Health devices
-
The American Heart Association's (AHA) newest Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care include sub stantial changes, and hospitals will need to modify processes and equipment to implement them. This article clarifies the new guidelines and describes the rationale behind each change. Also, it describes the steps that leading defibrillator suppliers are taking to make their products comply. In some cases, these product changes will require hospitals to install software-based upgrades or modify product configurations.
-
Injuries from needles or other sharps are a danger to patients and clinicians alike, particularly due to the risk of bloodborne pathogen transmission. One way to reduce the likelihood of such injuries is to implement protective devices as substitutes for more dangerous conventional products. ⋯ In this issue, we evaluate four new types of protective alternatives: disposable prep razors, epidural needles, ophthalmic knives, and stitch cutters. Our Evaluation discusses whether these sharps safety devices deliver the added safety that they are designed to provide and whether they are effective at performing their intended clinical purposes.
-
Physiologic monitoring systems monitor vital physiologic parameters so that clinicians can be informed of changes in a patient's condition. For this study, we evaluated systems from six monitoring suppliers--Dräger Medical, GE Healthcare, Nihon Kohden, Philips Medical Systems, Spacelabs Medical, and Welch Allyn. The intent of this study is to help facilities choose not just the most appropriate system, but also the most appropriate version of that system--the combination of components that will best suit the facility's needs. ⋯ The systems performed well against the majority of our criteria. Nevertheless, we found notable differences in specific features and performance areas. These differences will have varying levels of significance for different hospitals.