Significant Clinical Need Exists to Reduce Patient Mortality in the ICU

Over 4 million patients annually will be treated in an ICU in the North America. These patients have the greatest risk of death and incur the greatest costs of all hospitalized patients. Approximately 12% of patients entering the ICU will die; a figure that has not materially decreased despite significant advances in many areas of critical care medicine. A study prepared by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine calculates that 170,000 patient deaths annually in the ICU are avoidable. Related peer-reviewed studies in the critical care literature all highlight a common theme — that earlier detection of significant clinical deterioration (e.g. due to infection) enabling prompt treatment significantly reduces patient mortality.

Vital standard-of-care monitoring in the ICU provides round-the-clock patient status information to ICU staff. However, the reality is that monitors detect changes to vital signs as they occur, rather than detecting underlying changes before they are established. By definition, current patient monitoring is descriptive rather than predictive. As a result, using current standard of care vital sign monitors, the ability to determine who is sick, who is not, who is getting better and who is getting worse, is imprecise and fraught with uncertainty. It is not uncommon that patient deterioration is recognized late, after a patient is profoundly critically ill, a costly and life-threatening event. On the other end of the spectrum, because current current monitoring cannot reliably or objectively verify when patients are truly better, patients frequently remain in the ICU longer than is clinically necessary.

In too many instances the inability of health care practitioners to provide early detection of significant clinical deterioration and effective real-time prognosis of critical illness impairs both the quality and efficiency of care. A need exists for improved critical care decision support that enables more timely and accurate decisions when diagnosing and treating patients. Improved early diagnosis and real-time prognosis of critical illness offers the potential to significantly improve both the quality and efficiency of critical care.

Therapeutic Monitoring Systems is developing innovative clinical decision support software that integrates with vital sign monitoring equipment so as to provide ICU care providers with advance indication of changes in patient health.