Also, our capital budget only had a certain amount allocated for the purchase of monitors this year. That was essential, because we couldn't even get replacement parts for those monitors. Monitors chosen based on evaluation, clinical testing However, Koury notes that quality of care, not the Managed Use Program, was the major deciding factor in the hospital's decision to use GE Medical Systems monitors. Clearly, the oldest monitors were in critical need of replacement. But hospital decision-makers were also aware that monitoring technology had changed.
Monitors are no longer stand-alone boxes, but are part of an information system.
Therefore, the hospital was not interested in replacing only the oldest monitors, but in creating an integrated system that would require replacing some monitors that were only two years old. So they put together a multi-disciplinary team to critically evaluate their options. We narrowed the field to GE and another major monitor manufacturer. Physicians and the committee visited both manufacturers. We then did a three-week clinical trial in which both companies' monitors were installed on eight critical care beds in four different critical care units, and nurses and physicians evaluated them.