ECRI Institute: Top hospital tech trends for 2017
Last Monday, the ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit research organization dedicated to improving patient care, announced the release of its 2017 Top 10 Hospital C-Suite Watch List. The annual report provides a rundown of technology trends that hospital leaders should embrace and those they should steer clear of in the coming years.
The following are among the developments spotlighted in this year’s watch list.
Endoscopic surgery: Florescence imaging makes an entrance
Indocyanine green (ICG), a florescence imaging technique, is gaining traction in the endoscopic surgery sphere, where it “aids in visualizing malignant tissue that is undetectable under conventional white light,” the ECRI Institute notes. With this approach, physicians can easily distinguish malignant tumors from healthy tissue and surgically dissect the malignancy. ICG fluorescence endoscopic procedures are now used during sentinel lymph node mapping and have proven beneficial in detecting gastrointestinal cancer.
Opioid epidemic: Tests and gadgets target addiction
New genetic tests seek to identify patients at the greatest risk for opioid addiction and those least likely to experience pain relief from opioid treatments. “The difficulty lies in the fact that genetics are thought to account for about half a person’s risk, and some gene variants may play a role that has not been identified yet,” the ECRI Institute states. “Thus, available tests are not thought to be ready for wide use, and many believe the science has a long way to go before a genetic test with real clinical utility is available.”
Another emerging opioid intervention: biosensors. Currently under development at the University of Massachusetts, the wristwatch-like devices are intended to determine relapse episodes in patients under treatment for opioid addiction.
Robotic surgery: Big-ticket operating table eases patient repositioning
A new OR table streamlines repositioning during robotically assisted laparoscopic surgery (RALS). Historically, changing a patient’s position during RALS has involved undocking and redocking the patient from robotic arms—a time-consuming process. Early last year, Intuitive and Hill Rom/Trumpf Medical released the TruSystem® 7000dV, which integrates with the da Vinci Xi robot system, enabling the robot’s arms to automatically reposition within the patient’s body as the table moves. This equipment may prove valuable for robotic-assisted colorectal surgery, a complex RALS procedure that requires frequent patient repositioning. However, “the great majority of procedures performed (hysterectomy and prostatectomy) require no such repositioning,” the ECRI Institute states, underscoring the table’s steep price tag.
Click here to download the full report.