Patient monitoring has become centralised at the State-run Victoria Hospital’s Trauma and Emergency Care Centre (TECC) that has adopted remote patient monitoring solutions to continuously monitor 144 patients in all the general beds.
These patients, who were earlier monitored manually every couple of hours, are now monitored through contactless sensors powered by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based triaging system.
TECC special officer Deepak S. said this system enables continuous (more than 100 times per hour) and accurate monitoring of a patient’s heart rate, respiratory rate, and other clinical parameters like sleep pattern and myocardial performance metrics ,without coming in contact with the patient.
The hospital had first adopted the continuous monitoring system during the pandemic for timely treatment of high-risk patients in non-ICU beds. The sensors have been fixed free of cost by Dozee, a remote health monitoring startup. The company has also set up a 24x7 central monitoring cell at the hospital which enables healthcare staff to monitor multiple patients at a time.
Through its MillionICU initiative, that addresses the massive shortage of ICU beds and staff in public hospitals, the company has upgraded the 144 normal beds into step-down ICUs in TECC. “While all ICU beds are continuously monitored, patients occupying normal beds are monitored manually once in a couple of hours. Now these beds will also be monitored continuously through this remote monitoring system,” Dr. Deepak said.
“The constant stream of patient data aids the medical staff with early detection of patient deterioration and notifies the care team of any abnormalities before it becomes critical. Custom alerts can be set for every patient, helping doctors optimise treatment plans, focus on critical patients and provide improved proactive care,” said Dr. Deepak.
Victoria Hospital, affiliated to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI), is one of the oldest and largest Government hospitals in the State with a total bed capacity of over 1,000 beds. The hospital caters to patients from across the State. TECC is an extended 200-bed affiliated facility of BMCRI that caters to acute emergency care services like trauma, emergency general surgery and surgical critical care in the Victoria Hospital complex. During the pandemic, TECC was the first hospital in Karnataka to be converted into a dedicated COVID care facility.
TECC nodal officer Ramesh Revanna said the hospital that was a dedicated COVID-19 hospital till the end of last year now has a rush of patients seeking non-COVID services. “We have successfully treated over 12,000 patients during the first and second waves and this contactless monitoring system played a pivotal role during this phase. It is continuing to help us manage patients using its early warning system,” he said.
According to a statement from the company, the MillionICU initiative has already benefited 48 hospitals across 20 districts in India with more than 35,000 patients being monitored through the remote system. “In Karnataka, the company has also upgraded Krishna Rajendra (KR) Hospital in Mysuru, Charaka Hospital (affiliated to the Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College and Research Institute now known as Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College), Jayanagar General Hospital, Mysuru District Hospital, BRIMS Bidar, KIMS-Hubbali, SIMS- Shivamoga and plans to install 500 more devices in the coming months,” the statement said.
