EMU Monitoring
24/7 Coverage
Bringing patients into an epilepsy monitoring unit for accurate diagnosis or pre-surgical evaluation is a significant undertaking for the hospital facility. Using ABRET board certified and eligible long term monitoring (CLTM) technologists, NMT will document and analyze EEG patterns in real-time and present these to the hospital neurologists for their determination of whether or not recorded seizures are epileptic in nature for both the adult and pediatric patient population.
Patient Safety
Due to the limited number of qualified technologists, 24/7 EMU monitoring is generally not available at most hospitals. This staffing inadequacy puts patients at risk.[1] Patients who are unattended during a seizure can fall or injure themselves in a number of ways and can pull out surgically implanted electrodes. NMT’s 24/7 observation with rapid identification of behaviors and seizures reported directly to the care givers alerts hospital staff of emergencies should the patient need immediate attention or treatment to stop prolonged seizures.
Shortened Length of Stay
Providing 24/7 EMU support can expedite the diagnosis or pre-surgical evaluation process and generally decrease the length of stay for the patient. This will maximize the EMU efforts for those patients with insurance plans that grant a limited number of days in an EMU unit.
Identifying and treating seizures and patient events immediately can mean the difference between timely intervention and costly and complicated patient outcomes that might have been otherwise avoidable. Consider using NMT, the experts for your EMU monitoring needs. Multiple levels of support are available. Call us to discuss your needs at 410-489-5655.
[1] Phillips, L. “Death in Epilepsy Monitoring Unit Raises Questions about Safety Policies and Practice Standards”. Neurology Today:
21 August 2008 - Volume 8 - Issue 16 - pp 1,15.