Patients Should be Monitored for Respiratory Compromise 24×7 – this is the conclusion reached by a study by David Westfall Bates, MD (chief quality officer and chief of general internal medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor, Harvard Medical School).

Dr Bates’ study is highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article by Laura Landro, “Hospitals Find New Ways to Monitor Patients 24/7”, discusses the problem of respiratory compromise which, if undetected, can lead to fatal consequences:

After surgery or during hospitalization for illness, patients are at risk for complications that can quickly turn fatal, such as a depressed breathing rate that can lead to cardiac arrest caused by over-sedation or an adverse reaction to narcotic pain medications.

Patients can show signs of deterioration—known in medical terms as “decompensation”—as many as six to eight hours ahead of a cardiac or respiratory arrest, studies show.

But the signs aren’t always picked up or acted upon by staff. Patients on general medical and surgical floors are usually not monitored 24/7 unlike patients in intensive care units, who are hooked up to multiple machines and monitors.

What are the benefits of continuously electronically monitoring patients 24×7?

Dr Bates’ study found “shorter hospital stays and a lower rate of ‘code blue’ events (hospital lingo for a patient in immediate need of resuscitation or emergency medical attention), compared with units without the technology.”

To read the Wall Street Journal article, please click here.

• Respiratory Compromise