How moving to flexible patient monitoring can help health systems respond to challenges

Across the country, health systems face continued pressure to provide consistent, reliable care, account for patient satisfaction, and address ebbs and flows in demand – all while patient populations grow more complex and resources strain from the effort. Adaptable patient monitoring could contribute to a solution, yet many monitoring ecosystems remain stuck in the past.

With only fixed, bed-focused monitors available, care teams must often take patients to higher-acuity monitors simply because extra measurements are needed in the moment, rather than bringing technology to patients. When patients do require transporting, transitions between equipment remain numerous and cumbersome. Gaps in monitoring, stymied surge responses, fragmented workflows and patient embarrassment from further exposure can result.

With wireless connectivity, portability and full, cross-acuity functionality, a newer generation of patient monitors can help overcome the hurdles – particularly if equipment is standardized. To secure these solutions’ full possibilities, some health systems have even embraced a continuous monitoring workflow, with one device from admission to the end of high-acuity monitoring.

A look at the potential benefits of these flexible monitoring solutions:

Monitors that offer measurement flexibility, portability and wireless connectivity allow care teams to watch a wide range of patients anywhere the network can reach. If a hospital needs to renovate a particular unit for example, it can temporarily care for (and watch) those patients elsewhere in the building. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some health systems extended their wireless networks to parking lot tents to expand monitoring capacity during surges. Now, with demand for emergency department care unlikely to abate anytime soon and beds scarce, health systems can start continuous monitoring sooner, in hallways, garage bays and other unconventional spaces.

Removing constraints with fixed equipment can present monitoring opportunities that previously posed logistical challenges. For example, it may allow care teams to monitor end-tidal CO2 after procedures (especially if opioids were given) or ensure continuous cardiac monitoring for certain patient populations. It may also support uninterrupted monitoring during transport within the hospital and better visibility at the destination – historically, monitoring lagged when patients were switched to new equipment. In contrast, flexible solutions can support timely transitions or even enable the same monitor to remain on. By reducing monitoring gaps, health systems can support clinical best practices, back patient safety and drive data-driven decision-making.

Hospitalizations are already vulnerable times for patients, and the typical experience of moving between care areas can exacerbate that perspective. A patient may go from a stationary monitor to a single-purpose monitor and back to a stationary monitor – all while often left waiting for available equipment at transitions and then feeling exposed as cables get removed and replaced. By potentially reducing the number of cable swaps, and even avoiding them altogether at times, flexible monitoring solutions can help care teams support patient dignity.

With a traditional monitoring ecosystem – stationary higher-acuity monitors, stationary lower-acuity monitors, single-purpose monitors and nothing in between – clinicians must often search for appropriate devices and supplies for the next step in care. Of course, even when they know the equipment’s location, it might not be available right away. Care delays and backups can result, as patients wait to get admitted from the ED or leave the PACU, for example. A versatile monitoring solution can help patients get on monitoring and stay on monitoring. With the right built-in capabilities, it can also reduce the need to find additional equipment such as transport monitors, vital signs monitors, standalone CO2 monitors and 12-lead ECG carts. This streamlining can support patient safety and flow.

Searching for monitors and supplies takes up clinicians’ time and draws them away from meaningful care. So, too, does re-cabling patients and switching them to new equipment – a process that may also involve cumbersome manual re-entry of patient information. Flexible monitoring can help reduce interruptions and unnecessary tasks, so clinicians can focus on patients. By reducing or eliminating equipment transitions, it can also support smoother patient handoffs between care teams.

A flexible and robust monitoring solution can help health systems reduce equipment and supply counts, as single-purpose monitors become redundant for many situations. That consolidation may then free up storage space and lower the maintenance burden for biomedical teams. Another potential fleet benefit comes from reducing or eliminating equipment transitions. When reusable cables aren’t constantly plugged in and pulled out, their pins and the connectors in monitors may last longer, holding off replacement or repair.