by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | May 26, 2015
From the May 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The device also has a mode of ventilation called Spontaneous Breathing Trial, designed to help caregivers assess when patients are ready to come off mechanical ventilation and breathe on their own, to avoid the complications and costs that come with prolonged ventilation.
The CARESCAPE R860 also has a touchscreen user interface designed to simplify the navigation process using technology that’s similar to what users are familiar with seeing in phones and tablets. The company has also developed features that may help reduce ventilator induced lung injury through the ability to measure functional residual capacity. “We’re trying to help people better understand the impact of the settings on the patient,” Hunsicker says. “When we think of patients in ICU, all these tools help mitigate or at least allow clinicians a way to reduce these issues and provide appropriate care.”
Dr. William Dinan, director of pulmonary medicine and medical director of respiratory therapy at the Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital in Upper Manhattan that specializes in patients who have trouble coming off of ventilators, says one manufacturer’s weaning mode has never been proven superior to another. Even these days, Dinan says, the respiratory therapist’s and the doctor’s knowledge of weaning, and knowing what caused the respiratory failure to begin with, have the biggest impact.
“When you add the bells and whistles of the high-tech stuff, the software, it doesn’t end up making a difference with respect to one high-end ventilator to the next one,” Dinan says.
‘All the difference in the world’
While ventilators have become more sensitive and more accurate, some are better than others for specific patients and clinical situations, says Robert DiBlasi, a respiratory therapist and neonatal pediatric specialist at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
“What little difference there is, is all the difference in the world, and you need to take performance into consideration for all patients that you treat,” DiBlasi says. For example, they vary in detecting leaks and some are more sensitive to trigger, or the way a patient initiates a breath. New data is guiding the decision to ventilate with volume and to choose a ventilator that’s highly accurate in choosing these volumes, DiBlasi says.
The team at Seattle Children’s Research Institute evaluates performance in the laboratory and has provided ventilator manufacturers with input on how they can potentially improve their products. “Overall, clinicians should never assume one mechanical ventilator is better than the other,” DiBlasi says. “Our research has shown that there are disparities in performance and safety. Although most of these ventilators undergo similar testing for 510(k) clearance, they don’t take into account all patient populations that could be potentially supported by this.”
