Philips to showcase the Silent Patient Room at HIMSS24
Hospitals become more humane environments as room alarms and beeps are replaced by interoperable apps carried by nurses.
Christoph Pedain is business leader of Hospital Patient Monitoring at Philips.
Photo: Courtesy Philips
Philips is partnering with high tech manufacturers for a Silent Patient Room, especially in the ICU, and will demonstrate the new technology at HIMSS24.
For an ICU to be silent, there has to be interoperable device integration, and that's not an easy thing to figure out, according to Christoph Pedain, business leader of Hospital Patient Monitoring at Philips.
Philips' Service-Oriented Device Connectivity (SDC) allows clinicians to see and act upon data derived from integrated acute care technologies – such as patient monitors, sensors, ventilators and infusion pumps – regardless of the manufacturer.
Hospitals can acquire an SDC-enabled monitor from Philips and the hospital equipment, such as an infusion pump or ventilator or any other medical device, from another company. This combination of various vendors is new, Pedain said.
"What we're showing at HIMSS, it's among the first times this can be demonstrated across vendors," Pedain said.
How the ICU system currently works is for an alarm to go off in a room when a clinician is needed to check on the status of the equipment or the patient. The alarm could be for an infusion pump that needs a refill. It's a vital indicator, but for the patient trying to recover, it's another irritating sound that's anything but healing.
But the alarms are there for a reason, Pedain said. Something has to happen.
"For whom should it beep and where?" he said. "Not for the patient in the room. Patients can do the least."
The best place for a beep is on a cell phone app that's with the nurses, he said. The Silent Patient Room can be a mobile phone app that has interoperable communications. With it, nurses spend less time running around as these urgent alarms become more manageable. The hospital environment becomes more human, he said.
Some hospitals are starting to experiment with the Silent Patient Room. Implementation requires a change in clinical procedure, Pedain said. It also has to happen with patient safety in mind. A ping unanswered by one clinician must be sent to the next and acknowledged.
"This allows for a silent ICU," Pedain said. "It allows for the removal of alarms at the patient's bedside."
Philips will offer a glimpse of SDC enablement in the Silent Patient Room at the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase from Tuesday, March 12 through Thursday, March 14. Demonstrations will take place every 90 minutes during show hours. Pedain is scheduled to lead a special presentation of Philips' open ecosystem strategy on March 13 at 11:15 a.m., at Philips Booth 2041. Learn more and register.
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org
