Hillrom recognised for its two new respiratory health innovations

The projects’ intuitive interfaces and precision systems provide patients with proven respiratory therapies.

Global medical technology leader Hill-Rom Services Pte. Ltd. is a global medical technology leader whose 10,000 employees have a single purpose: enhancing outcomes for patients and their caregivers by Advancing Connected Care™. Its innovations help enable earlier diagnosis and treatment, optimise surgical efficiency and accelerate patient recovery while simplifying clinical communication and shifting care closer to home.

Hillrom has recently launched two new respiratory therapy devices—the Synclara™ Cough System and the Volara™ System, which provides hospital-grade oscillation and lung expansion (OLE) therapy.

OLE therapy has been proven to deliver clinical and economic outcomes in acute care settings. Recently published research in the Journal of American College of Surgeons showed that pulmonary treatment with OLE therapy, along with standard respiratory therapy, reduced the rate of certain post-procedural complications in high-risk surgical patients who underwent thoracic, upper abdominal or aortic open surgical procedures.

"As part of our vision of Advancing Connected Care™, we want to make it easy for patients to leave the hospital with the technologies they need to get better faster," said John Groetelaars, president and CEO of Hillrom. For designing successful innovations to accelerate patient recovery, the company has bagged the Designed in Singapore Award in the Medical category.

The Volara System delivers this trusted OLE therapy, combining Continuous Positive Expiratory Pressure (CPEP), Continuous High-Frequency Oscillation (CHFO) and a nebulizer in one por­table, lightweight device, which can be used for a number of acute and chronic conditions that are treated both in acute care settings and at home.

The impact of OLE therapy on Postoperative Pulmonary Complications (PPC) is clinically proven, with an overall significant relative reduction in PPC by 31% and a significant relative reduction in PPC among intubated patients of 47%. It also demonstrated a significant reduction in mean length of hospital stay to 1.6 days, a clinically relevant reduction in ICU stays to two days, and a significant reduction of 64.4 hours for time-on-ventilator.

The Volara System is versatile, enabling patients to continue receiving OLE treatments with the precise settings they used in the hospital, at home. Volara can be used with a mouthpiece, face mask, tracheostomy or in-line on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, The Synclara Cough System is a non-invasive therapy that simulates a cough to remove secretions in patients with compromised peak cough flow. It uses mechanical insufflation-exsufflation technology to clear secretions from the upper airways, representing the most complete solution available to assist patients with vital secretion evacuation. Synclara has been designed with the programmability and sensing technology to deliver a more individualized treatment, the portability and ease-of-use to improve the patient experience, and specialized patient training, therapy optimisation and support.