PHRI Scientist Michael McGillion, PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux and their study, PVC-RAM, are featured on the cover of Canadian Healthcare Technology magazine this month.
The article, titled “Multi-site study tests virtual care for post-op patients,” discusses the PHRI study which launched in May and is rapidly recruiting 900 patients at hospitals across Canada. One of the project’s leaders, Dr. Devereaux, describes PVC-RAM as a “trial on steroids, when it comes to starting times and recruiting timelines.”
The impetus for the study came from the growing need, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce the number of hospital readmissions, and thereby increasing the capacity to do more surgeries, both urgent and elective, and keeping people out the hospital whenever possible.
The national magazine’s feature story also discusses the technology behind the trial: a system called Cloud DX Connected Health, which beams the data gathered by a suite of vital-sign devices through a tablet from the patient’s home back to monitoring stations at the hospitals. As Dr. McGillion, Principal Investigator of PVC-RAM notes, “when patients hear they can have round-the-clock access to nurses, they want it, plain and simple.”
The system incorporates artificial intelligence; applying this technology to say 20,000 patients, Big Data can be collected and use it to develop algorithms to predict bleeds, surgical site infections, sepsis, injuries to the heart muscle, and more, notes Dr. Devereaux.
The same month, Kingstonist, media covering the Kingston, Ontario area, offered patient stories of people who have benefit as participants in the PVC-RAM study.
