Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 17, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 19, 2018 - Jun 14, 2018
Date Accepted: Sep 24, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Continuous Versus Intermittent Vital Signs Monitoring Using a Wearable, Wireless Patch in Patients Admitted to Surgical Wards: Pilot Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial
Background:
Vital signs monitoring is a universal tool for the detection of postoperative complications; however, unwell patients can be missed between traditional observation rounds. New remote monitoring technologies promise to convey the benefits of continuous monitoring to patients in general wards.
Objective:
The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate whether continuous remote vital signs monitoring is a practical and acceptable way of monitoring surgical patients and to optimize the delivery of a definitive trial.
Methods:
We performed a prospective, cluster-randomized, parallel-group, unblinded, controlled pilot study. Patients admitted to 2 surgical wards at a large tertiary hospital received either continuous and intermittent vital signs monitoring or intermittent monitoring alone using an early warning score system. Continuous monitoring was provided by a wireless patch, worn on the patient’s chest, with data transmitted wirelessly every 2 minutes to a central monitoring station or a mobile device carried by the patient’s nurse. The primary outcome measure was time to administration of antibiotics in sepsis. The secondary outcome measures included the length of hospital stay, 30-day readmission rate, mortality, and patient acceptability.
Results:
Overall, 226 patients were randomized between January and June 2017. Of 226 patients, 140 were randomized to continuous remote monitoring and 86 to intermittent monitoring alone. On average, patients receiving continuous monitoring were administered antibiotics faster after evidence of sepsis (626 minutes, n=22, 95% CI 431.7-820.3 minutes vs 1012.8 minutes, n=12, 95% CI 425.0-1600.6 minutes), had a shorter average length of hospital stay (13.3 days, 95% CI 11.3-15.3 days vs 14.6 days, 95% CI 11.5-17.7 days), and were less likely to require readmission within 30 days of discharge (11.4%, 95% CI 6.16-16.7 vs 20.9%, 95% CI 12.3-29.5). Wide CIs suggest these differences are not statistically significant. Patients found the monitoring device to be acceptable in terms of comfort and perceived an enhanced sense of safety, despite 24% discontinuing the intervention early.
Conclusions:
Remote continuous vital signs monitoring on surgical wards is practical and acceptable to patients. Large, well-controlled studies in high-risk populations are required to determine whether the observed trends translate into a significant benefit for continuous over intermittent monitoring.
ClinicalTrial:
International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number ISRCTN60999823; http://www.isrctn.com /ISRCTN60999823 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/73ikP6OQz)
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.