Blog

The first week of February marks National Burn Awareness Week. Likely all have experienced a burn at some point as it’s the leading cause of accidental injury, but far fewer have ever experienced a severe burn requiring acute care. In the United States, the CDC estimates 50,000 burn injuries require a hospital stay each year and 20,000 have burns involving...

The month of May is host to several healthcare recognitions; there’s National Nurses Week, National Hospital Week, Stroke Awareness Month, and Mental Health Awareness Month. But, among all these recognitions, there is one that doesn’t get nearly as much attention: National Critical Care Awareness and Recognition Month (NCCARM). NCCARM honors the intensive care unit (ICU) teams that make a difference...

When it comes to glycemic management in the hospital setting, hyperglycemia is present in every unit. In order to standardize care, it requires a cross functional team with multiple clinicians, staff members, and departments all working together. With March being National Nutrition Month, we are focusing on one of the most important areas of collaboration, nutrition. Understanding and monitoring a...

“It’s only when you drop yesterday’s assumptions that you can glimpse tomorrow’s patterns and possibility. To see deeper, unsee first.” – Umair Haq Clinical inertia is a term that has been used to define the resistance to a new therapeutic treatment. Across healthcare, we see clinical inertia often, but perhaps the best example is the treatment of hyperglycemia. The way we...

During National Diabetes Month, the week of November 5-11 provides an opportunity to recognize a special group of healthcare professionals, diabetes educators.  This week, also known as National Diabetes Education Week, is meant to be a time to celebrate all that diabetes educators do to help those affected by diabetes. At Monarch, we’ve had the opportunity to work with many...

Advances in computer technology have brought about an ever-expanding list of tasks which had previously required the manual ‘human touch,’ and now are programmed to automatically occur. The high profile examples of this phenomenon are self-driving cars, thermostats that adjust themselves based on the time of day, and the amazing interconnectivity of the “Internet of Things.” Computer-guided systems can also...

Vidant Medical Center publicizes seven-year outcome data from Monarch Medical Technologies EndoTool at American Diabetes Association 76th Scientific Sessions. Vidant Medical Center, the flagship hospital for Vidant Health in Greenville, NC, is presenting their poster reflecting the improvement in quality of care with patients being treated on EndoTool Glucose Management System. The poster, “Use of a Computer-Guided Glucose Management System...

This past Wednesday, the team at Monarch Medical Technologies announced ground-breaking EREI technology for any hospital scenario where intravenous insulin is administered. Dr. Patrick Burgess, founder and inventor of EndoTool, described the technology as having the potential to nearly eliminate severe hypoglycemia while removing the risk of human oversight. EREI refers to “estimated residual extracellular insulin” present in a patient’s...

Everything is more intense in the intensive care unit (ICU). Critically ill patients demand more frequent and detailed monitoring as well as timely and precise interventions to address their fragile state. These patients health can be impacted by a wide range of factors, including blood sugar. Statistics show that approximately 30-50% of ICU patients experience stress-induced hyperglycemia, which is typically...

Concerned about its inability to stabilize glucose levels in its most acutely ill patients, Wilson Memorial Hospital, a 71-bed community hospital, engaged a well-known glycemic benchmarking service. The service found the hospital in the lowest quartile of benchmarked hospitals nationwide. Knowing that hyperglycemia correlates with poor clinical outcomes and mortality in patients with and without a history of diabetes, naturally...

Named one of the 100 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals in the nation, Holy Cross Hospital is a 571-bed hospital in seaside Broward County, Florida. Embracing a strategic intervention for unconscious cardiac arrest, brain injury and stroke patients, Holy Cross successfully introduced a hypothermia program. This program reduces core body temperature below 94° F [35° C] to improve neurologic recovery. However, such a...