This article documents Ansar's ANS monitoring technology's ability to help septic patients. Sepsis accounts for the vast majority of trauma deaths after the first 24 hrs following trauma or emergency surgery. This article says that we can detect sepsis earlier (up to 24 hours earlier) and do it non-invasively, (the only other measures are invasive - read: big long needles). In fact, by the time the current methods confirm Sepsis, it is almost too late (one hour one way or the other can mean life or death). We give the medical professions up to 24 more hours to recover a patient; as a result, the resuscitation can usually be affected less heroically.

William C. Shoemaker, MD, of Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center finds that Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) monitoring from Ansar, Inc. of Philadelphia, PA can detect sepsis earlier than any other non-invasive method, and can improve the prediction of survivability and enhance indications of mortality and morbidity in critically ill or injured patients. Dr. Shoemaker is the recipient of the recipient of the first "Life Time Achievement Award in Critical Care." With patients who are monitored from entry to the emergency room (ER), through discharge from the ICU, Dr. Shoemaker finds that ANS monitoring significantly out-performs all other non-invasive predictors of mortality and morbidity. ANS monitoring was also found to suggest causes for morbidity and mortality earlier than any other non-invasive measure. Preliminary evidence suggests that ANS monitoring can even indicate the onset of sepsis, ARDS, Organ failure, and other life threatening diseases earlier than any other non-invasive measure.

Shoemaker finds paradigm shifts are indicated based on non-invasive ANS measures of individual patients' responses to critical illness or injury. Typically, heart rate, blood pressure, and cardiac output parameters are stabilized and returned to normal in emergency patients. These parameters are sympathetically driven. It is known that a significant number of critically ill or injured patients, even if they have their sympathetically mediated parameters stabilized and normalized, are still at risk for morbidity or mortality. ANS data supports this.

The sympathetics are only half the story. Dr. Shoemaker suggests that stabilizing and normalizing the patient's parasympathetics is also crucial in at least two-thirds of the cases. This can be achieved by hyperperfusion, assuming defunct capillary beds are not permanently closed. Before Ansar's technology, it was not possible to measure the parasympathetic nervous system independently, quantitatively, and simultaneously with the sympathetics. Ansar's technology has enabled a whole new field of medicine. One that was only hinted at by cardiac output measures and more invasive measures. Ansar's ANS monitor is a powerful addition to these measures.