Clinical Study of Continuous Non-Invasive Blood Pressure Monitoring in Neonates.

The continuous monitoring of arterial blood pressure (BP) is vital for assessing and treating cardiovascular instability in a sick infant. Currently, invasive catheters are inserted into an artery to monitor critically-ill infants. Catheterization requires skill, is time consuming, prone to complications, and often painful. Herein, we report on the feasibility and accuracy of a non-invasive, wearable device that is easy to place and operate and continuously monitors BP without the need for external calibration. The device uses capacitive sensors to acquire pulse waveform measurements from the wrist and/or foot of preterm and term infants. Systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressures are inferred from the recorded pulse waveform data using algorithms trained using artificial neural network (ANN) techniques. The sensor-derived, continuous, non-invasive BP data were compared with corresponding invasive arterial line (IAL) data from 81 infants with a wide variety of pathologies to conclude that inferred BP values meet FDA-level accuracy requirements for these critically ill, yet normotensive term and preterm infants.

California NICU disaster preparedness.

OBJECTIVE: NICU patients are disproportionately affected by any disaster due to their vulnerability and highly specialized care needs that require a multitude of resources. Research in disaster preparedness and its effect on NICU patients is limited. STUDY DESIGN: From March to May 2018, NICUs across California participated in a survey designed to assess their preparedness for a disaster. RESULTS: Of the 84 responding units, 99% were urban, 73% were nonprofit, and 65% were community NICUs. As for NICU participation in hospital training exercises for disaster preparedness, 10% did not participate in annual drills, 44% did once a year, 36% did twice a year, and 10% did more than two times per year. CONCLUSION: We showed that many NICUs had redundant systems in place and plans for various disasters; however, there is not consistent participation by NICUs in hospital training exercises for disaster preparedness.