Aiming to bring "Better Living in Intensive Care" for both patients and caregivers, the French Intensive Care Society issued guidelines to promote quality of life for ICU.
As the largest premier reference and teaching hospital in France, CHU de Toulouse experimented with some of the most pioneering approaches to improve life in ICU. These include inviting musicians to play classical music in the care area every week to ease patients in and reduce caregiver burnout.
When asked about the one thing that improves life quality the most, caregivers at CHU de Toulouse told us: the use of modern monitoring technology. Watch their story:
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Toulouse is France's largest premier reference hospital with 14 medical centers and 2,880 beds. Being a national top ranking medical institution for 15 consecutive years, CHU de Toulouse maintains the highest clinical standards forthe 230,000 inpatients and 660,000 consultations it receives every year.
How is modern patient monitoring technology helping CHU de Toulouse improve quality of life for patients and caregivers in ICU?
Safety ensured by powerful monitoring capacity
The critical conditions of ICU patients call for a powerful monitoring system that can give clinicians the information they need to look after patients with confidence and efficiency.
"Our main challenges in providing the best treatment are having a monitoring system that’s adapted and dedicated to ICU patients." said Dr. Beatrice Riu, consultant of ICU at CHU de Toulouse.
Dr. Beatrice Riu
consultant of ICU
CHU de Toulouse, France
Dr. Riu acknowledged Mindray BeneVision Patient Monitoring System's capacity in addressing her concerns. "For example polytrauma patients and patients with brain conditions need to be monitored with intracranial pressure sensors and electro-encephalograms. We also do hemodynamic monitoring, thermo-dilution monitoring with PiCCO. These are all found in the BeneVision System."
Life improvement with BeneVision Solution
Stress in ICU not only comes from medical conditions, but very often from the unnecessary tension of both patients and caregivers. To ease patients in and reduce caregiver burnout, CHU de Toulouse carries out a series of practices to improve life quality in ICU.
Among these the BeneVision Central Monitoring System makes the most remarkable change. Outside the intensive care rooms, there are two rows of BeneVision WorkStations that are connected to the patient monitoring system where caregivers can do their routine work without having to go back and forth into the patients' room or Central Station.
Dr. Beatrice Riu
consultant of ICU
CHU de Toulouse, France
Senior engineer M. Thomas Willemyns from the biomedical division agrees with Dr. Riu.
M. Thomas Willemyns
Senior Biomedical Engineer
CHU de Toulouse, France
Another approach of innovations linked to the BeneVision solution and dedicated to the structure of ICU is the use of SmartPager, a medically certified distributed alarm system, with which caregivers are able to receive alarms from his/her patients anywhere so that abnormal situations can be handled in time and ensure patients’ safety.
Streamlined workflow and ease of use
Caregivers need more time to focus on their patients, and hence streamlined workflow that minimize unnecessary time spending. Ease of use is one important aspect.
Mme. Carole Haubertin
Chief Nurse of ICU
CHU de Toulouse, France
Another critical component of the workflow is data transfer. "BeneVision monitoring system has a connection with our professional software. We don’t have paper files anymore we do everything electronically and so we really need a reliable and effective interface." said Dr. Riu.
Engineer M. Thomas Willenmyns added that "the Mindray monitoring system uses a private network which communicates with the hospital network through gateways. This allows us to receive various updates and conforms to the hospital’s IT security policy."
Envision more
As a holistic and professional clinical solution provider, Mindray envisions more with a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable perspective, and is dedicated to developing the most suitable solutions and services tailored to caregivers' specific needs. Today, Mindray solutions can be found in healthcare facilities in over 190 countries and regions, including some of the most prestigious teaching hospitals like CHU de Toulouse. The pursuit for customer satisfaction never ceases.