New Device is Bloodless Blood Monitor

              New Device
Is Bloodless
Blood Monitor
By EVANGELINE TOLLESON
Journal Medical Writer
The tiny infant lay on his back, seemingly
unaware of the tubes attached to his frail
body or of the activity surrounding him.
Nurses and technicians responded to a
high-pitched alarm of the monitoring device
standing beside the small table which served
as a bed for the 1-day-old premature baby
who was born two to three weeks early.
The alarm sounded from a transcutaneous
oxygen monitor (TCM), a new electronic
device used for infants in the neonatal in-tensive
care unit at Schumpert Medical Cen-ter.
The TCM monitors levels of oxygen
through electrodes which are attached to the
baby's skin with adhesives.
By regulating the percentages of oxygen
intake in newborn infants requiring respira-tory
aid, personnel in the department can
help keep critically ill babies alive while their
lungs develop or complications are corrected.
When the alarm sounded for the infant lying
on the table, a simple readjustment of the
oxygen level inside a small oxygen tent
returned the machine to its silent state and
allowed the infant to receive an adequate
supply of oxygen.
The monitoring device, which has been on
the market for more than a year, was de-veloped
originally by the National Aero-nautics
and Space Administration to monitor
oxygen levels of astronauts on space mis-sions,
according to John Heydel, technical
director of respiratory therapy at Schumpert.
The TCM uses a safe, non-invasive procedure
which improves the care of critically ill
infants, he said.
"You want to make sure you aren't giving
too much or too little oxygen," Heydel ex-plained.
"Prior to the use of the device,
everytime you wanted to measure the oxygen
level of a baby you either had to stick a needle
in his skin and obtain a blood sample or draw
blood from an arterial line attached to the
umbilical cord."
Because blood samples require laboratory
testing, the exact amount of oxygen level in
babies cannot be immediately known without
the monitoring machine. The TCM provides a
way to measure the level constantly, he said.
It does not alleviate the need to take blood
tests, however, because the tests determine
the levels of carbon dioxide and other body
chemicals.
The monitors cost about $10,000 each and
Vickie Hutto (left), coordinator for respiratory therapy at Schumpert Medical Center's
neo-natal intensive care unit, and Anna Crochet, R.N., check the transcutaneous
oxygen monitor which continually shows the oxygen supply of the premature infant in
the background. (Journal Photo by John Graber)
presently the hospital has two of them, he
said. Because there are not enough monitors
for each infant in the neo-natal intensive care
unit, the infants who need the most constant
observation are selected for the devices.
"It's really good to have it when you have a
critically ill baby," said Vickie Hutto, coordi-nator
for respiratory therapy at the hospital's
neo-natal intensive care unit. "We can watch
babies more closely and catch changes (in
their oxygen content) a lot quicker."
The infant who was being monitored when
the alarm sounded was born with pulmonary
congestion, she said. The monitor was set at
high and low safety margins and would sound
if the oxygen content in the infant fell below
orjraised above the set margins.
LSU Medical Center's neo-natal intensive
care unit also has TCM devices, she noted.