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FLOOR MODEL Covidien wants to send patients home with DVT prophylaxis.
The unit's screen is user-intuitive, displaying images to keep patients abreast of what the machine is doing. It's a sequential, circumferential and gradient device: The disposable compression sleeves squeeze the legs sequentially from the bottom up; gradient pressure decreases in the sleeves in an upward movement to ensure blood moves up the leg; and the sleeves wrap around the entire limb, meaning the bladder goes from tip to tip, inflating the whole sleeve.
Covidien has partnered with a durable medical equipment provider, which delivers the system to patients' homes and educates them on its proper use. At the end of the prescription, the device is sent back to the equipment provider at no cost (or hassle) to facilities and surgeons.
Mechanical compression is a well-accepted modality in DVT prophylaxis. We currently apply the treatment to in-house patients who've undergone hip and knee replacements and lower extremity trauma surgery, or to patients who struggle to ambulate soon after surgery. Sending patients home with mechanical compression certainly makes a lot of sense. If the cost-benefit analysis works out from an insurance perspective, take-home DVT prophylaxis seems like a wonderful idea.
