Clinical staffing shortages, particularly in nursing, predate COVID-19 by decades, but the pandemic's impact on the profession and economy has been far-reaching. In fact, according to a recent survey, more than one-third of nurses plan to leave their jobs by the end of 2022.
Addressing Staff Challenges with Surveillance Monitoring
In the medical field, addressing staff challenges with surveillance monitoring is crucial as the competition for nurses has become increasingly intense. Due to staffing shortages, some hospitals and health systems have had to limit capacity. To ensure safe and effective patient care while maximizing efficiency for nurses and other clinicians who may work in smaller teams, healthcare providers can utilize technologies and informatics solutions that provide real-time insights into a patient's condition across different care settings.
Why Hospitals Need Surveillance Monitoring
In the medical field, surveillance monitoring is essential for hospitals as it can help detect signs of deterioration in patients, indicating for example, that a potential life-threatening event such as cardiac arrest is imminent.
This is particularly true for respiratory depression, as signs of respiratory distress and insufficiency have been identified as key indicators of patient deterioration on the general care floor. [2] In fact, every hour that goes by without detecting deterioration increases the risk of death in the ICU by 1.5%.
Clinicians can use surveillance-level data, also known as streaming data that can be gathered from virtually any connected medical device, aggregated, and then analyzed to generate actionable insights to minimize and prevent adverse events.
This data provides a continuous view of a patient and can be used to analyze various physiologies to determine what is meaningful and what this might say about a patient's status. For example, an elevated heart rate may not indicate anything on its own, but when combined with an elevated respiratory rate and decreasing blood pressure, this surveillance-level data may help predict that something more serious is about to occur.
Clinical surveillance data overlaid on monitoring data may allow for greater specificity and sensitivity in patient care. This comprehensive view of multiple vital signs over time can help clinicians detect deterioration and the need for intervention before a resource-intensive, an all-hands-on-deck response is required. Early detection and prevention of an adverse event may also allow hospitals to safely allocate staffing, medication, and equipment resources to stabilize the patient.
Ready to Move Towards Surveillance Monitoring?
Surveillance-level insight is standard protocol in the intensive care unit, but it is not always the case in medical-surgical and other general care units.
Sotera Wireless' ViSi Mobile Patient Monitoring System is a cutting-edge platform for comprehensive physiological monitoring. It is designed with the patient's mobility and comfort in mind, as well as the goal of keeping clinicians connected with their patients at all times and from anywhere, across various care settings.
ViSi Mobile is also the only FDA-cleared monitor that allows continuous monitoring of heart rate (HR), pulse rate, respiratory rate (RR), oxygen saturation (SpO2), skin temperature, and continuous noninvasive cuffless blood pressure in a small device that the patient can wear.
Convenience and reliability all in one device. Read more published clinical research on our device here.
Sources:
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/5599582/SoteraWireless-April2020/PDF/White-Paper-Surveillance-Monitoring-General-Care-Part-2-1.pdf
https://ahainstructornetwork.americanheart.org/idc/groups/ahaecc-public/@wcm/@ecc/documents/downloadable/ucm_481402.pdf