Next-Gen Physiological Patient Monitoring System (PPM)

SITUATION

• Requirements for new monitor included going from bedside to transport with the push of a button. Additionally, the new device had to connect to hospital networks and communicate data to many other monitoring stations within a hospital 
• This next-gen PPM device must allow new devices to automatically transfer and display parameter, waveform, and alarm data without the monitor knowing the specific type of connected device

• Much of the support software used a platform architecture model unknown to the internal software engineering team

Challenges

• Existing software architecture did not support requirements to turn current bedside patient monitor into a transport monitoring system
• New device protocol was in the development phase at the same time the requirements for using the protocol were also being defined

• Project was behind schedule due to undersized internal engineering team and operational performance gaps

SOLUTION

• Developed a new flexible software platform architecture with a generic open protocol that allowed the monitor to go from bedside to transport with the push of a button
• Defined the software architecture and initial design documents
• Improved product stability by fixing architectural issues related to module integration and implementing a rigorous unit testing framework

Results

• Conducted many successful product demonstrations allowing senior business leaders to see the new product concept in its initial development stages
• Early demos confirmed that new device could display waveforms on other hospital devices using the new protocol and dynamically connected and disconnected devices into the monitor seamlessly 

• Areas for development process improvement were identified during the collaborative partnership with MedAcuity