ART MEDICAL, the Israeli startup that created the first smart enteral feeding solution using sensor-based technology, today announced their advanced algorithms for the company’s sensor-based smart tubes platform, which collects new, and untapped patient data to reduce the risks of medical complications. ART MEDICAL’s advanced algorithms automates the placement of feeding tubes, and detection of gastric content aspiration to improve clinical outcomes.
Today when a patient enters the ICU, and receives feeding tubes, there is no effective method to indicate whether they are experiencing complications in real time. Nurses and doctors are required to constantly monitor patients in order to identify these events, and minimize their complications, however this activity is done manually, and can easily overlook time-sensitive events that can lead to complications, or even death.
With patients having a 100% chance of contracting pneumonia after just one week in the ICU, often a result of gastric reflux typically caused by feeding tubes, many people are getting sick and even dying from medical complications unrelated to the initial reason they were hospitalized. ART MEDICAL’s clinically tested algorithms embedded in its smART system, monitor gastric reflux, and feeding tube placement, continuously and automatically to detect, and alert medical staff of any abnormalities during tube procedures.
To reduce aspiration pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in ICUs, ART MEDICAL’s algorithm for aspiration signal analysis, transmits real-time information to detect gastric reflux and secretion, and determine any threat to the patient. This clinically tested algorithm is capable of evaluating the patient’s risk level, and probability for aspirating gastric content that may develop aspiration acquired pneumonia at any given time.
Additionally, ART MEDICAL’s algorithms also assure accurate placement of the feeding tube by continuously monitoring its 3D position in the GI tract, and indicating any abnormal movement. The standard method for identifying tube positioning complications, including placing the tube in the trachea instead of the stomach, is through X-ray imaging, which is undesirable due to radiation exposure and high costs.
ART MEDICAL’s tube placement algorithm pinpoints tube positioning, and guides medical staff to correctly reposition the tube within the esophagus and stomach, continuing to do so even after initial placement is confirmed, throughout the the duration of enteral feeding within the patient’s stay. ART MEDICAL’s smARTrack device embedded with this technology received FDA clearance.
This level of automated assistance enables ICU caregivers to provide even more personalized treatment for patients by leveraging untapped data that has not been collected yet or monitored, and contributes to a more comprehensive diagnosis that may improve patients’ clinical outcomes.
“With these new algorithms, we hope to save more lives in hospitals and prevent complications in ICUs that are unrelated to the original reason of hospitalization,” says founder and CEO, Liron Elia in a statement. “Aspiration pneumonia is a major risk for intubated patients, and we’re committed to leveraging our technology to solve this problem.”
