Aiming to bring "Better Living in Intensive Care" for both patients and caregivers, the French Intensive Care Society issued guidelines to promote quality of life for ICU. As the largest premier reference and teaching hospital in France, CHU de Toulouse experimented with some of the most pioneering approaches to improve life in ICU. These include inviting musicians to play classical music in the care area every week to ease patients in and reduce caregiver burnout.

When asked about the one thing that improves life quality the most, caregivers at CHU de Toulouse told us: the use of modern monitoring technology.



Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Toulouse is France's largest premier reference hospital with 14 medical centers and 2,880 beds. Being a national top ranking medical institution for 15 consecutive years, CHU de Toulouse maintains the highest clinical standards for the 230,000 inpatients and 660,000 consultations it receives every year.

Safety ensured by powerful monitoring capacity


The critical conditions of ICU patients call for a powerful monitoring system that can give clinicians the information they need to look after patients with confidence and efficiency.

"Our main challenges in providing the best treatment are having a monitoring system that’s adapted and dedicated to ICU patients." said Dr. Beatrice Riu, Consultant of ICU at CHU de Toulouse.



"I'm not talking about standard parameters found in all monitoring systems, but what we look for in ICU. These all play a part in our decision to choose Mindray."

Dr.Beatrice Riu
Consultant of ICU
CHU de Toulouse


Dr. Riu acknowledges Mindray BeneVision Patient Monitoring System's capacity in addressing her concerns. "For example polytrauma patients and patients with brain conditions need to be monitored with intracranial pressure sensors and electro-encephalograms. We also do hemodynamic monitoring, thermo-dilution monitoring with PiCCO. These are all found in the BeneVision System."

Life improvement with BeneVision Solution


Stress in ICU not only comes from medical conditions, but very often from the unnecessary tension of both patients and caregivers. To ease patients in and reduce caregiver burnout, CHU de Toulouse carries out a series of practices to improve life quality in ICU.

Among these the BeneVision Central Monitoring System makes the most remarkable change. Outside the intensive care rooms, there are two rows of BeneVision workstations that are connected to the patient monitoring system where caregivers can do their routine work without having to go back and forth into the patients' room or Central Station.

Dr. Riu talks about the benefit of these workstations, which is agreed by senior engineer M. Thomas Willemyns of the biomedical division.



"We can do everything outside and not disturb patients. It’s also an advantage in terms of hospital acquired infections. For patients this means less noise pollution, no alarms and less worry because they don’t see the parameters."

Dr.Beatrice Riu
Consultant of ICU
CHU de Toulouse



"The major strength of this installation is that the BeneVision WorkStations become multi-disciplinary spaces and the cubicles become proper quiet spaces for patients to recover in the best possible way."

M.Thomas Willemyns
Senior Biomedical Engineer
CHU de Toulouse

Another approach of innovations linked to the BeneVision solution and dedicated to the structure of ICU is the use of SmartPager, a medically certified distributed alarm system, with which caregivers are able to receive alarms from his/her patients anywhere so that abnormal situations can be handled in time and ensure patients’ safety.


Steamlined workflow and ease of use


Caregivers need more time to focus on their patients, and hence streamlined workflow that minimize unnecessary time spending. Ease of use is one important aspect.

"BeneVision system has been very easy for us to use because it’s a very intuitive system and the Mindray team have provided excellent support in training staff throughout the whole nursing team. We don't need much time to get used to the system or to figure out how to use it."

Mme.Carole Haubertin
Chief Nurse of ICU
CHU de Toulouse

Another critical component of the workflow is data transfer. "BeneVision monitoring system has a connection with our professional software. We don’t have paper files anymore we do everything electronically and so we really need a reliable and effective interface." said Dr. Riu. Engineer M. Thomas Willenmyns added that "the Mindray monitoring system uses a private network which communicates with the hospital network through gateways. This allows us to receive various updates and conforms to the hospital’s IT security policy."


Envision more


As a holistic and professional clinical solution provider, Mindray envisions more with a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable perspective, and is dedicated to developing the most suitable solutions and services tailored to caregivers' specific needs. Today, Mindray solutions can be found in healthcare facilities in over 190 countries and regions, including some of the most prestigious teaching hospitals like CHU de Toulouse. The pursuit for customer satisfaction never ceases. 

Special thanks to:
Dr. Beatrice Riu, Consultant, Intensive Care Unit
Mme. Carole Haubertin, Chief Nurse, Intensive Care Unit
M.Thomas Willemyns, Biomedical Engineer, Biomedical Division 
CHU de Toulouse

«« BeneVision: envision the future of patient monitoring


Study: AKI alerts associated with lower mortality, LOS »»



Latest Articles

intensive care,French Intensive Care Society,CHU de Toulouse,Dr. Beatrice Riu, Mindray, Mindray BeneVision Patient Monitoring System,M.Thomas Willemyns Better living quality for intensive care