To further advance its mission and dedication to delivering a world-class patient experience, Edward-Elmhurst Health, a three-hospital system serving the west and southwest suburbs of Chicago, has selected SwipeSense as its technology partner to prevent hospital-acquired infections, efficiently track valuable hospital equipment and mitigate preventable harm, such as patient falls, by ensuring consistent care delivery.

SwipeSense is an affordable, Real-Time Location System (RTLS) platform that powers applications, such as Hand Hygiene monitoring, Asset Tracking and Nursing Insights, designed to eliminate waste and improve patient outcomes in healthcare delivery networks. In a sample of four hospitals, SwipeSense helped reduce hospital-acquired infections by an average of 55% within the first year of implementing the technology.

“The safety of our patients and our staff is of the utmost importance. As we continue our journey toward safety and high reliability, preventing hospital-acquired infections is a major focus. Proper hand washing is one of the easiest yet most effective evidence-based practices we can use to prevent infections,” said Mary Lou Mastro, System CEO, Edward-Elmhurst Health. “SwipeSense will help us increase hand hygiene compliance, aid in the fight against hospital-acquired infections and improve our overall patient experience.”

How SwipeSense Hand Hygiene works

Edward-Elmhurst Health began using the SwipeSense Hand Hygiene system in late 2019. Nearly 4,000 employees at Edward and Elmhurst Hospitals who are involved in direct patient care in patient rooms, emergency department and procedure areas wear caregiver badges that wirelessly communicate with the SwipeSense system to automatically record hand hygiene events (cleaning hands with sanitizer or soap) and opportunities (entering/exiting patient rooms), without disrupting staff workflow.

When a caregiver cleans his/her hands, a hygiene sensor located below a soap or sanitizer dispenser recognizes the employee’s unique badge identification and a green light flashes to indicate the data was transmitted. SwipeSense captures information when users enter/exit a patient room and when they clean their hands, only recording hygiene opportunities and events associated with patient room visits. The data is fed to the SwipeSense platform where managers can view hand hygiene compliance data at the facility, department, unit, room, and employee levels via an online dashboard.

Edward-Elmhurst identified significant alignment of their key executive initiatives with several elements of the SwipeSense platform, and as such, is the first health system in the Chicago area to implement the full platform. Through the power of innovative RTLS technology, all applications are powered by a combination of the same hardware, including SwipeSense Caregiver Badges, Asset Tags and Sensors. Intuitive user dashboards will enable hospital staff to capture reliable data, allowing them to effectively optimize resources and reduce care variation.

“Hospital staff are constantly juggling multiple priorities and systems. Our platform helps reduce the number of point products staff need to learn, manage, maintain and report on, providing actionable insight in a single, comprehensive solution,” said Mert Iseri, CEO, SwipeSense. From leadership to frontline staff, the team at Edward-Elmhurst has demonstrated incredible engagement and focus to ensure strong adoption and understanding of the new toolset. We are thrilled to partner with a leading, local hospital as diligently focused on delivering the highest quality care to their patients.”

About Edward-Elmhurst Health

Edward-Elmhurst Health is a 736-bed system that includes three hospitals – Edward Hospital in Naperville, Elmhurst Hospital and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health – and an extensive ambulatory care network that provides comprehensive healthcare to residents of the west and southwest suburbs of Chicago. Edward and Elmhurst Hospitals both have achieved Magnet® Recognition, the ultimate credential for excellence in nursing, and have a history of earning A’s in the bi-annual Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades. Elmhurst is one of only 36 hospitals in the U.S. to achieve straight A’s since the Grades began in 2012. In addition, Edward-Elmhurst was named one of the nation’s 15 Top Health Systems by IBM Watson Health in 2019. For more information, visit www.EEHealth.org.

About SwipeSense

SwipeSense is a Chicago-based healthcare technology company on a mission to help hospitals deliver the most efficient and safest care possible. Armed with accurate measurement and insights via intuitive dashboards, leading hospitals across the country are using SwipeSense to improve operational efficiency and deliver a predictable patient experience. The SwipeSense platform consists of Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring, Real-Time Asset Tracking and Nursing Insights applications. To learn more about how your hospital can leverage SwipeSense data.

