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CareFlight pilot hailed as a hero
Posted in Medical News by Mat Packer on November 20, 2009 | No Comments
A CareFlight medical evacuation flight operated by Pel-Air from Apia (Western Samoa) to Melbourne was scheduled to land at Norfolk Island for a planned fuel stop on Wednesday evening when it encountered deteriorating weather conditions.
After several unsuccessful approaches and with diminishing fuel, the pilot-in-command, Captain Dominic James, made the decision to carry out a controlled landing onto the water off the coast of Norfolk Island.
The aircraft, a specially-equipped medical retrieval Westwind jet carried out a successful landing on the water and the patient, accompanying spouse and two medical crew as well as the pilots evacuated safely. They were rescued by boat and brought to the local Norfolk Island hospital for observation. The Captain reported that all passengers and crew did not have any apparent injuries.
Further details are on CareFlight’s website.
CareFlight are a valued client of SCHILLER Australia, having outfitted several of their retrieval aircraft with ARGUS ProLifecare patient monitors, so we are very happy to see that no one was injured in the ditching of this aircraft.
And we’d like to extend a big “dude you’re awesome” to the Captain Dominic James for his text book ditching.
ECGs May Misdiagnose Common Heart Condition
Posted in Medical News by Mat Packer on November 18, 2009 | No Comments
Orlando, FL (AHN) – A common test prescribed to detect heart problems can often lead doctors to misdiagnose a common heart condition, according to a recent study.
Researchers at the Henry Ford Hospital studied 500 patients and found a false positive reading for the condition, known as left ventricular hypertrophy, between 77 and 82 percent in patients screened by electrocardiogram. The researchers said they found a false negative reading between 6 and 7 percent in the same sample.
Doctors typically give several ECGs before diagnosing left ventricular hypertrophy.
The researchers said is a statement that CT scans were a more accurate way of diagnosing the condition. An ECG measures the electrical activity of a heartbeat and a CT scan uses X-rays to take clear and detailed images of the heart.
The study was presented at the American Heart Association’s annual scientific conference in Orlando, Florida.
Nintendo Wii Vitality
Posted in Medical News by Mat Packer on July 3, 2009 | No Comments
By now many of us are familiar with Nintendo’s Wii Fit, if not you can find out more information here, well now we’ve got the Wii Vitality sensor, Nintendo’s new addition to their revolutionary Wiimote game controller was announced at the recent E3 gaming industry expo in the USA.
From the press release – “Nintendo’s newest groundbreaking product, the Wii Vitality Sensor, expands the appeal of video games. It will initially sense the user’s pulse and a number of other signals being transmitted by their bodies, and will then provide information to the users about the body’s inner world.”
Straight away the applications are obvious, apart from integration with the Wii Fit platform, there’s a host of medical potential in Children’s Hospitals all over the world. How much easier would it be to check on your patients vitals if it was in the form of a game?
It’s certainly a converging world now with all sorts of technologies merging and becoming useful in so many ways we’ve never dreamt of in the past.
72 hour Holter Recordings with MT-101 nano
Posted in Medical News, Product Spotlight by Mat Packer on July 2, 2009 | No Comments
The strengths of Holter ECG monitoring include its simplicity and the lack of need for patient activation. The continuous monitoring allows capture of asymptomatic arrhythmias or arrhythmias associated with loss of consciousness as well as documentation of circadian variation in arrhythmia occurrence.
However the regular 24-hour Holter ECG’s imposed a very limited period of monitoring to a very short window that is often inadequate to diagnose the cause of symptoms.
With SCHILLER’s new MICROVIT MT-101 nano Holter ECG Recorder, you may now monitor your patients heart activity up to 72 hours.
The MT-101 nano Holter Recorder is designed for 2 or 3-channel ECG recordings, depending on the ECG cable you use.
To view and analyse your recorded data you may simply transmit the patients data via integrated USB interface or external SD card reader to any computer, featuring the Medilog Darwin analysis system.
On a very user-friendly Windows Interface, the MT-200 Analysis Software executes the most complicated operations, such as:
- Analysis of 2 or 3 channels in different combinations
- ST-Analysis
- HR Trend overview
- HR Variability (Fire of Life)
- Pacemaker Templates
- Template Matching
- Reclassification in less than 2 seconds by ‘Drag & Drop’ function
When it comes to administrating and saving your data, the system enables:
- Generation of PDF files
- E-mail function
- Connection to the SCHILLER SEMA-200 Data Management System
Are you interested in trying SCHILLER’s new 72-hour Holter ECG System? Just give us a call and we’ll take care of the rest!
