Can continuous remote vital sign monitoring reduce the number of room visits to patients suspected of COVID-19: A quasi-experimental study.
H M R van Goor, Y Eddahchouri, K van Loon and 4 others
PMID 33465579WHAT IT FOUND
Continuous remote vital sign monitoring did not reduce room visits or PPE use for patients suspected of COVID-19.
Visits for vital signs dropped, but total room entries stayed the same or increased, likely because nurses combined tasks and responded to remote alarms.
Key findings
01The primary outcome, total room visits, showed no significant change after introducing continuous monitoring.
02Visits specifically for obtaining vital signs decreased from 14.1% to 6.9%, but this was not attributed to the monitoring system in the adjusted analysis.
03Personal protective equipment usage did not decrease; it remained statistically unchanged after the intervention.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was conducted during the early, chaotic phase of the pandemic when disease knowledge and protocols were changing rapidly. The before-and-after design cannot rule out other factors that influenced nurse behavior, such as growing experience with COVID-19 or the system. Observers could not enter rooms to verify the exact purpose of each visit, so they relied on staff self-reporting. The monitoring system did not measure core temperature or consciousness, requiring nurses to enter rooms for those checks anyway. The Hawthorne effect may have influenced staff behavior, though the authors argue it affected both periods equally.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding sources were explicitly declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that the drop in vital-sign-specific visits proves the monitoring system worked. The adjusted analysis showed no significant effect from the technology on these visits, and the total number of room entries did not decrease.