The U.S. FDA has cleared patient-specific airway stents developed by Cleveland Clinic physician Tom Gildea, M.D. The stents are used to keep open the airways of patients with serious breathing disorders, such as those caused by tumors, inflammation, trauma or other masses. Until now, the patient-specific devices were being implanted under FDA’s compassionate use program, which allows patients who have failed all available forms of treatment to receive investigational ones not yet available to the public.

Standard airway stents come in a limited number of sizes and shapes and are generally designed for larger airways. However, no two patient anatomies are alike, making it difficult to get a perfect fit, especially for those with complex conditions. Even in parts of the airways that are easily accessible, ill-fitting standard stents can result in stent kinking and bending as well as airway complications such as growth of new tissue, mucus impaction and tissue death.

The patient-specific stents developed by Dr. Gildea and his engineering team are designed using CT scans and proprietary 3D visualization software. The molds for the stents are then printed using a 3D printer and injected with medical-grade silicone. This process allows them to perfectly fit a patient’s anatomy.

Tom Gildea, M.D.

“Breathing is something many people take for granted, but for many of these patients, every breath can be a struggle. It’s been gratifying to see patients receiving the customized stents feeling relief right away.” said Dr. Gildea, section head of bronchoscopy at Cleveland Clinic. “We are excited to be able to bring this technology to more patients across the country and grateful for the patients and donors who have worked with us to help pioneer this technology.”

Another advantage of the patient-specific silicone stents is they have the potential to be more tolerable than traditional silicone stents, which, in certain patients, may have to be frequently changed or cleaned due to problems from a poor fit. In studies, the patient-specific stents lasted, on average, about a year versus 90 days for stock stents. Furthermore, the patient-specific stents exhibited shorter procedure times and improved patient-reported symptoms, leading to a reduced need for stent changes and modifications.

It’s estimated that about 30,000 airway stents will be implanted in the U.S. in 2020.

Patient-specific products manufactured with 3D printing, including the airway stents, were named as one of the top 10 innovations at Cleveland Clinic’s annual Medical Innovations Summit in 2018. Dr. Gildea was also the recipient of the Outstanding Innovation in Medical Device award at the 2018 annual Inventor Awards Reception held by Cleveland Clinic Innovations.

With personalized medical devices more common in orthopedics, the patient-specific stent was developed and FDA cleared by an engineering team inside an orthopedic-focused Cleveland Clinic subsidiary. A new subsidiary named VisionAir Solutions will be formed around the technology with the sole mission of bringing more personalized medical devices to interventional pulmonologists and the patients who need them. By the end of the first quarter of 2020, this new spin-off company plans to begin providing the personalized stents to patients in a controlled launch at many of the country’s top medical institutions.

Dr. Gildea is an inventor of this technology that is being manufactured by a Cleveland Clinic spin-off company. Dr. Gildea and Cleveland Clinic may benefit financially if the technology is successful.

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation’s best hospitals in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” survey. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 66,000 employees are more than 4,200 salaried physicians and researchers and 16,600 nurses, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic’s health system includes a 165-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 11 regional hospitals in northeast Ohio, more than 180 northern Ohio outpatient locations – including 18 full-service family health centers and three health and wellness centers – and locations in southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2018, there were 7.9 million total outpatient visits, 238,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 220,000 surgical cases throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 185 countries.

Medtronic plc announced the CE Mark for Percept PC neurostimulator; it is the only Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) system to be launched in the European Union (EU) with BrainSense technology that can sense and record brain signals while delivering therapy to patients with neurologic disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease. BrainSense technology enables physicians to track patient-specific brain signals and correlate these with patient-recorded events, such as symptoms or side-effects associated with their disease or the medications to treat it. This enables more personalized, data-driven neurostimulation treatment.

The Percept PC neurostimulator is approved in the EU for the treatment of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD), essential tremor, primary dystonia as well as epilepsy and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“DBS is proven to significantly improve motor function in people with Parkinson’s disease compared to standard medication alone – but with currently-available systems, physicians need to make therapeutic decisions mostly based on clinical assessments and patient-reported information,” said Professor Andrea Kühn, head of Movement Disorders and Neuromodulation, Charité University Hospital, Berlin. “Percept PC with BrainSense technology is a game changer. Patients and their care teams will have objective patient-specific brain signal data – including data recorded outside the clinic in patients’ everyday lives. With this technology, doctors could tailor therapy more precisely to the individual needs of each patient based on data from neuronal activity.”

