GE Healthcare and HealthSolutions lead Biomedical Engineers to clinical excellence
HealthSolutions Chief Operations Officer Ronnie Herrera, HEMAP President Anthony Guiang, GE Philippines Chief Executive Officer Jocot De Dios together with other GE representatives and biomedical engineers.
Physicians stress the importance of updating non-clinicians about medical advances for better patient care
MANILA, June XX, 2016 – There is more to keeping a hospital running well than to employ the best medical professionals. To further raise the standard of the medical industry in the Philippines, everyone in the hospital – from medical professionals and clinicians to non-clinicians – must be updated with the technological developments and medical advancements that can improve the lives of the patients.
For the first time in the country, healthcare solutions provider HealthSolutions partnered with GE healthcare and the Hospital Engineering & Maintenance Association of the Philippines (HEMAP) held an educational forum with non-clinicians, specifically biomedical engineers in Metro Manila and from other parts of the country, to learn about the science behind some equipment and machines that they help maintain.
HEMAP President Anthony Guiang revealed that after the event, HEMAP members were more keen on setting a higher standard for their profession. This is in relation to the application of what they have learned in the event, with the theme, “RECHARGE: Clinical Excellence for Non-Clinicians”. The same educational programs for Visayas and Mindanao are already in the pipeline, Guiang added.
“We are educating our people to be aware of their part so that they can be more capable in what they are doing,” Guiang explained.
The event successfully filled the knowledge gap between clinicians and non-clinicians, in this case biomed engineers. Often, Biomed Engineers may fail to understand the intricacies of application and use of medical equipment due to lack of know-how, thus the gap between the clinicians (doctors, nurses, etc.) and non-clinicians (Biomed, etc.). Technical problems in equipment like an electrocardiogram (ECG) are addressed by an engineer who may not be fully aware of the scope of the doctors’ concern about the machine in terms of clinical usability during its use in the course of patient care.
The event which was held at the Café of Champs, TAO Corporate Center in Makati City was attended by more than a hundred biomedical engineers who are also members of HEMAP as well as medical professionals and members of GE Healthcare and HealthSolutions.
New technology to better monitor the heart
Among the resource persons during the event was Dr. Karen Pambid who talked about the electrical systems of the human heart. She highlighted advancements in monitoring patients with new technology found in GE’s ECG machines – the Mac 2000, Mac 600 and Mac i.
“Cardiovascular disease is one of the top causes of mortality in the Philippines,” Dr. Pambid said. She then stressed the importance of a reliable machine when trying to diagnose and monitor the human heart.
The GE ECG machines are useful tools for monitoring and diagnosing the heart since it has the Marquette 12 SL Algorithm, which other brands lack. “It does the measurements, then gives an initial interpretation. It will then tell you if you have, for example, a dysarythimia (an abnormality in hearts normal rhythm). This algorithm has been studied by more than 30 independent parties, verified by non-GE members.” Dr. Pambid said.
In other words, the machine does not just monitor the status of the heart, it can also give an interpretation which clinicians and non-clinicians can pick up on. “You have an initial interpretation already which will aid in giving the diagnosis to the patient,” she said. These can be very useful especially when a cardiologist may not be around to give official interpretation.
Meanwhile, Dr. Arlene Sy talked about the importance of monitoring of the patient’s carbon dioxide levels in the blood as she discussed End-Tidal C02 (EtC02) or capnography monitoring. Adding a touch of urgency to the medical issue, Dr. Sy cited the cases of international singer-songwriters Prince Rogers Nelson and Michael Jackson, both of whom “died because they were not monitored. [The absence of monitoring] causes respiratory depression.”
“When you do capnography monitoring, it tells you when the patients are beginning to breathe slower so you know when they are going through respiratory depression. When you sedate someone, they can start breathing very slowly,” she said.
And as important as the ETC02 is, as per Dr. Sy, it is just right to get the best monitors available like GE’s Patient Monitors which include the Procare B20 monitor, Carescape B450, Carescape Central Station, V100 or ApexProTelemetry and more.
“The beauty of GE technology is it gets the best in the market because we want to give patients what they need. So you can be sure that whatever numbers you see in the monitor, it’s accurate,” Dr. Sy said.
At the current rate that the country’s healthcare is improving, things are looking up. “[More] people are paying attention to healthcare. Yes, biomedical engineers don’t get a lot of face-to-face interaction with patients, but if biomedical engineers know the technology, they would be able to recommend better machines because they already know the how important it is,” she said.
HealthSolutions distributes GE’s innovative equipment. For further inquiries, the following contact details are active:
G/F Tao Corporate Center, 2291 Don Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City
TEL (632) 8365858 to 62
FAX (632) 8365863
Service Hotline (632) 8365853