameters, you can monitor and custom the control of the vital signs of almost any patient, with the advantages that this entails in terms of preventive health, which allows for immediate action when any altered or non-standard value is recorded.

Types of multi-parameter monitors for healthcare centers

Today, you can find different types of multi-parameter monitors – the most common difference is that they can be fixed or portable:

Fixed multi-parameter monitors

This system is normally installed at the bed headboard – attached to the wall –, although you can find some models that are connected to an anesthesia machine.

Likewise, there are three different types of fixed multi-parameter monitors:

  • Anesthesia multi-parameter monitors: their software will allow you to monitor vital signs that may be affected by circulation and oxygen levels.
  • Adult/pediatric multi-parameter monitors: these are designed for both adults and children. The difference lies in the size of their sensors, cuffs and electrodes, as they should fit every patient.
  • Neonatal multi-parameter monitors: they are designed to monitor neonates vital signs, and are especially designed to detect arrhythmia due to high heart rates.

Portable multi-parameter monitors

These systems are not attached to any support, so they can be moved from one place to another. The patient can be monitored at all times during such shifts.

The two most common types of portable multi-parameter monitors are:

  • Intrahospital multi-parameter monitors: used when a patient needs to be transferred from one area to another of the same hospital or healthcare center.
  • Interhospital multi-parameter monitors: used when a patient needs to be transferred from one hospital to another and they need to be monitored during the transfer by ambulance.

Apart from these multi-parameter monitors, there are different developments resulting from this technology that offer a great deal of services – Carelife by Televes, to name one example. This particular solution consists of a remote-monitoring intelligent system based on sensors that are installed around the user’s environment. Alarms are automatically triggered when abnormal situations are detected.

Televes Corporation is giving priority to services designed for constant monitoring of patients. By means of higher investment, their goal is to find different kinds of solutions specially designed for hospital centers, households or elderly homes – such as the ISECO project for the digitization of this type of facilities.

How do multi-parameter monitors work?

State-of-the-art multi-parameter monitors allow for thorough autonomous follow-ups of patients. They will automatically and wirelessly gather vital signs, for the patient’s and the professional’s convenience.

They stand out for their great flexibility to measure a wide range of physiological parameters such as temperature, breathing rate, oxygen saturation levels, blood pressure, glucose level, coagulation, etc.

Information is displayed on a versatile screen for the professional’s convenience, making it a comprehensive mobile care center.

In other words: with one single device – by means of a comfortable and minimally invasive method – all relevant medical information can be obtained in order to check a patient’s condition and to study their evolution.

Multi-parameter monitors are systems that can be applied to any kind of patient, even though they’re the right fit for people in recovery or suffering from chronic conditions that require frequent care to improve their quality of life.

 

Multi-parameter monitors: advantages for your healthcare center

Multi-parameter monitors are a very useful and cost-effective investment for healthcare centers, as well as a key tool for both centers offering telecare services and elderly homes where early diagnosis can speed up medical assistance or transfer to hospital.

The wide range of multi-parameter monitors – fixed and portable, interhospital and intrahospital – allows health centers to monitor their patients at all times, even during hospital transfers.

As for home care, they bring a number of advantages to health professionals, as they can turn to a comprehensive, easy-to-use medical tool which is very useful for follow-ups and emergencies.

The wide range of monitoring options is also a clear benefit for the possible adaptation of this solution for a large majority of patients. Advanced multi-parameter monitors are used to follow up every patient and submit that information to clinical records managed by physicians and nurses, so they can perform a comprehensive follow-up from just one device.

Multi-parameter monitors trigger signals and alarms when some of the parameters are a bit higher or lower than average, which can help coordinate an immediate intervention or be ahead of health crisis and failures.

Given that early diagnosis can be made, patients receive a much better care than without these solutions. It is also a more simple and efficient tool as compared to other methods.

What’s the best multi-parameter monitor for a healthcare center?

The large variety of multi-parameter monitors available makes it easier to choose the right fit based on the needs of the hospital or elderly home, even if this requires knowing which models are more suitable in each case.

Custom professional guidance is highly recommended. An expert can analyze the specific needs to be met to help you choose the correct multi-parameter monitor or different models that may offer the best service.

Ana Bermúdez

Project Manager, Strategic Programs Department

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