The Joint Commission and its mandate for 2014 surrounding alarm management will have device manufacturers of all types suddenly talking middleware. Look currently to Vocera www.vocera.com and its recent acquisition of mVisum which it brands as “The first and only FDA-cleared and Joint Commission-Ready Alarm Management Platform.”
http://mvisum.com/
Really, is this the first and only?! Should others in this marketplace like Philips IntelliSpace Event Management (a.k.a., Emergin), Connexall, Ascom and Amcom Software take a backseat? Even the upstart Extension Healthcare achieved FDA clearance in 2013. (See attached PDF from Emergin, 2011…FDA Clearance) and the URL below)
http://www.extensionhealthcare.com/about-us/
Of the established players, Connexall www.connexall.com is continuing to step up its game and extend its dominant lead over all others in the numbers and types of devices for which they provide connectivity solutions recently adding Welch Allyn, www.welchallyn.com and Covidien www.covidien.com to their extensive list of manufacturers with which it works and for which it provides secondary alarm management. Connexall is clear about what it is and what it does best and that is providing the broadest range of connectivity in the market. Key technical and financial risk avoidance attributes for Connexall include the following:
- Proven market leader with many established solid and satisfied reference sites.
- A solid financial position of which will allow continued R&D investments and field support. This is critical to a long term play in this market.
- Leadership technical capabilities to include a virtual server environment, redundancy, and a cloud based model.
- Continued integration models with leaders in the medical device connectivity space
In past years, we saw nurse call vendors stake out a claim in the space with direct SIP connections for secondary alarm management – a phone call as it were without benefit of context that middleware providers can attach to an alert -- better not have voicemail on the other end of that call! Now we have many communication providers claiming to be “the first and only…”
Investments in information technology are currently being heavily being scrutinized with the now absolute need to get the EMR rolled out across the IDN to meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. I will pretty much always place my trust in software companies that have been doing secondary alarm management for as many years as Philips and Connexall (it makes common sense to stay away from the deployment of hardware-based appliances in situ). Leave the hyperbole at the tradeshow booths. Watch for continued potential consolidation in this fragmented marketplace as many companies are tending to brand themselves in the alarm management space. An investment should be carefully considered regarding this and as well as ensuring continued support and R&D investments for years to come.
www.connexall.com
Download PHILIPS EMERGIN RECEIVES FDA 510
