Partnership enables scale-up of potentially-life-saving patient status technology

Isansys has developed the Patient Status Engine (PSE), an innovative patient monitoring system which uses digital and wireless sensor technologies to enable near-ICU-grade monitoring and advanced analytics of patient data.

The PSE is the world’s-most-complete, real-time, wireless patient monitoring system that creates and utilises data to free up more time for nurses to care for their patients and save patients’ lives by providing early warnings of life-threatening events.

It uses wireless, wearable sensors including the Lifetouch ‘smart patch’ cardiac sensor, and the Lifetemp continuous temperature sensor to automatically collect and analyse a patient’s heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, oxygen saturation levels and blood pressure in real-time.

In addition, nurses can add essential measures such as coma or pain scores at the bedside to produce a complete set of vital signs.

This information is then used to automatically calculate an early warning score. And, if a patient’s health starts to deteriorate, the system will provide a warning to nursing staff so they can act on it immediately.

Helping to optimise manufacturing operations and supply chains across many different domains is a core area of expertise for Ricardo and it is gratifying to bring these skills to the assistance of Isansys, whose products have the potential to benefit the healthcare of patients worldwide

This enables healthcare providers to offer a high standard of safe care based on continuous data and analysis, avoiding the need for intermittent manual ‘obs’.

And the platform is extremely flexible, enabling care to be provided outside the hospital walls with real-time, continuous data and predictive alerts from patients at home or in community care facilities.

The PSE is a fully-certified CE Class IIa and FDA Class II medical device which has been deployed in multiple major hospitals globally since 2014. But, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for this advanced patient monitoring system has increased at an unprecedented level.

To help scale up to meet this immediate demand, as well as planning for future expansion, Isansys is now collaborating with Ricardo to explore the optimisation of its manufacturing processes, including considerations of design for manufacture and assembly and supply chain development and management.

Ricardo’s manufacturing and strategic consultants are ideally placed to assist with this work, as the company has extensive experience in processes, from design for manufacture and assembly through to supply chain development.

In addition to producing a diverse range of complex products including engines, driveline systems and transmissions for motorsport and high-performance road cars; Ricardo also manufactures precision parts for a range of other industries, including aerospace and defence.

In the first stage of the collaboration Isansys and Ricardo have focused on a full review of the existing production process for the PSE.

Ricardo’s manufacturing specialists have reviewed the details of current operations, identifying how bottlenecks can be addressed and the processes of assembly and end-of-line testing made more efficient.

The next stage – now underway – is to focus on the implementation of measures identified, with the aim of improving efficiency and reducing assembly time.

Hospitals are seeking to deploy the PSE to rapidly increase capacity and numbers of higher-dependency beds and isolation wards in order to monitor ventilated patients and to use it to provide high-grade monitoring of patients at home or other locations outside the hospital itself

This work includes an examination of the supply chain, investigating, for example, the alternative or additional external sourcing of pre-assembled components.

Beyond the current collaboration, Isansys and Ricardo are also planning to explore possible longer-term improvements, including an evaluation of the design for assembly of the current product, as well as wider issues of supply chain development and management.

“We are seeing a surge in orders for our Patient Status Engine (PSE) product as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Keith Errey, chief executive of Isansys Lifecare.

“Hospitals are seeking to deploy the PSE to rapidly increase capacity and numbers of higher-dependency beds and isolation wards in order to monitor ventilated patients and to use it to provide high-grade monitoring of patients at home or other locations outside the hospital itself.

“Our collaboration with Ricardo will help us to scale up quickly, making us confident that we can meet the current demand, and also form plans to further increase our own production capacity.”

Simon Arbuthnot, regional director of Ricardo Strategic Consulting, added: “Ricardo is pleased to be working with Isansys on scaling up the PSE, which could have a transformative positive impact on patient monitoring, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

“Helping to optimise manufacturing operations and supply chains across many different domains is a core area of expertise for Ricardo and it is gratifying to bring these skills to the assistance of Isansys, whose products have the potential to benefit the healthcare of patients worldwide.”