New Study from St. Elizabeth Health Center Trauma Team Demonstrates Value of Cheetah Medical's NICOM® Bioreactance® Technology in Level I Trauma Center

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio and VANCOUVER, Washington, August 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Results from a study led by Dr. Michael Dunham at St. Elizabeth Health Center (SEHC) in Youngstown that validate Cheetah Medical's non-invasive NICOM system for use in trauma activation were published today in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. This new study is the first to validate this innovative technology in the trauma setting.

Previous studies have proven the value of monitoring cardiac output in trauma patients to predict and diagnose patient conditions. However, most methods are invasive or accurate only in limited, controlled situations. Because of this, factors such as blood pressure and heart rate (which have been shown to have poor relation to cardiac output) are more frequently used to guide treatment in trauma patients.

Recently, the new Cheetah NICOM Bioreactance Technology has made it possible to monitor cardiac output simply, quickly, and non-invasively. The new study by Dr. Dunham and team is the first to comprehensively examine the use of this technology in trauma patients. SEHC's trauma team began using NICOM routinely in severely-injured trauma patients in the fall of 2010. Investigators used NICOM in 270 consecutive trauma patients.

Results of the study:

Clinical Validity - Investigators found that NICOM measurements could better predict complications such as major blood loss and mortality than blood pressure. NICOM cardiac output can help doctors identify the difference between patients with and without blood loss.

Applicability - In 90% of all patients, it took an average of only eight minutes after arrival at the emergency department for a cardiac output to be obtained. According to the authors, "This speaks to the user-friendly features and reliability of the NICOM® system at a time when clinical evaluation and management complexities substantially challenge trauma team members."

Length of Stay - The team compared records of these 270 patients to trauma patients from the same time periods in previous years. For the 95% of patients in the most common trauma severity categories, the average length of hospital stay was nearly one day shorter for the NICOM patients.

"In trauma, we need to quickly diagnose complex injuries and rapidly make treatment decisions," said Dr. Dunham, assistant director of trauma and critical care services at SEHC. "With little time to prepare and investigate, we constantly look for more information about the patient. The results of our study show that hemodynamic monitoring gives us significantly more information than traditional monitoring methods.

"As a continuous and non-invasive system, NICOM gives us information within minutes of the patient's arrival that we normally had access to only in intensive care settings. This strategy empowers the trauma team with valuable information that speeds therapeutic decisions and, in our experience, leads to improved outcomes and reduced length of hospital stay compared to using traditional measures such as blood pressure.

"The results from this study imply that trauma programs should seriously consider incorporating non-invasive hemodynamic and cardiac output monitoring," concluded Dr. Dunham.

"We are pleased with the study findings and hope they will encourage use of Cheetah's NICOM system in the management of trauma patients," said Yoav Avidor, MD, CEO of Cheetah Medical. "We believe that NICOM may enable hospitals to advance the quality of care for a large number of trauma and other patient populations presenting to the emergency department who are not benefiting from advanced hemodynamic monitoring today. Further, we find the apparent reduction in length of hospital stay to be very encouraging, as it may better enable hospitals to utilize NICOM technology in order to advance care while dealing with the significant costs of treating trauma victims."

About Cheetah Medical

Cheetah Medical's NICOM® Noninvasive Cardiac Output and Hemodynamic Monitoring System uses the company's proprietary BIOREACTANCE® Technology to deliver continuous, accurate, noninvasive cardiac output (CO) and other vital hemodynamic monitoring parameters, useful for fluid management and drug titration. The system is FDA-cleared and CE Marked, and since its commercial launch in 2008 has been adopted by a growing number of clinicians worldwide. Cheetah Medical headquarters is located in Tel-Aviv, Israel and its United States headquarters is located in Vancouver, Washington. For more information, visit our website at http://www.cheetah-medical.com.

About St. Elizabeth Health Center

St. Elizabeth Health Center is a Level I Trauma Center that is part of Humility of Mary Health Partners (HMHP), an integrated health system located in the Youngstown/Warren area. HMHP is a region of Catholic Health Partners (CHP) in Cincinnati, the largest health system in Ohio and one of the largest Catholic health systems in the United States. HMHP provides a full spectrum of health care services, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency, urgent care, home care and long-term care.  Members are St. Elizabeth Health Center, St. Joseph Health Center, St. Elizabeth Boardman Health Center, HM Home Health Services, The Assumption Village, Humility House, Hospice of the Valley and Laurel Lake. Learn more about HMHP online at http://www.HMpartners.org.

For further information contact:
Kristina Frey
Cheetah Medical
[email protected]
+1-317-489-8922

Sally Hammel
Humility of Mary Health Partners
[email protected]
+1-330-480-2106

SOURCE Cheetah Medical Ltd