Grady Memorial Hospital introduces new tech to identify brain bleeds
By Eric Mandel
Jul 24, 2018, 12:35pm
Grady Memorial Hospital has added a new technology it hopes will help doctors more quickly identify potential traumatic brain injury.
Grady said Tuesday it became the first hospital in Georgia to introduce BrainScope One, a handheld medical device that can assess patients with mild head injuries for possible brain bleeds at a patient's bedside.
The EEG-based (electroencephalogram) technology allows physicians to determine the likelihood of a brain bleed and if a patient needs further evaluation and treatment.
"We're using cutting-edge technology to make things faster and safer for our patients," said Dr. Hany Atallah, Grady's Chief of Emergency Medicine, in a news release. "It answers the most pressing question when treating a potential traumatic brain injury: 'Does the patient have blood in his head or not?' And, if the answer is no, then he can be discharged, and we can treat the next patient who's waiting for care."
The tech comes from BrainScope Company Inc., a medical neurotechnology company based in Bethesda, Maryland. The company recently published a white paper that found escalating awareness on the consequences of traumatic brain injury has resulted in an extra $76.5 billion annual burden to the healthcare system, and that BrainScope in emergency settings could reduce costs of up to 32 percent. BrainScope's website said the company is focusing the technology, which received FDA clearance in September of 2016, on five core markets: military, emergency departments, Urgent Care/Occupational Medicine, sports and international.
"BrainScope One is an efficient and cost effective way to assess most mild head injuries," Atallah said. "The wait time before and after a CT scan is significantly longer when compared to the BrainScope One EEG test, which produces results that do not require a radiologist to interpret. The device will significantly reduce unnecessary head CT scans on patients who may not really need them."
The Grady Health System consists of the 953-bed Grady Memorial Hospital, six neighborhood health centers, Crestview Health & Rehabilitation Center, and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding, which is operated as a Children's affiliate. In December, Grady received a $50 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, putting the health system within $10 million of reaching its $165 million goal to fund two capital projects that will enable the hospital to become more financially sustainable.
