New Fully Non-invasive Hemodynamic Monitoring Technologies: Groovy or Paltry Tools

Abstract

It is always alluring to dream about the future of medical diagnostics and treatment possibilities to meliorate patient care. Decreasing the distress from invasive procedures, either diagnostic or therapeutic, seems to be one of the possible ways to do so. Decreasing the number of injections, catheters, tubing and large wounds is beginning to be an important part of contemporary medicine. On the other hand, invasive monitoring tools sometimes provide us with very important information hardly obtainable by other means in the critical care environment. Even in this milieu, significant effort has been made to replace highly invasive tools with less-invasive equipment; hemodynamic monitoring being an extraordinary example of this phenomenon.