St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network is marking a decade of leadership and transformation in patient safety through its innovative use of Masimo continuous monitoring technology, an advancement that has helped the network become the No. 1 ranked health system for quality, safety and patient experience according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n
Over the past 10 years, St. Luke\u2019s has implemented Masimo hardware and software across all medical\u2011surgical units and other areas that do not require one\u2011to\u2011one nursing care.<\/p>\n
Patients in these units wear a noninvasive Masimo device that continuously monitors vital signs, enabling care teams to identify early signs of deterioration and reduce transfers to the ICU, sepsis rates, code events, readmissions and complications associated with sedatives or narcotics.<\/p>\n
\u201cA patient can be on a floor at our Miners Campus, and if they are starting to show signs of sepsis, it will trigger an alert in our remote Virtual Response Center,\u201d said Aldo Carmona, MD, senior vice president of Clinical Integration and chairman of Anesthesiology. \u201cIt\u2019s mind\u2011boggling to realize that all our patients are getting the same level of monitoring, the same level of scrutiny. There has been a zero incidence of central nervous system injuries from sedatives or narcotics since the system\u2019s implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel Candillon, MD, chief medical officer of Masimo, said, \u201cSuch powerful innovation in health care delivery will undoubtedly continue to fuel this unique and historic partnership as we introduce the next generation of wearable sensors and novel disease-detection algorithms into their trusted hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foundation of St. Luke\u2019s system for patient safety is Masimo\u2019s Root Patient Monitoring and Connectivity Platform, complemented by the Masimo Patient SafetyNet, which provides continuous supplemental monitoring and real\u2011time clinical notification.<\/p>\n
When a patient\u2019s vital signs move outside customized safety parameters, PSN automatically alerts caregivers, functioning as an early\u2011warning system that helps prevent emergencies before they become more challenging and even potentially fatal crises.<\/p>\n
St. Luke\u2019s further advanced the system by engineering a direct connection between Masimo technology and its Epic electronic medical records.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the first in the nation to map Masimo to Epic and their predictive models,\u201d explained Charlie Sonday, St. Luke\u2019s Chief associate medical officer and CMIO of Medical Informatics. \u201cEpic had not engineered that, so we did that with them, and that was a major engineering feat to figure out how to map the live data feeds into a predictive model.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Luke\u2019s first introduced Masimo technology through a small pilot program on a high acuity trauma floor. After demonstrating strong clinical value during subsequent rollouts, the system expanded across the network. During the COVID\u201119 pandemic, PSN played a critical role by allowing nurses to monitor patients remotely, reducing unnecessary exposure. St. Luke\u2019s also used the technology to remotely monitor more than 6,000 patients at home.<\/p>\n
Thanks to St. Luke\u2019s exceptional care and innovations, the network was more successful at saving the lives of COVID-19 patients. A statistical analysis of hospital data drawn from more than 1,300 U.S. hospitals by PINC AI, a leading technology and services platform owned by Premier Inc., showed that St. Luke\u2019s saved 700 more COVID-19 patients than would have been the case if the network had performed similarly to a typical U.S. hospital.<\/p>\n
Today, every patient in a medical\u2011surgical unit is monitored for oxygen saturation and pulse rate around the clock, with nurses adding blood pressure, temperature and respiratory rate. All data flows automatically into the electronic medical record. If a reading falls outside the safe range, PSN immediately notifies the appropriate nurse so they can respond at once.<\/p>\n
Beyond reporting numbers, the system identifies trends and early indicators of patient deterioration.<\/p>\n
By recognizing subtle changes in heart rate, oxygenation and blood pressure, PSN can issue alerts for sepsis risk or other clinical concerns. This predictive capability allows teams to intervene early, thereby improving outcomes and preventing crises.<\/p>\n
The benefits have been significant. For instance, a PSN alert recently notified a nurse that a patient\u2019s oxygen level had fallen to 70%; fast intervention helped save the patient\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Since adopting the system, St. Luke\u2019s has achieved 24% fewer medical-surgical cardiac arrests by fiscal year 2025, with 92 cumulative arrests prevented from FY2023 to FY2025; 38% survival-to-discharge in FY2025, nearly 69% better than the 22.5% national benchmark; 147 lives saved over four fiscal years, including 55 additional lives saved and 92 averted cardiac arrests, relative to the national benchmark, plus 91 ICU transfers avoided in FY2025 alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these patients have a Masimo Root System Monitor in each room, and that\u2019s the connection into Epic,\u201d said Dr. Carmona.<\/p>\n
The technology alone cannot achieve this level of safety. \u201cYou need a culture where teamwork truly exists,\u201d said St. Luke\u2019s Chief Quality Officer Donna Sabol. \u201cMasimo in isolation isn\u2019t going to make this happen. You need the buy-in of your nursing staff, your leaders and your financial people, because this is an investment that provides better care for our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Matthew Zheng of St. Luke\u2019s Pulmonary & Critical Care Associates shows the Masimo device that helps detect trends and early indicators of patient deterioration. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network is marking a decade of leadership and transformation in patient safety through its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-175813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}