The Challenge:

A common situation at hospitals nationwide is a growing demand to initiate EEG monitoring in Critical Care Units as quickly as possible at any time of the day. But hospitals often have no EEG Technologist coverage at night and the staff EEG technologists who work the day shift are burning out from the increased on-call demand.  The lack of trained staff to apply EEG electrodes can mean that physicians wait many hours to evaluate and treat patients at risk for non-convulsive status epilepticus (NCSE).

The Solution:

At one hospital facing this issue, the solution has been the new CortiCap disposable, premeasured electrode set from CortiCare.  The CortiCap was introduced to the ICU charge nurses as a way to initiate after-hours’ EEG recordings when they did not have an EEG technologist available. CortiCare staff helped run a 2-hour training session with the charge nurses covering the application of the CortiCap and initiating the recording on the hospital’s EEG systems.

When a patient is admitted in the evening or night and the physician requests that EEG monitoring be initiated ASAP to evaluate for NCSE the nurses can grab a CortiCap Application Kit and apply the CortiCap in less than 20 minutes.  EEG electrodes are placed in the correct locations without the need to measure and mark each spot and a simple cable connection is made from the CortiCap to the bedside EEG machine. This has provided their patients with a high-quality, standard 10- 20 EEG recording with electrodes that do not need to be switched out by the EEG tech the next morning and can stay in place for several days if clinically needed.

The CortiCap solution has proven to be cost-effective, while positively impacting patient care. A one-hour training is often sufficient to learn to correctly apply the CortiCap without previous experience in EEG application techniques.

Find out more about CortiCap https://corticare.com/corticare-stagin/corticap/