GE Healthcare’s Mural Virtual Care Solution allows clinicians to remotely view numerous ventilated patients and identify patients at risk of deterioration

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Mural Virtual Care Solution is designed to provide a broad view across the ventilated patient population. (Credit: Pixabay/valelopardo)

US-based medical technology firm GE Healthcare has introduced a new software solution Mural to support clinicians and health systems in treating the COVID-19 patients.

The Mural Virtual Care Solution is designed to provide a broad view across the ventilated patient population in hospitals to help identify patients at risk of deterioration.

As part of its collaboration with Microsoft. GE Healthcare is making available the new solution on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft global chief medical officer David Rhew said: “Now more than ever we need to manage a greater number of ventilated patients with limited resources. Mural Virtual Care on Microsoft Azure allows for remote management and surveillance of ventilated patients at scale.”

Mural virtual care solution enables one clinician to monitor several patients at once

According to the company, with the increase in number of patients entering health systems for COVID-19 treatment, hospitals are facing increased demands on clinical resources.

GE’s Mural virtual care solution is said to address the issue by leveraging clinical surveillance of intensive care unit (ICU) patients in a central place, providing a complete view of patient data across the hospital network.

Three senior nurses and two intensivists monitor a Mural installation across a 100-bed multi-site ICU network around the clock. However, given the shortage of intensivists and bedside caregivers, Mural enables additional oversight of patients across the hospital network to support the teams.

By combining near real-time data from ventilators, patient monitoring systems, electronic medical records, labs and other system,  the solution allows one clinician to monitor several patients simultaneously.

In addition to the remote management, Mural would also enable health systems to activate care protocols for treating COVID-19 patients and ensure the protocols being followed by caregivers.

GE Healthcare president and CEO Kieran Murphy said: “As both large and small hospitals treat the growing number of COVID-19 patients, the strain on healthcare providers and systems will be unprecedented.

“Not only is GE Healthcare providing critically important medical devices to address this global challenge, but we are also rapidly scaling technologies to aid clinicians in delivering safe, effective and efficient care. We are excited to have a partner like Microsoft to help us arm clinicians with the software tools they need.”