TEL AVIV, 19 February 2018 – ART MEDICAL, the Israeli MedTech leader in the biotech space that detects and prevents life-threatening complications in Intensive Care Units (ICUs), is announcing its advanced algorithms for the company’s sensor-based smart tubes platform, which collects new, and untapped patient data to reduce the risks of medical complications. ART MEDICAL is the first to develop advanced algorithms that automate the placement of feeding tubes, and detection of gastric content aspiration to improve clinical outcomes.

Today when a patient enters the ICU, and receives feeding tubes, there is no effective method to indicate whether they are experiencing complications in real time. Nurses and doctors are required to constantly monitor patients in order to identify these events, and minimize their complications, however this activity is done manually, and can easily overlook time-sensitive events that can lead to complications, or even death. With patients having a high chance of getting pneumonia after just a few days in the ICU, typically caused by gastric reflux or secretion, ART MEDICAL’s algorithms embedded in its smART system, monitor gastric reflux, continuously and automatically to detect, and alert the attending nurse and physician of any abnormalities during tube procedures.

To reduce aspiration pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in ICUs, ART MEDICAL’s algorithm for aspiration signal analysis, transmits real-time information to detect gastric reflux and secretion, and determine any threat to the patient. This clinically tested algorithm is capable of evaluating the patient’s risk level, and probability for aspirating gastric content that may develop aspiration acquired pneumonia at any given time.

Additionally, ART MEDICAL’s algorithms also assure accurate placement of the feeding tube by continuously monitoring its 3D position in the GI tract, and indicating any abnormal movement. The standard method for identifying tube positioning complications, including placing the tube in the trachea instead of the stomach, is through X-ray imaging, which is undesirable due to radiation exposure and high costs. ART MEDICAL’s tube placement algorithm pinpoints tube positioning, and guides medical staff to correctly reposition the tube within the esophagus and stomach, continuing to do so even after initial placement is confirmed, throughout the the duration of enteral feeding within the patient’s stay. ART MEDICAL’s smARTrack device embedded with this technology received FDA clearance.

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