Acuity Care Technology: Hemodynamic monitoring is obviously an essential tool in the care of critically ill patients, but has something been missing with the technology?
Dr. McGee: From a perspective of the ICU there is always something lacking because for most patients we are doing a kind of very rudimentary monitoring of just vital signs and blood pressure, saturation and the intermittent sampling of blood gas and some other blood tests.


Patient monitoring technologies have played a crucial role in the development of anesthesiology practice within the U.S. Because anesthesiology involves many inherent risks that are difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate, anesthesiologists often turn to advanced patient monitoring technologies to ensure safety during a procedure. It’s no wonder that anesthesiology has been a field of medicine that has made enormous contributions to the enhancement of patient safety throughout this country.

Our anesthesia department was searching for a more accurate means of assessing volume status and predicting the response to fluid administration in this patient population. This population can be very challenging during vascular, trauma orthopedic, thoracic, general surgical and obstetric procedures.


Having the most up-to-date blood gas readings is critical when dealing with many patients, especially pulmonary and cardiovascular ones. Equipment that allows a patient's levels to be checked on the spot by the caregiver is seen as an important technological advancement.

Many advances have occurred in mechanical ventilators in recent years and these newer technologies are beginning to be incorporated into anesthesia ventilators. This has reduced the differences between intensive care ventilators and anesthesia ventilators.

Intensive Care Units around the world have been providing their patients with mechanical ventilation for the past 30 years, ever since the first electronic ventilator technology appeared in the early seventies. And ventilation therapy, irregardless of mode, has been delivered in the same manner — a clinician has regulated the pressures and volumes provided to the patient.

An FDA-appointed advisory panel to review drug-eluting stents could have detrimental effects on the $6 billion-a-year market, reports the Chicago Sun Times, but, according to columnist Francine Knowles, Morgan Stanley analyst Glenn Reicin claims there’s no cause for alarm.

FDA says more formally evaluate recent stent studies that linked DES to the development of blood clots within 18 months. European researchers have recently concluded that older and less expensive bare-metal stents, are safer than DES and result in less blood clotting.

FDA has cleared Spectranetics’ new line of devices designed to treat clogged leg arteries. The Turbo elite products will be launched in limited release during the fourth quarter, and fully released in early 2007.

The devices are used in conjunction with the company’s excimer laser system, which helps open clogged or obstructed arteries. Spectranetics, Colorado Springs, CO, is a manufacturers of lasers used to treat heart conditions.

CV Therapeutics Inc. says the MERLIN TIMI-36 study of ranolazine will proceed to the study close-out phase now that the required number of endpoints have accumulated, “Medical News Today” reports.

A new procedure that delivers and places or repairs a heart valve through a catheter could soon become an alternative to open heart surgery for extremely high-risk patients.

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