Concerns over correct lead placement in patients may now subside for nurses and clinicians, following the debut of Nihon Kohden’s Dimensions Augmented Reality (AR) app this month at the 2018 HIMSS trade show.

The solution, introduced as a complement to the Clinical Excellence Service offerings of Nihon Kohden University, enables medical professionals to visualize and hone their ability to place leads in the correct areas of the body, building greater confidence in the information retrieved from monitors.

“Lead placement is crucial to ensure quality monitoring,” Kenric Thompson, director of clinical applications and education at Nihon Kohden America Inc., told HCB News. “As nurses, sometimes we forget the importance of proper lead placement and skin prep, or we may just be new to telemetry monitoring. We utilize several resources to properly train nurses, including e-modules and hands-on learning, and as we know, adult learners learn in different ways. We at Nihon Kohden decided to do something different. We wanted the clinicians to understand the importance of proper lead placement and the appropriate anatomical positions when monitoring patients.”

Improper lead placement can cause monitors to provide inaccurate or non-useable information. Created through collaboration with Tipping Point Media, the app utilizes computer-generated or extracted real-world sensory input such as sound, video, graphics, haptics or GPS data to augment direct or indirect views of physical, real-world environments.

By holding it in front of a one-dimensional lead placement poster of the human body, users can use the touch screen of iOS mobile devices to target and practice their lead placement, with the solution identifying when they are incorrect and providing feedback on how they can improve.

It also displays 3-D visualization of cardiac arrhythmias and the electrical activity and rate of heartbeats that occur during these cardiac events.

“We wanted to utilize the available AR/VR technology to take learning into a new dimension. That journey led us to our Platinum Award winning NK Dimensions app to use with our posters for Lead Placement and Typical Arrhythmia Waveforms. We've now made learning fun and interactive in a new three-dimensional way while reinforcing proper lead placement,” Thompson said.

The Japanese-based enterprise also unveiled at the Las Vegas event its NK-HiQ Wireless Patient Monitoring System and aireeg WEE-1200 wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) system.

Utilizing a suite of fully central station, bedside, transport and wearable patient monitors, NI-HiQ leverages Wi-Fi technology to continually monitor patients in hospital settings with its central station running on Microsoft's Windows 10 secure operating system.

Monitors capture and manage patient data from admission to discharge with wearable devices using a proprietary algorithm to detect falls and wandering.

The solution also supports diverse Wi-Fi requirements such as bandwidth-preserving deployment on a shared SSID; has a data backfill function and intelligent local monitoring mode switch to protect patients and data when Wi-Fi is down; adheres to 802.1X and WPA2 Enterprise with AES encryption and EAP authentication; and requires authorized access to the Nihon Kohden network as another form of data protection.

The aireeg WEE-1200 wireless EEG system offers patient comfort and simple access to real-time patient information during long-term monitoring for epilepsy, intensive care and routine EEG practices.

Using Wi-Fi technology to provide patients with greater mobility, the platform provides clinicians with quality data to quickly identify medical issues, as well as the ability to montage, filter and annotate information to speed up care delivery and improve workflow efficiencies.


Like NK-HiQ, it is equipped with back-fill capabilities for when Wi-Fi is disconnected. It also uses proprietary Smart Camera switching technology to auto-detect patient location, and switches cameras when a patient is transported between rooms.

“These smart, secure systems allow hospitals to leverage their existing Wi-Fi infrastructure investment to provide continuous patient monitoring in a safe way,” Thompson said.

The Dimensions AR app was recently awarded the 2018 Platinum award for mobile app at the AVA Digital Awards, and is now available for sale.

The NK-HiQ Wireless Patient Monitoring System is also commercialized now, while sales for aireeg are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2018.