Physiological Nursing Research Retreat

Contributed by Assistant Professor and Director Michele Pelter, RN, PhD, Department of Physiological Nursing and ECG Monitoring Research Lab

A two-day research retreat exploring various topics around improving in-hospital cardiac and physiologic monitoring took place this September in the department of Physiological Nursing of the School of Nursing at UCSF. The Electrocardiographic (ECG) Monitoring Research Lab (Current Director Michele M. Pelter, RN, PhD and Former Director, Barbara J. Drew, RN, PhD, FAAN) as well as the Hu Lab (Director Xiao Hu, PhD) served as hosts for the event.

The group welcomed Associate Professor in the Department of Physiological Nursing and President of Mortara Instruments Dr. David Mortara to the event. Twenty individuals attended the sessions including: students (undergraduate, pre-, and post-doctoral) and faculty (bioengineering, engineering and nursing) from UCSF and UC Davis (pictured below).

Photo from PN Research Retreat

Upper row (left to right): Yong Bia, Jorge Arroyo Palacios, George Rodway, Yalda Shahriari, Yuan Wang, Jason Wen, Michele Pelter, Claire Sommargren, Xiao Hu, David Mortara

Lower Row (left to right): Adelita Tinoco, Barbara Drew, Andrea Villaroman, Yuan Xu, Quan Ding

The group’s goal is to bring together a critical mass of interdisciplinary students and scientists to discover, develop, and disseminate innovative solutions to deliver the best methods for in-hospital monitoring and explore how these technologies can be used to improve patient care.

Several presentations from faculty, pre-doctoral students, and post-doctoral students showcased the cutting-edge work being done in alarm fatigue, alarm management, and physiological monitoring research at UCSF. UCSF is one of the international leaders in monitoring technology and alarms management strategies. The following are titles and presenters for the talks given at the retreat:

  • Retrieval of physiologic monitoring data in real-time—Yong Bai, PhD(c)
  • Poor ECG Signal Quality Associated with False Arrhythmia Alarms—Yalda Shariari, PhD
  • The Impact of Short Ventricular Tachycardia on Arterial Blood Pressure—Rich Fidler, PhD, CRNA and Xiao Hu, PhD
  • Intrapatient Relationship between QRS Amplitude and BNP Levels in ICU—Quan Ding, PhD
  • Overview of Sleep Disordered Breathing—George Rodway, PhD, APRN, UC Davis School of Nursing
  • Comparison of Cheynes-Stokes Respiration in Healthy and Critically Ill Cohorts—Adelita Tinoco, PhD(c), RN
  • Effect of Low-Amplitude QRS Complexes on False Asystole Alarms—Michele Pelter, PhD, RN
  • Reducing Clinical Alarm Fatigue Through Heart Rate Alarm Adjustment—Jorge Arroyo-Palacios, PhD