by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | May 18, 2015
From the May 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
In with the new and out with the old?
Even with all of the wearables coming to the market, there’s still a need right now for the traditional monitors. Critically ill patients in the ICU require the comprehensive and thorough monitoring only they can provide.
“Heavy duty equipment like that can monitor to a level of accuracy that something held in your hand or placed around your neck or stuck in your watch can’t quite get to at this point in time,” says Slovenski. However, in the next five to 10 years, that could change if the technology improves. “Technology only gets better, faster, cheaper and more accurate over time,” says Slovenski.
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Almost all of the experts DOTmed spoke with agree that wearables will replace Holter monitors in the near future. In fact, Steinhubl believes that Holter monitors should be replaced right now. He conducted a study at Scripps almost a year ago that compared a wearable patch and a Holter monitor and found that the patch was much more convenient — it diagnosed 60 percent of clinically significant dysrhythmias and had a lower overall cost.
In general wards, nurses will usually make rounds every six to eight hours to measure patients’ vital signs, but Steinhubl believes that hospitals would benefit from continuous monitoring. “When someone is in the hospital it seems almost ludicrous that you’re not monitoring them 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he says.
When it comes to hospitals’ goals, nothing is more basic than saving lives and they can achieve that with these wearables that track vitals continuously. As the health care industry moves into an increasingly value-based landscape, saving lives also yields many financial benefits for hospitals.
“It’s only a matter of time that any monitoring equipment in the hospital and anywhere else will eventually be replaced by something much smaller, just as accurate and much less expensive, that the person can have on them anywhere they are,” says Slovenski.
But when that happens is anyone’s guess. “It could be next year — someone could have a major breakthrough — or it could be in 20 years but it’s coming and it will happen for sure,” says Slovenski.
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