Medical device helping NHS nurses save time

Nurses at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are saving time and improving patient care thanks to the introduction of vital signs monitoring devices.

The devices, developed by medical technology company Welch Allyn, have helped save 5,800 hours of nursing time.

Nursing staff are using the devices across hundreds of beds to capture important clinical observations about patients in their care. The devices capture physiological measurements at the bedside and automatically transfer the information to the Trust’s electronic patient record system, eliminating the need for nurses to manually enter patient data. 

Nurses are also notified when patients are at risk of deterioration, allowing them to respond quickly to patients that require immediate attention.

The Trust has so far deployed the devices in 25% of its wards and is intending to deploy them more widely following high-impact results around time savings. The devices can reduce the time required to take parameters by up to 50% with over one minute saved each time a set of observations is taken.

Gerry Bolger, chief nursing information officer and clinical lead for nursing informatics at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “This is a very exciting development for our hospitals. We have seen significant time-releasing benefits so far, and the next step is to roll out more of the connected bedside monitoring devices throughout our hospitals over the coming months. We also want to look at how the recorded observations, which are able to provide more accurate readings, will be able to assist doctors and nurses towards the early identification and treatment of patients at risk of sepsis.”