COVID-19 2nd wave: Hospitals turn to remote patient monitoring to manage shortage of beds

Bengaluru: Hospitals in the most affected states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & West Bengal, which are reeling under the COVID-19 surge, have turned to Remote Patient Monitoring Solutions to serve COVID-19 patients in need. Dozee, a pioneer in Contactless Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) solutions is helping more than 150+ hospitals across India to convert any bed into a step-down ICU in under 2 minutes and enables remote monitoring of patients outside of the ICU. In the last two weeks alone, more than 15 hospitals have signed up with Dozee across India and currently, over 4000 COVID-19 High Dependency Unit (HDU) Beds are being monitored continuously in institutional settings.

Dozee has also set up a Patient Monitoring Cell within hospitals to ensure 24*7 on-ground support and alert escalation. IGMC Nagpur and ESIC, Bengaluru have these centres up and running with many other hospitals looking to start operations this week.

The Patient Monitoring Cell enabled by Dozee helps keep track of all the patients and alerts the doctors and nurses on any escalation. The hospitals are overwhelmed by rising cases and hospital admissions coupled with shortage of staff and beds. Dozee has stationed a dedicated resource at these centres to help the doctors with prioritising alerts and monitor critical patients. This is helping doctors with the required data on each patient’s vitals at the right time and enabling them to take any action required.

Dr. Vaishali Shelgaonkar, Associate Professor & HOD, Dept. of Anaesthesia, Indira Gandhi Government Medical College, Nagpur, “The entire healthcare system is under pressure with spiraling cases and this time it is multiplying faster than in the first wave. The country has 2 million hospital beds and only 100,000 ICU beds. Coupled with the shortage of trained nursing staff, it is impossible to keep an active watch on the health of all the patients continuously, especially outside the ICU during these challenging times. We have adopted Dozee RPM to help us manage patients who require continuous monitoring while safeguarding our staff. Dozee is playing a crucial role in monitoring over 150 patients at a time and has helped the timely transfer of over 200 patients to the ICU.”

Mudit Dandwate, CEO & Cofounder, Dozee says, “With the second wave spreading on a larger scale, hospitals are now adopting RPM & new AI technologies to help combat the Coronavirus outbreak. Remote Patient Monitoring significantly reduces the risks of in-person contact, managing staff shortages, and providing people with an alternative to the traditional forms of medical consultations especially during COVID. We are committed to providing our technology & closely working with hospitals to protect healthcare workers and patients in the global fight against COVID-19.”

India is facing a spiralling health crisis, with its second wave of virus infections hitting record highs every day and overwhelming hospitals around the country as supplies of intensive care beds come under pressure. To tackle shortage of beds and effectively treat patients requiring continuous monitoring and treatment, hospitals across are adapting Remote Patient Monitoring in the fight against the second wave of Coronavirus outbreak.

Dozee Pro is a Contactless Vitals Monitor for hospitals and features an AI-powered triaging system that enables the continuous (more than 100 times per hour) and accurate monitoring of a patient’s heart rate, respiratory rate, and other clinical parameters like sleep apnea, myocardial performance metrics without coming in contact with the patient. It comes with an industrial grade contactless sensor, communication pod and cloud-based patient monitoring tool with an AI-powered triaging system which captures real-time body vitals, and provides round the clock monitoring for patients who were previously manually monitored only every couple of hours. The Dozee Pro also features an extensible platform where it integrates with other devices such as a SPO2 sensor.

The Dozee Pro captures 250 data samples per second and gives a reading every 30 seconds. This consistent stream of patient data aids the medical staff with early detection of patient deterioration and notifies the care team of any abnormalities before it becomes critical. Doctors & healthcare teams can remotely monitor the patients’ health from the centralised patient monitor, where at a time, hundreds of patients can be monitored from the web-dashboard and also from a mobile phone app. Custom alerts can be put on every patient, helping doctors optimise treatment plans, focus on deteriorating patients and provide improved proactive care.

Made in India, Dozee has been launched with a 98.4% medical grade accuracy after successful clinical trials conducted with over 1000 subjects at NIMHANS and Sri Jayadeva Institute. Apart from its use in hospitals, Dozee also allows healthcare providers to remotely monitor patients’ vital signs, receive updates and deterioration alerts from home and other care settings outside the hospital. The solution includes an integrated early warning system for patients in the post-discharge, outpatient settings and hospital-level home care settings. Dozee Pro helps patients, their family members, and healthcare providers with real-time data and alerts, enabling early identification of clinical deterioration.