
Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland Completes Conversion to Masimo SET Oximetry
OAKLAND, California. March 14, 2005. Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland and Masimo®, the inventor of Read-Through-Motion & Low Perfusion Pulse Oximetry, have announced the completion of Children's hospital-wide implementation of Masimo SET® oximetry. Children's Oakland performed an extensive pulse oximetry comparison and evaluation and cited clinical performance as the chief reason for conversion.
James H. Hanson, MD, Director of Pediatric Intensive Care, said, "In the PICU, we see patients in the worst shape - post-operative cardiac patients, 'shocky' kids, kids with a lot of movement. Optimizing our care for these kids was the biggest reason we converted to Masimo. A secondary reason, but a very important one, was how responsive and deeply caring the Masimo people have been about our concerns. They really listened and responded when we voiced needs. We definitely felt and continue to feel that they care and are willing to continuously work for us and with us."
Andrew Wen, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children's Oakland who tested Masimo commented, "Masimo gives better and quicker feedback. Here is an application. We were testing pulse oximetry in the Exercise Lab during standard procedures. We had oximeters from Masimo and a competitor. The patient was dropping sats on Masimo and he looked blue, obviously compromised, but the other oximeter did not drop at all. Before Masimo, no one knew that oximetry could really be accurate and reliable all the time. We'd grown accustomed to data failure. Now, we really have no problems like this at all. We can deliver quicker and more confident care with Masimo. It's the best available."
Richard Rowe, MD, Dept. of Anesthesiology, spoke about the reasons for and success of the Masimo conversion from a clinical perspective. "Masimo was coming into a department that has a lot of history with another provider. When we were able to test Masimo, however, it just proved to be better technology. We tested Masimo in the Cardiac Cath lab, in patients with hypoperfusion, and the nurses and docs were both impressed with its performance. I like to torture new technology by putting it in the absolute worst operative conditions. The cardiologists placed catheters in both the vein and artery of the patient's left leg. Normally I wouldn't put a pulse ox on that leg because of poor perfusion but, because we were looking at pulse ox performance, I did it, and it worked just fine. The PI was fine, the sats were good, the reading was consistent. It was pretty much bomb proof."
The evaluation at Children's Hospital of Oakland was extremely thorough and spanned virtually every department. As a result of the comparative evaluation, Children's Hospital converted hospital wide to Masimo SET a year ago.
"It is really critical that we have good data all the time from a pulse oximeter," continued Dr. Rowe. "The hospital is always under a lot of pressure to efficiently evaluate kids for admittance. Masimo sats have now often become the basis for admittance - it saves us from having to perform extremely time-consuming and expensive tests. A typical scenario is evaluating a 2-year-old kid with obstructive sleep apnea in the PACU, as the patient wakes up and moves around. Masimo can robustly tell us if this kid has significant hypoxia and we can admit based upon the reliability of the device. The other big improvement I've seen is that we do far less babysitting of the pulse oximeter now. It used to be our standard practice to always have a backup oximeter and multiple probes on tough cases - cardiac surgery, kids with small body mass and poor perfusion. Then, during the case, the data would fail from one of the extremities as the perfusion decreased, so we would have to switch to another extremity. But Masimo has basically eliminated that problem and we get reliable data even in low perfusion states."
Respiratory therapist Donna Stephenson added, "I had a fortunate experience when we were evaluating Masimo. I had a cardiac come in, he was blue, obviously struggling, and we couldn't get a sat reading with our other oximeter. I ran to the shelf and got a Masimo, put it on the patient, and immediately got a reading and could track him back to safe levels. It's just an anecdote, but ever since then I've had similar experiences and have come to really appreciate the device."
In affirming their decision to convert to Masimo SET oximetry, Children's staff also commented on Masimo's ability to professionally transition the hospital to the Masimo technology, and highlighted some of the unique performance advantages it offers.
Greg Duncan, AAMI's 2003 Biomed Of the Year and CMIA's Biomed Professional of the Year, co-facilitated the pulse oximetry evaluation at Children's Oakland. "Clinical preference was really the driving force behind the pulse oximetry product evaluation," said Mr. Duncan. "We wanted each specialty to give the products a comprehensive review and make their recommendations. After prescreening by reading some of the available literature, we invited Masimo and our then-current provider to present their technologies. Once the evaluation was done, we gave a written survey to as broad and as varied a sample of individuals as we could find. Masimo was clearly the favored technology of that survey, so we went with it."
"When it came time to implement, Masimo's team was effective and efficient," Mr. Duncan continued. "When issues arose, as they do with major conversions, Masimo was always quick to address the problem. The in-servicing was great - they were flexible, knowledgeable, they seemed happy to be here, and they really relieved our nurse managers of a lot of scheduling heartache. I've been very happy with Masimo."
Mary McIlroy, clinical nurse specialist, stated, "I first saw Masimo at a critical care meeting in Montreal a couple years ago and began pushing hard for an evaluation of it here. When we were finally able to look at it closely, my team trialed Masimo on some of our cardiac patients. It picked up the most poorly perfused kids we had. Now that the conversion is up and running, it has really improved our ability to make decisions. As the nurse specialist, I get all the complaints about pulse oximetry in the Pediatric ICU. In the months that we've been with Masimo, I have had no complaints at all."
Ann Gomez, Ph.D., RRT, manager of Respiratory Care Services, stated "we have seen a significant improvement in clinical practice tracking inspired oxygen requirements in the premature babies that are at risk for ROP (retinopathy of the premature) in our Neonatal Intensive Care unit. We are also implementing use of Masimo's new LNOP® 'Blue' sensor for improved saturation monitoring of the neonatal cardiac patient population. The use of SET technology in PFT and cardiac stress testing, and during transport in ambulances, has made a significant improvement in monitoring through motion. From the business side, we have seen significant cost savings since we have transitioned to SET pulse oximetry."
Joe E. Kiani, CEO of Masimo, stated, "Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland has been a particularly rewarding conversion. Their standards are high and their requirements are demanding. It is clearly a hospital that works as a team, mutually respecting and bettering each other toward the goal of world-class care for children. Along with their continual dedication to providing cutting edge technology, their new bone-marrow transplant facility and sibling donor cord program further demonstrate their passion for delivering the highest level of care to children. We are proud to partner with Children's Hospital of Oakland."
