New EEG Monitoring System Helps West Florida Division Expand Its Reach

At AdventHealth Tampa, we now offer 24/7 continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring at eight hospitals in our West Florida Division — and counting. Using a hub-and-spoke model and Nihon Kohden’s Live View Panel Pro technology, we’ve standardized testing and expanded our service area, monitoring patients at facilities several hours from Tampa.

Learn how our new EEG system benefits our health system, our providers and our patients.

Better Support for the Hub-and-Spoke Model

For years, EEG monitoring in the West Florida Division has followed a hub-and-spoke model. We’ve leveraged our control room for the entire division to provide remote monitoring of EEG machines at various hospitals.

The Live View Panel Pro is specifically designed for this model. Its features make it easier to:

• Work with multiple off-site locations.
• Communicate between EEG technologists in the control room and providers at the bedside.
• Keep epilepsy patients at their community hospitals instead of transferring them to our central hub for neurodiagnostic care.

“The advantages we are creating for AdventHealth West Florida Division are the gold standard of care,” says Brian Harper, regional director of neurodiagnostic shared services at AdventHealth Tampa.

“We can provide this level of care at some of our rural hospitals that might not have the same services. By networking to a centralized hub-and-spoke control system, we can improve patient safety because we don’t have to transfer patients for monitoring. They can stay local.”

24/7 Remote EEG Monitoring at Eight Hospitals

With the Live View Panel Pro, we can provide 24/7 coverage for inpatient EEG monitoring. In the past, if a patient received care outside of Tampa, this type of monitoring wasn’t possible.

For example, if a patient went to our hospital in Ocala, Florida, the team could only run a bedside EEG for 30 minutes to one hour. If the patient had no events during that period, we wouldn’t be able to categorize their condition.

Now, at eight of our hospitals, we can hook up a person to the EEG machine in the room with video and hand it off to the control room, where an EEG technologist monitors a patient for as long as needed. If they have an event, the tech contacts the neurologist, so they can view results and order appropriate treatment.

“When you don’t have access to a control room like this, you may not have enough trained eyes to be monitoring continuously, so there’s more opportunity for things to get missed,” says Brittany Feldman, neurodiagnostic manager at AdventHealth Tampa.

“We have very qualified technologists who watch that EEG 24/7. An event can happen in less than a minute. So, it’s important for faster recognition and treatment. Our technologists can notify our physicians in real time so they can look at it from anywhere, even at home in the middle of the night.”

Point-to-Point Communication During and After a Seizure

Live View Panel Pro is a one-stop shop for epileptologists, neurologists, and EEG technologists. With this technology, techs can talk directly to the machine in a patient’s room, bypassing unnecessary extra steps.

“Now everything is standard, very easy and quick,” says Harper. “We don’t have to call hospital operators to get transferred to a nurse’s station to get a nurse bedside for a patient having a seizure. You just talk through the equipment.”

Physicians who cover multiple hospitals can come to the central location and see all their patients on the main database. They can use point-to-point, two-way voice communication to speak with nurses, patients and other care team members at the bedside.

The user-friendly interface and enhanced reviewing tools result in quicker interpretations, real-time treatment and a reduced length of stay for patients.

EEG Standardization and Safety Improvements

Before Live View Panel Pro, though our teams still used the hub-and-spoke model for EEG monitoring, the system was faultier. Several times a week, a facility might experience downtime from networking issues. Since switching technologies, those issues have stopped.

The entire system provides reliable networking and better communication from the control room. Review and monitoring speeds are consistent across facilities. This standardization means all patients get the same high-quality monitoring and care.

“You know that if you’re in the West Florida Division of AdventHealth, you’re being taken care of and watched very closely,” says Feldman. “We pride ourselves on that.”

To contact the team, please call Call813-615-7279.

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