NPI Deployed at Bangkok Hospital Cardiac Care Unit — Now Serving ECMO Patients

Bangkok Hospital's Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) has expanded its use of the NPI Pressure Re-balancing platform to include ECMO patients — the most clinically complex, movement-restricted cases in the ICU.

The Clinical Challenge

Patients on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) present one of the most difficult scenarios in pressure injury prevention. Connected to life-sustaining equipment through multiple lines and circuits, these patients cannot be repositioned using conventional protocols. Standard 2-hourly turning — the cornerstone of pressure injury prevention — is frequently contraindicated or impossible to perform safely.

What the Nursing Team Reported

Prior to the ECMO expansion, the CCU1 nursing team had already been using NPI on general cardiac ICU patients. Their observation: repositioning intervals were safely extended from every 2 hours to every 4 hours — with zero pressure injuries recorded.

This 50% reduction in manual repositioning burden, combined with zero adverse outcomes, provided the clinical confidence to extend NPI to ECMO cases.

Why This Matters

For ECMO patients, NPI's autonomous Pressure Re-balancing is not simply an enhancement to existing care — it addresses a gap where conventional prevention protocols cannot be safely delivered.

The system continuously monitors interface pressure via an IoT sensor array and autonomously redistributes pressure across high-risk zones including the sacrum, heels, and occiput — without requiring staff intervention.

Next Steps

Famme Works and the Bangkok Hospital CCU1 team have initiated a structured 6-month evaluation covering clinical outcomes, operational impact, and cost-effectiveness, with a formal review milestone in October 2026.