All Data Continuously Available

Anaesthetists look after seriously ill patients in intensive care units and also treat acute and chronic pain. The most important factor is for all the information to be available at the right time. To ensure this, GE Healthcare has now launched Carestation onto the market. "It is the first system in the world to make all of a patient's details available to anaesthetists interactively during a surgical procedure," pointed out Hannu Syrjälä, Vice President and General Manager of Life Support Solutions at Clinical Systems GE Healthcare.

Information all together in one system

To ensure that the system, which was introduced at Euroanaesthesia 2005 in Vienna, fully met practice requirements, the company's 500 scientists and engineers secured professional assistance. "We held intensive discussions with more than 600 anaesthetists and anaesthesia nurses all over the world to find out their specific needs. We also worked closely with pilots from the Finnish airline Finnair to identify areas that air travel and anaesthesia have in common," said Risto Rossi, Global Marketing Manager of Life Support Solutions.

Typically, an anaesthetist works with more than a dozen pieces of medical equipment, handbooks and computers. "We wanted to make this much simpler," explained General Manager, Mario Huyghe. "Carestation brings all these systems together in one interactive knowledge-based system. For the first time, the five core elements – anaesthesia parameters, display of vital signs, imaging, Care Assistant Suite and clinical information systems – provide anaesthetists with all the information they need, in the way they need it, in one system." This makes it more efficient and easy to operate – very important in an environment where it is often a matter of life and death. The electronic clinical documentation also takes some of the workload off the doctor, allowing him or her to concentrate fully on the patient.
The Care Assistant Suite, the heart of the new system, is the first technology of its kind to combine a patient's vital signs with a visual overview of the anaesthetic administered. The system analyses complex interactions between anaesthetics, and provides the anaesthetist with the relevant information. This means that various combinations can be tested in advance and the medication best suited to the individual patient then selected. "Carestation puts anaesthetists in a position to make a safe decision based on all the information available, to initiate individualised treatment, and so achieve a better outcome for the patient," said Syrjälä, clarifying its significance for day-to-day work.

Cross-sector co-operation

"During the three months spent working closely with the anaesthetists and Finnair pilots, we noticed that one factor was critical: having access to the right information at all times," said Huyghe, pleased at the teamwork. And this was true whether it was a pilot flying a plane with several hundred passengers on board 9,000 m above the Earth, or an anaesthetist preparing a patient for surgery.

"There are many parallels between anaesthesia and flying," noted Finnair pilot Arto Helovuo. For pilots, take-off and landing are the most critical phases because they take most energy and require the highest degree of concentration. For anaesthetists, it is composing the right mixture of drugs and observing the vital signs before the start of the procedure and when resuscitating the patient that are most critical.

"GE Healthcare's new Carestation applies the tried and tested principles of the aeronautical industry to anaesthesia, allowing anaesthetists to make a tailor-made life-saving decision for a patient," stated Syrjälä confidently. "Co-operating in the cross-sector way we did is crucial for developing a system that really does meet the requirements in modern operating theatres and intensive care units."