Clinical Computer Systems Inc. in Illinois has entered a reseller agreement with Ann Arbor’s AlertWatch that will allow Clinical to distribute AlertWatch:OB’s FDA-cleared Maternal Safety System in the U.S.
The system provides alerts and communication in the labor and delivery unit and has been used to monitor more than 15,000 births.
“Shockingly, every eight to 10 hours in the U.S., a mother dies during childbirth,” says Dr. Kevin Tremper, founder of AlertWatch and an anesthesiologist at the University of Michigan. “This rate is three times the rate of other industrialized countries and, for every death, there are 70 near misses. Data shows that many of these could have been prevented with a timelier response. Before now, providers haven’t had a tool that gives them the right information in time to intervene.”
A recent study showed that the system was better at identifying postpartum hemorrhage than the standard Maternal Early Warning Criteria. Another study revealed that 83 percent of providers approved of the application.
The system is the first to integrate features including:
- The Maternal Early Warning Score, which improves the detection of postpartum hemorrhage while reducing nuisance alerts by 95 percent;
- Automated risk assessment for each patient using hemorrhage risk guidelines;
- Unit- and patient-level dashboards showing pertinent information; and
- Condition- and provider-specific escalation pathways for improved response time and collaboration.
“(The) Maternal Safety System will be a much-needed addition to help elevate the perinatal standard of care that CCSI, with the OBIX Perinatal Data System, continues to strive for,” says Rick Daniells, vice president of business development for Clinical. “With maternal mortality emerging as a critical topic in every labor and delivery unit worldwide, this safety system is a positive step in reducing the incidence rate of post-partum hemorrhage, its leading cause.”
AlertWatch was founded in 2011 and develops and markets clinical decision support systems for hospitals.
Clinical Computer Systems develops perinatal systems and support services. It has been in business for more than 25 years.