In addition to BrainSense technology, the Percept PC DBS system features several leading-edge innovations, including:

• The only DBS system with MR conditional labeling that allows for 3T and 1.5T full-body MRI scans, providing patients access to cutting-edge medical imaging
• Improved battery longevity compared to Medtronic’s Activa™ PC neurostimulator (when using similar settings and functionality) in a smaller (reduced volume), ergonomic design for patient comfort
• Low pulse width (duration of the pulse), providing expanded stimulation options allowing for finer control over the neural activation area
• Enhanced Patient Programmer leveraging a user-friendly, custom-configured Samsung mobile device that allows patients to manage their therapy easily
• Designed to easily facilitate expanded capabilities in the future via software upgrades – to prepare for what’s next in DBS

The Percept PC neurostimulator will be available in Western Europe beginning January 15th and will launch in additional regions based on local regulations.

“With the Percept PC device with BrainSense technology, Medtronic is truly reinventing DBS therapy, propelling it into a new frontier and empowering clinicians with new options to bring the future of DBS to patients today. Doctors can directly assess patients’ brain signals to inform and provide customized treatment for each patient,” said Mike Daly, vice president and general manager of the Brain Modulation business, which is part of the Restorative Therapies Group at Medtronic. “Patients are empowered to take an active role in their therapy, and physicians can deliver data-driven, personalized therapy that fits the needs of patients, now and in the future.”

About Medtronic DBS Therapy

DBS therapy is currently approved in many locations around the world, including the United States and Europe, for the treatment of recent and longer-standing Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, primary dystonia, the disabling symptoms of epilepsy and treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder.

DBS therapy uses a surgically implanted medical device, similar to a cardiac pacemaker, to deliver electrical stimulation to precisely targeted areas of the brain as adjunctive treatment for several neurological disorders. Medtronic was the first in the United States to offer full-body MR Conditional DBS systems for patients to have safe scans anywhere on the body under certain conditions. Since 1987, more than 150,000 Medtronic DBS devices have been implanted worldwide for movement disorders and other indications.

About Medtronic

Medtronic plc (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is among the world’s largest medical technology, services and solutions companies – alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. Medtronic employs more than 90,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in more than 150 countries. The company is focused on collaborating with stakeholders around the world to take healthcare Further, Together.

Birmingham, Ala.-based Encompass Health Corp and San Angelo, Texas-based Shannon Health announced plans to form a joint venture for a new, 40-bed, freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital in San Angelo, Texas.

The hospital is being constructed by the Shannon West Texas Memorial Hospital Trust, the foundation arm of Shannon Health, and will be leased to the joint venture between Encompass Health and Shannon Health. This hospital will replace Shannon Medical Center’s 14-bed rehabilitation unit, which has been providing rehabilitative care to patients since 1988.

“We are excited to be working with the team at Shannon Health to meet the growing need for rehabilitation services in the San Angelo community,” said Frank Brown, president of Encompass Health’s southwest region. “Under our joint venture, we’ll continue providing the excellent rehabilitative care established by Shannon in a new space specifically designed for rehabilitation patients.”

Included in the hospital will be a spacious therapy gym, advanced rehabilitation technologies, an activities of daily living suite, cafeteria and dining room, pharmacy and courtyard.

It will be located on approximately 7.7 acres along the north side of the Appaloosa Trail west of the intersection with Farm-to-Market Road 2288 in San Angelo. The joint venture plans to start providing patient care in the new hospital beginning spring 2021.

“We have great pride at Shannon in providing high quality inpatient rehabilitation services for our patients and their families for more than 30 years,” said Shane Plymell, CEO and President of Shannon. “As our region continues to see tremendous growth, the healthcare needs of our population will continue to evolve. Encompass Health is a respected leader in this industry, and we are excited to partner with their expertise and expand our capability to serve the needs of more patients here in the Concho Valley. Our continuing mission is to provide patients an exceptional experience along with the best possible care.”

