Wearable Electronic Monitoring of Vital Signs in Hospitalised Adults: A Nursing Focused Scoping Review of Clinical, Economic and Implementation Outcomes.

This was a scoping review, so it did not formally appraise study quality or prove that wearable monitoring works. The evidence was very heterogeneous: 67 studies used different devices, settings, designs and outcomes, which limits direct comparison. Most studies were observational, pilot or single-site, and only 7 were randomised controlled trials. Nearly a third of included studies, 21, were pilots, and follow-up periods were often short. Economic findings were mostly proxy measures such as time savings; only 2 studies performed explicit economic evaluations. The review included English-language studies and excluded grey literature, so relevant work in other languages or implementation reports may be missing. Patient privacy and data governance were not explicitly examined, despite being important for ward use. Wearable technology changes quickly, so some device performance and implementation findings may already be outdated.

The authors reported no funding and no conflicts of interest.

Do not read this as proof that wearable monitoring improves mortality, length of stay or costs. The review mapped mostly pilot and observational studies, and the authors say benefits depended on alert governance, workflow integration and response capacity.