May 14th, 2018, Charlottesville, Virginia – the Journal Pediatrics has just published two articles about HeRO monitoring.
In the first, “Predicting Extubation Outcomes-A Model Incorporating Heart Rate Characteristics Index”, authors Goel, Chakraborty, Watkins, and Banerjee examined HRC as a predictor of extubation outcome in neonatal patients. They found that patients that failed extubations had both higher baseline HeRO Scores as well as higher post-extubation changes in HRC Scores than infants that succeeded extubation.
In the second, “Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Length of Stay Reduction by Heart Rate Characteristics Monitoring”, Swanson and co-authors examined length of stay differences between the two arms of the HeRO randomized controlled trial in light of the competing outcome of a mortality benefit. They found HeRO monitored patients to be discharged alive and before the 120th day of life at a higher rate than controls (83.6% versus 80.1%, p=0.01). They also found that among surviving patients with a positive blood culture, HeRO monitored patients were discharged at a 3.2 day lower PMA than controls (p=0.03).
“Clinicians face a real challenge in choosing when to extubate a ventilated patient,” commented Dr. Geoffrey Alms, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at MPSC. “Leaving the patient ventilate increases the risk of pneumonia, but pulling the tube out before the patient is ready, resulting in re-intubation, results in its own set of morbidities. Any role that HeRO can play in helping the clinicians choose the right time to extubate will greatly benefit patients.”
Turning to the length of stay publication, Alms commented, “Length of stay in the NICU is a surrogate for cost. So, reducing length of stay is not only good for patients and families, but good for hospitals as well.” He added, “The more we study HeRO monitoring, the more we learn about its benefits.”