Complementing local acute care services, the hospital will care for patients recovering from a variety of debilitating illnesses and injuries including strokes and other neurological disorders, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations and complex orthopedic conditions. It offers physical, occupational and speech therapies as well as 24-hour nursing care that aim to restore functional ability and quality of life.

About Encompass Health
As a national leader in integrated healthcare services, Encompass Health (NYSE: EHC) offers both facility-based and home-based patient care through its network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, home health agencies and hospice agencies. With a national footprint that includes 133 hospitals, 245 home health locations, and 82 hospice locations in 37 states and Puerto Rico, the Company is committed to delivering high-quality, cost-effective, integrated care across the healthcare continuum. Encompass Health is ranked as one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

About Shannon Health
Shannon Medical Center is proud to be the largest, locally-based health care provider for the Concho Valley and surrounding region in West Texas. For more than 87 years, the Shannon mission has focused on providing exceptional healthcare for its family, friends and neighbors. Together with Shannon Clinic, Shannon provides access to more than 275 providers in 40 medical specialties across 22 locations. Shannon’s services include nationally-recognized cardiac and stroke programs with the AirMed1 air ambulance and designated Level III Trauma Facility which has been named top Trauma Facility in the state. It also features a dedicated Women’s & Children’s Hospital which celebrates the birth of more than 1,200 new babies each year and is home to the Children’s Miracle Network for the area.

Change Healthcare unveiled its API & Services Connection, a marketplace for open, standards-based application programming interface (API) products. Now, any healthcare organization––payers, providers, vendors, consultants, and independent developers––can leverage the same capabilities that power the company’s industry-leading healthcare financial, clinical, and engagement solutions. Subscription to the catalogue of APIs is managed through the AWS Marketplace––making it easy for healthcare organizations to rapidly innovate digital health solutions at scale on Amazon Web Services (AWS). To accelerate adoption and use, Change Healthcare will provide comprehensive enablement tools, including implementation guides from the Argonaut Project, an initiative to advance industry adoption of modern, open interoperability standards.

“Our productized APIs empower healthcare start-ups, hospitals and health plans, and other healthcare-focused businesses to more rapidly develop innovative products and services while meeting regulatory requirements,” said Gautam M. Shah, vice president, Platform and Marketplace at Change Healthcare. “Our APIs help reduce application development time, testing, and cost––while promoting interoperability and fostering innovation.”

API products providing solutions to power Revenue Cycle Management, Payment, and Medical Eligibility workflows are now available in the Change Healthcare API & Services Connection. The company is providing market-leading innovation, including its Claims Lifecycle AI API that provides the intelligence to accurately and proactively predict which claims are likely to be denied and why. This product helps increase and accelerate revenue and reduce costs for hospitals and health systems. Over time, Change Healthcare expects to have hundreds of open, standards-based APIs available that represent the company’s comprehensive portfolio of healthcare IT solutions, as well as API-based solutions from its partners.

Companies in the digital health space are trending towards using more and more purpose-built APIs to manage specific parts of the patient access and billing workflows,” said Nathan Swartley, director of product at Hinge Health. “Hinge Health is using the Change Healthcare Eligibility API to verify new applicants across multiple payers and deliver speedy implementations for our customers.”

Micky Tripathi, Argonaut Project manager and president and CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, added, “APIs are the key to advancing the healthcare industry’s adoption of modern, open interoperability standards. Change Healthcare’s use of open standards means that these APIs and services can be readily deployed across the healthcare ecosystem––whether connecting to EHRs, adding functionality to payers’ and providers’ internally-developed solutions, or enhancing other third-party solutions. This is a resource with the potential to help reduce the time and cost associated with many health information technology deployments. It’s very exciting that anyone can take advantage of, and benefit from, these open industry healthcare APIs to foster a more open, interoperable, and capable healthcare IT universe.”

About Change Healthcare
Change Healthcare is a leading independent healthcare technology company that provides data and analytics-driven solutions to improve clinical, financial, and patient engagement outcomes in the U.S. healthcare system. We are a key catalyst of a value-based healthcare system, accelerating the journey toward improved lives and healthier communities.

