IRVINE, Calif., June 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Masimo Corporation (NASDAQ: MASI) announced today that two of the industry’s top patient safety collaboratorsJames Welch, VP of Patient Safety Initiatives at Masimo, and George Blike, Medical Director of Patient Safety Training at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centerare the recipients of the AAMI Foundation’s Institute for Technology and Healthcare Clinical Application Award. Awarded each year to an individual or group who has applied innovative clinical engineering practices or principles to solve patient care problems through demonstrated clinical application and efficacy excellence, this is the first time in the association’s history that the award was shared between two cross-industry collaboratorsa medical technology innovator/developer (Masimo) and a patient care provider/hospital facility (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center).
Honored for their cross-industry collaboration in the implementation of Masimo Patient SafetyNet at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Welch (Masimo) and Blike (Darmouth-Hitchcock) combined their high-tech and human-touch expertise to install the remote monitoring and wireless clinician notification system based on Masimo SET® Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry monitoring that led to a “significant drop” in key clinical outcome measuresincluding 65% fewer rescue events, 48% fewer ICU transfers, and reduced annualized ICU time by 135 days. (1)
“James Welch (with Masimo) and George Blike (with Dartmouth-Hitchcock) exemplify the term effective collaboration,” stated Mary Logan, President of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. “What is particularly powerful about this duo is that they have modeled for all of us what can be accomplished when you have an effective collaboration between clinical engineering and front-line clinicians, between industry and patient safety experts, and between technology developers and a clinician who knows how to assess in a clinical setting the impact of a technology solution to a vexing safety problem. We can all be grateful for the power of what they have accomplished here.”
Designed to improve patient safety through continuous pulse oximetry monitoring, Patient SafetyNet keeps general care floor patients safer by continuously, noninvasively, and remotely monitoring multiple physiological parameters, including arterial oxygen saturation and pulse rate, and automatically alerting clinicians to changes that signal patient distress or deterioration via pager or phone. The system’s alarm escalation process is an important feature that notifies additional clinicians if a life-threatening alarm persistsensuring that alarms are escalated to other clinicians in the event the assigned primary clinician is busy or unresponsive. With the system in place, Dartmouth-Hitchcock clinicians receive a pager notification when a patient’s condition is worseningallowing them to intervene before the condition becomes critical and requires more acute levels of care. This is particularly important for post-surgical patients who are at increased risk of serious injury or death resulting from the respiratory depression effects of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and opioids used for sedation and pain management.
The AAMI Foundation Awards Committee performs rigorous reviews of candidates who have demonstrated outstanding service or accomplishment with a significant impact on a specific medical device or on medical instrumentation in general, a service that results in the development of an important new medical device, a distinctive contribution toward the improvement of the use or safety of a medical device, or critical contributions to the enhancement of patient care through medical instrumentation. Their recognition of the significant impact made by both Welch and Blike in the cross-industry collaboration to improve patient safety on the general care floor with Patient SafetyNet is proof-positive that the combination of high-tech medical technology expertise and high-touch clinical care expertise are a winning pair for patients.
The Foundation’s primary mission is to serve public welfare and improve patient safety by fostering support and recognition for the advancement of medical technology. It does this through recognition awards for excellence, scholarships, global outreach, and the Medical Device Safety Council. The Foundation’s Excellence Awards recognize individuals and groups for their superior work in medical instrumentation development, research, and applications that improve public health care safety, as well as humanitarian efforts that apply health technology to improve global human conditions.
(1) Taenzer, Andreas H.; Pyke, Joshua B.; McGrath, Susan P.; Blike, George T. “Impact of Pulse Oximetry Surveillance on Rescue Events and Intensive Care Unit Transfers: A Before-and-After Concurrence Study.” Anesthesiology, February 2010, Vol. 112, Issue 2.
Available online at: http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/Abstract/publishahead/Impact_of_Pulse_Oximetry_Surveillance_on_Rescue.99692.aspx
About Masimo
Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) is the global leader in innovative noninvasive monitoring technologies that significantly improve patient carehelping solve “unsolvable” problems. In 1995, the company debuted Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, known as Masimo SET®, which virtually eliminated false alarms and increased pulse oximetry’s ability to detect life-threatening events. More than 100 independent and objective studies demonstrate Masimo SET provides the most reliable SpO2 and pulse rate measurements even under the most challenging clinical conditions, including patient motion and low peripheral perfusion. In 2005, Masimo introduced rainbow SET® Pulse CO-Oximetry technology, allowing noninvasive and continuous monitoring of blood constituents that previously required invasive procedures, including total hemoglobin (SpHb®), oxygen content (SpOC), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO®), methemoglobin (SpMet®), and Pleth Variability Index (PVI®), in addition to SpO2, pulse rate, and perfusion index (PI). In 2008, Masimo introduced Patient SafetyNet, a remote monitoring and wireless clinician notification system designed to help hospitals avoid preventable deaths and injuries associated with failure to rescue events. In 2009, Masimo introduced rainbow Acoustic Monitoring, the first-ever noninvasive and continuous monitoring of acoustic respiration rate (RRa). Masimo’s rainbow SET technology platform offers a breakthrough in patient safety by helping clinicians detect life-threatening conditions and helping guide treatment options. In 2010, Masimo acquired SEDLine®, a pioneer in the development of innovative brain function monitoring technology and devices. Masimo SET and Masimo rainbow SET technologies can be also found in over 100 multiparameter patient monitors from over 50 medical device manufacturers around the world. Founded in 1989, Masimo has the mission of “Improving Patient Outcome and Reducing Cost of Care ... by Taking Noninvasive Monitoring to New Sites and Applications®.” Additional information about Masimo and its products may be found at www.masimo.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes forward-looking statements as defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in connection with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations about future events affecting us and are subject to risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in our forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors, including, but not limited to: risks related to our assumptions of the repeatability of clinical results obtained using Masimo rainbow SET measurements, risks related to our belief that rainbow measurements can help clinicians more rapidly assess patients to detect adverse conditions earlier, including the early signs of hemodynamic instability, potentially life-threatening conditions, and internal bleeding, as well as other factors discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of our most recent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which may be obtained for free at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today’s date. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these statements or the “Risk Factors” contained in our most recent reports filed with the SEC, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under the applicable securities laws.
Media Contacts:
Dana Banks
Phone: (949) 297-7348
Email: dbanks@masimo.com
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