Arcos Revolutionizes Burn Care with Panasonic Toughbook tablet PCs
Burn Navigator® Improves Clinical Outcomes for Injured Soldiers and Other Patients.
A major burn injury is a devastating and severe form of trauma, requiring complex,comprehensive and continuous care. A critical part of this treatment is the administration of fluids intravenously within the first 24 hours. For a soldier hurt on the battlefield in a remote area, providing this initial care is all the more challenging.
“Fluid management for burn patients requires medical staff to assess urine output and otherfactors on an hourly basis and adjust fluid amounts accordingly, to ensure patients are not being over or under hydrated. The approach most commonly used requires manual titration of fluid that may result in human error, potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes.
Aeromedical Certification
Arcos’ Burn Navigator® obtained Aeromedical Certification for H-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the U.S. Army, based on airworthiness testing performed by the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (USAARL).
This certification means the Burn Navigator® is approved for patient care use during flight on these aircraft and allows the Burn Navigator® to be used in military en-route care, provided that aircrew and medical personnel are familiar with the instructions and guidance in the certification documents.
Helicopter certification requires one of the most rigorous sets of tests, including hard acceleration in multiple directions, lifetime vibration testing and rigorous electromagnetic compatibility testing.
FDA Panel Spotlights Burn Navigator®
The annual Smart Monitoring meeting features many new technologies for critical care. This year, the FDA keynoted the regulatory clearance process for critical care decision support devices featuring the Burn Navigator as a case study.
Suzanne Schwartz, MD, MBA, lead reviewer of the 510(k) submission: “On a personal note, as a surgeon trained in burn trauma management and having been a clinical researcher in the field for many years, I’d be hard pressed to identify for myself a greater professional reward to date, than seeing this technology come to fruition and made commercially available to our injured population. And for that, I have all of you on the panel to thank as colleagues who were instrumental in championing this effort.”
Kevin Chung, MD, Medical Director of Burn ICU at USAISR, provided the background of why the Burn Navigator was developed originally. Maria Serio-Melvin, RN, MS, described the Human Factors testing process required to ensure the device was straight-forward, safe, and easy to use.