News Feature | September 30, 2014

Electronic Patient Surveillance Cuts Mortality Rate 15%

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Remote Patient Monitoring Cutes Mortality Rate

The use of an electronic physiological surveillance system cut the mortality rate at two U.K. hospitals by 15 percent in just one year.

For two hospitals in the U.K., implementing an electronic physiological surveillance system (EPSS) has lowered the mortality rate by 15 percent in just one year. Results of a study on the subject, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, showed that after the EPSS technology was installed by nurses on their mobile devices, the mortality rate significantly dropped.

“Avoidable hospital mortality is often attributable to inadequate patient vital signs monitoring, and failure to recognize or respond to clinical deterioration,” explain researchers. “The processes involved with vital sign collection and charting; their integration, interpretation and analysis; and the delivery of decision support regarding subsequent clinical care are subject to potential error and/or failure.”

The Mirror reports that, since using iPads and other handheld devices instead of paper charts, nurses have saved nearly 800 lives. “Nurses recorded patients' blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels and other indicators on tablets and mobiles. Specialist software, called VitalPAC, automatically told them if the patient was deteriorating. If this happened the nurse was warned to increase the frequency of their monitoring of the patient and, in some cases, to alert a doctor or a rapid response team.”

According to Fierce Mobile Healthcare, the technology improves the performance of routine tasks; paper charts, however, did not improve patient care. "At both hospitals, multiyear statistical process control analyses revealed abrupt and sustained mortality reductions, coincident with the deployment and increasing use of the system," the authors said.

The study concluded, “The use of technology specifically designed to improve the accuracy, reliability and availability of patients’ vital signs and early warning scores, and thereby the recognition of and response to patient deterioration, is associated with reduced mortality in this study.”