| About Hill-Rom |
Hill-Rom is a leading worldwide manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry, including patient support systems, noninvasive therapeutic products for a variety of acute ansd chronic medical conditions, medical equipment rentals, and workflow information technology solutions.
Hill-Rom’s comprehensive product and service offerings are used by health care providers across the health care continuum in hospitals, extended care facilities and home care settings to enhance the safety and quality of patient care. |
Hill-Rom…enhancing outcomes for patients and their caregivers :
Hill-Rom is committed to helping their customers deliver safer, more efficient and more effective care. Caregivers throughout the world look at Hill-Rom for solutions, because they put their customers first, and they always seek to exceed their expectations. Hill-Rom is a leading supplier of advanced hospital equipment and technology. But on top of that, they are so much more.
Hill-Rom brings the passion, the dedication, the innovation and the drive to developing solutions that matter and making a difference in the lives of those we touch.
With over more than 6,500 employees throughout the world Hill-Rom is committed to helping their customers deliver safer, more efficient and more effective care.
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| The Clinical Education Department at Hill-Rom provides educational programs for healthcare professionals on multiple modalities and pulmonary disease management; including The Vest® Airway Clearance System. |
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| Airway Clearance |
Respiratory health depends on consistent clearance of airway secretions. Normal airway clearance is accomplished by two important mechanisms: the mucociliary clearance (MCC) system and the ability to cough. Impaired MCC is linked to poor lung function in a broad range of diseases and disabilities
Because at-risk individuals are prone to recurrent episodes of respiratory inflammation, infection and, eventually, irreversible lung damage, improvement of MCC is a vital treatment goal-one that can be accomplished with an individualized bronchial hygiene plan that includes effective Airway Clearance therapy
The Need for Airway Clearance
New understanding of the psulmonary consequences of uncleared airway secretions is developing rapidly. Mounting evidence demonstrates a strong association between mucus hypersecretion/secretion retention and illness exacerbation, hospitalization, sharply declining FEV and death. |
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Recognition of the clinical significance of excessive, abnormal, or retained airway secretions provides the rationale for improving mucociliary clearance as a logical treatment goal.
A primary focus of respiratory care for at-risk individuals should be to avoid mucus retention and to prevent or break the life-destroying cycle of recurrent infection and progressive pulmonary deterioration.
The Vest® Airway Clearance System has been shown to meet all the treatment goals of Airway Clearance Therapy, thereby minimizing the pulmonary complications that contribute significantly to illness, debility, medical care costs, and premature death. |
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| Product Preview |
The Vest® Airway Clearance System
Hill-Rom companies manufacture and distribute The Vest® Airway Clearance System, a medical device that assists children and adults with mobilizing secretions that may contribute to, or complicate, their respiratory conditions, designed to assist patients in the mobilization of retained secretions that, if not removed, may lead to increased rates of respiratory infection, hospitalization and reduced lung function.
How does it work?
The Vest® System uses a technology called High Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation (HFCWO). This therapy utilizes a device that generates increased airflow velocities that create cough-like shear forces and decreases secretion viscosity. Both serve to assist patients in moving retained secretions from smaller airways to larger airways where they can more easily be removed by coughing. |
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Improved Quality of Life
The Vest® System users report a high level of satisfaction with its use and the positive effects on their quality of life. They often feel better because they don't have to struggle to breathe and feel less fatigued.
Decreased use of intravenous antibiotics,
fewer respiratory infections and less hospitalization |
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means that users of The Vest® System feel better and are able to participate more fully in activities of daily living. The resulting satisfaction with therapy leads to increased adherence, which can lead to better health outcomes.
The Vest® System has been prescribed for airway clearance therapy for patients with health complications associated with more than 570 diseases and conditions.
These include:
- Cystic fibrosis (CF)
- Asthma
- Bronchiectasis
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Cerebral palsy (CP)
- Muscular dystrophy (MD)
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
- Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)
- Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD)
- Spinal cord injury
- Post-lung transplantation
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Standard of Care
The Vest® Airway Clearance System has become a standard of care for airway clearance. After being cleared to market in 1988, The Vest® System initially gained wide acceptance as a treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. |
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The Vest® System is widely accepted and:
- Prescribed to treat secretion-related pulmonary complications in more than 575 diseases and conditions, including muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), multiple sclerosis (MS), cerebral palsy (CP) and cystic fibrosis (CF).
- Prescribed for more than 70,000 people with airway clearance needs.
- Prescribed by more than 12,000 physicians worldwide.
- Approved for payment by more than 900 commercial insurance companies and 250 government-funded payers.
- Being used to maintain healthy lung function in post-operative, ICU and post-lung transplantation patients.
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