The Maternal Fetal Medicine Units (MFNU) Network is currently conducting a national multi-center, randomized, clinical trial evaluating the STAN Fetal Heart Monitor. The Utah site consists of the University of Utah Hospital, McKay-Dee Hospital, Intermountain Medical Center (IMC), and Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC). LDS Hospital also participated early in the study.

Of the 14 centers across the country that include about 30 hospitals participating in the study, McKay-Dee is the #2 recruiting hospital in the network (that’s even compared to centers with multiple hospitals). IMC comes in at 4^th, UVRMC at 6^th and University of Utah at 7^th. In other words, each of Intermountain’s individual sites have outperformed most of the multi-hospital “centers” involved in the trial.

Appropriately, Anders Due-Boje, CEO of Neoventa, the Swedish company that makes the STAN fetal monitor, visited Utah to learn how we’ve managed to enroll 27% of the entire study enrollment across the country.

Given our outstanding success, Neoventa wanted to hear about our experiences with STAN and get feedback on what we like and to respond to any issues that our clinical staff may have encountered. Due-Boje said, “You are my VIPs.” Intermountain Healthcare has handled more STAN cases than any other single institution in the country – so we can understand why he said that!

We have had very good feedback from the physicians and midwives who have chosen to participate and use the STAN machines with their patients. Intermountain is at the forefront of testing this new technology, and it is expected that it will become a part of standard obstetric care in the future. This STAN study started in 2010 and is expected to continue through the end of February 2014. We are all anxious to see the final results.