Polyganics, a medical technology company developing, manufacturing and commercializing bioresorbable medical devices, announced that it has obtained CE marking for LIQOSEAL®, its easy-to-use and innovative dural sealant patch, and will launch the device in Europe with immediate effect.

Approval of the CE mark is based on outstanding data from Polyganics’ ENCASE I clinical trial, evaluating the safety and performance of LIQOSEAL® in reducing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage after elective cranial surgery. 3-month follow-up results showed the absence of CSF leakage, as confirmed by MRI, no clinically significant swelling, and no device-related adverse events following surgery.

Initially, Polyganics will commercialize LIQOSEAL® in selected European countries with renowned distribution partners which have extensive experience in neurosurgical products. During 2020, the Company will then grow its network with the addition of multiple distributors throughout Europe.

Polyganics is also preparing to launch LIQOSEAL® in selected non-European countries. In addition, arrangements are well underway for the start of ENCASE II, a randomized controlled trial, which will enable the Company to submit the patch for pre-market approval to the US Food and Drug Administration.

Rudy Mareel, CEO of Polyganics, commented: “CSF leakage remains a devastating complication of neurosurgical procedures and represents a significant patient burden with high associated cost. The CE approval of this product is testament to the strength and quality of the clinical data from ENCASE I, showing that LIQOSEAL® establishes effective and enduring watertight dural closure. This is a key milestone in our journey to deliver our dural sealant patch to surgeons and patients in Europe and ultimately worldwide.”

About Polyganics
Polyganics is a medical technology company with multiple versatile polymer platforms. The company develops, manufactures and commercializes innovative bioresorbable medical devices that facilitate tissue repair and regeneration.

Polyganics’ portfolio comprises of products developed in-house and in collaboration with leading medical technology companies and academic centers of excellence. The portfolio includes marketed products in the fields of Peripheral Nerve Repair (PNR) and Neurosurgery: VIVOSORB®, for minimizing unwanted tissue adhesions after surgery; NEUROLAC®, for supporting PNR following hand surgery; NEUROCAP®, for the management of symptomatic neuromas; and LIQOSEAL®, a dura sealant patch for the effective control of cerebrospinal fluid leakage. Products in development include a Liver and Pancreas Sealant Patch in the field of General Surgery.

In 2014, Polyganics sold its Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) surgery business unit (the NASOPORE® product family including HEMOPORE®, SINUPORE® and OTOPORE® and NASOPORE-FD®) to Stryker, one of the world’s leading medical technology companies. Polyganics continues to manufacture the NASOPORE® product range for Stryker. To date, Polyganics has produced and delivered more than 5 million devices.

Polyganics is a privately held company based in Groningen, The Netherlands, a center of biomedical engineering excellence, where it has an ISO 13485-certified manufacturing facility. The company’s polymer platform technologies are protected by a broad portfolio of patents and its products have received clearance from the US FDA, CE-approval, and approval from CFDA and other international authorities.

About CSF leakage
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage is a widely recognized complication of neurosurgical procedures. It represents a significant patient burden, resulting in increased morbidity, prolonged hospital stays, possible surgical revisions, and enhanced costs.(1,2) Incidence rates vary depending on age, indication, location of surgery and underlying pathology, but in total CSF leakage occurs in 4-32% of surgical cases.(3,4)

About LIQOSEAL
LIQOSEAL® is a safe and easy-to-use patch indicated for use as an adjunct to standard methods of cranial dural repair during surgery. By ensuring watertight closure of the dura mater, the patch provides effective control of CSF leakage throughout the critical healing period, as well as supporting regeneration of the dura mater by acting as a scaffold for new fibrotic layer formation (‘neodura’). The patch uses Polyganics’ proven proprietary synthetic bioresorbable polymer technology. It is commercially available throughout Europe via a network of experienced distributors.

About ENCASE I
ENCASE I, the first-in-human trial of LIQOSEAL®, is a single-arm, open-label study evaluating the safety and performance of LIQOSEAL® in reducing CSF leakage following elective cranial surgery. 40 adult patients have been recruited at three sites across the Netherlands and Switzerland, with follow-up due to span a period of 12 months. The protocol for the ENCASE I study was published in 2019 in Neurosurgery.