by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | December 17, 2015
From the December 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“There is a cost associated with the staffing that is involved in the care supporting that patient, because the three staff that you are using for that hour to transport that patient could have been doing other things,” says Nguyen. “If something were to happen to that patient as they were being moved and their safety is compromised, there is a cost there, too.”
Treating with light
When caring for patients in the ICU, lighting may not be the first thing to come to mind, but research has shown that it plays an important role. Philips Healthcare’s HealWell health care lighting incorporates light into the treatment of critical care patients. “When you look in ICUs, the lighting is horrible. You have these really industrial lights and it’s more like a machine room than a hospital atmosphere,” says Carla Kriwet, CEO of patient care and monitoring solutions for Philips. “We are working on lighting, which is not just more comfortable, but also part of the treatment process.”
Lighting plays an important role if patients need to be calmed down due to fear or delirium, or if they need to be activated. The HealWell lighting system is automatically controlled based on algorithms that are linked to the patients’ monitors. The German Heart Institute in Berlin is currently piloting HealWell in its ICU. It’s helping to support natural sleep rhythms by mimicking the natural light patterns outside, and it also helps relieve stress.
HealWell is not yet available in the U.S., but many facilities in other parts of the world have it installed. The Altona Children’s Hospital, Asklepios Clinic and Berhmannsheil Buer Clinic, all of which are in Germany, and University Medical Center in the Netherlands are a few of those facilities. Now more than ever, hospitals are searching for solutions that help them achieve better outcomes and lower costs. Since one solution is not going to do the trick, the ICU has to be redesigned with that goal in mind. Ventilators that provide exact measurements, smaller CTs that can fit inside a closet and lighting that contributes to the healing process are all pieces of the puzzle.
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