Following open heart surgery, patients often experience rhythm disturbances which can lead to serious complications during recovery. To counter this, cardiac surgical patients are typically fitted with a temporary pacing system in order to regulate the heart’s rhythm and ensure a near-normal cardiac output is maintained.

Post-surgical temporary pacing therapy is achieved by attaching a pacing wire to the outer surface of the heart, feeding the wire through the patient’s abdomen, and attaching this to an extension lead which is inserted into a temporary pacing device that is kept at the bedside.

Research and experience show epicardial pacing wires to be both unstable and subject to degeneration from epithelialisation (scar tissue formation), with published articles highlighting the potential dangers of temporary pacing and recommending that checks on the pacing parameters of such devices be performed at least every 12 hours.

This instability, coupled with devices that lack the sophistication seen in modern permanent pacing, as well as device management typically undertaken by ITU doctors and nurses operating in high pressured environments, can lead to a failure to identify acute and sudden changes in device function or patient underlying rhythm. As a result, cardiac output may be affected, resulting in higher use of inotrope (muscle contraction) medication and an extended and costly ITU stay. Other more serious consequences of a failure to recognise acute changes in pacing function can lead to serious harm to the patient, including causing cardiac arrest and death.