The name Visensia is supposed to make you think of a sixth sense -- VI, or six in Roman numerals, followed by sensia -- and that's exactly what the technology is designed to provide in a 24-bed surgical trauma step-down unit at UPMC-Presbyterian Hospital.

OBS Medical of Carmel, Ind., took the same machinery initially developed to predict airplane engine failure and looked to see if Visensia could predict when patients might develop an unstable state, according to Dr. Marilyn Hravnak, an acute care nurse practitioner and nursing teacher at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Dr. Hravnak, 56, of Chartiers, said she worked with professors and medical doctors Michael Pinsky and Michael DeVita on a quality improvement initiative with Visensia in the step-down unit "to see if you can improve the quality of care."

Visensia did just that.

Use of the technology at UPMC decreased the length of time patients were unstable, from an average of 113 minutes to 60 minutes -- a 67 percent decrease, Dr. Pinsky and Dr. Hravnak said. In addition, Dr. Pinsky said, no patient on the Visensia monitor has had an unexpected fatal cardiac event. "We've had people die who were expected to die from their illness, but no one died unexpectedly."

Dr. Hravnak was first author with Drs. Pinsky and DeVita on a phase 1 article printed June 23 in Archives of Internal Medicine.

For her work with Visensia, Dr. Hravnak received the international Bayada Award for Technological Innovation in Nursing Education and Practice, presented by the Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions, last Friday at the Drexel University Nursing Education Institute Conference in Atlantic City, N.J. She received $5,000, a crystal plaque and travel expenses to the conference.

Dr. Gloria Donnelly, dean of Drexel University's College of Nursing and Health Professions, said Dr. Hravnak's entry was "head and shoulders [above the others] because she offered evidence this technology works. She gave us hard data."

Visensia works this way: Four vital signs -- heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation -- are monitored by the Visensia machine and combined into one index on a continuum of zero, for perfectly stable, to 5.0, very unstable.

"When you get to 3.2," Dr. Hravnak said, "an alarm goes off in the hall and tells the nurse, the patient has violated ... the index. It calls a nurse's attention to the patient. We give them direction on what to do: Evaluate to look to see why the patient's unstable and to use the information along a nursing decision pathway. Sometimes they may be using a nursing intervention or sometimes they may call for a doctor or nurse practitioner. In some cases, it may result in a condition C [which brings an entire medical emergency team to the patient's side]."

The index measures continuously to detect more subtle changes from normal than when each vital sign is looked at periodically and individually.

"We looked at the level of instability before and after using Visensia and compared them," Dr. Hravnak said.

"What we found is by using Visensia information [we were] able to decrease the duration of time the patients were unstable and we were also able to decrease the numbers of patients who moved from minor instability to more serious instability because by detecting instability sooner, we were likely able to intervene and prevent progression."

Dr. Hravnak said the Visensia team still is "sharing the information with administration," but believes such technology has promise for wider use for improving patient safety.