Overview
Rapid response teams (RRTs) have been adopted by hospitals to provide urgent critical care to hospitalized patients who require quick intervention to prevent further deterioration. Early warning scores (EWS) serve as a method to identify patients requiring RRT assessment by analyzing routinely collected data such as vital signs and laboratory results. The Visensia Safety Index (VSI) is an EWS that uses continuous vital sign monitoring and machine learning to identify the likelihood of deterioration and can be integrated with existing hospital data infrastructure. Initial studies of the VSI have both validated the system and found that patients monitored using VSI had a shorter duration of any instability and fewer episodes of serious and persistent instability. The investigators' recent retrospective analysis at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) identified that implementation of an EWS could have detected earlier deterioration in over half of the patients identified, potentially preventing subsequent ICU admission, severity of illness, and/or mortality. Thus, this study aims to determine the feasibility and potential impact of implementing a portable continuous monitoring system with a VSI trigger at TOH to identify patients at high risk of deterioration.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
Adult patient (greater than or equal to 18 years of age) designated for the most aggressive levels of potential intervention (Category 1 status - Full Care and Category 2 status - Full Care except CPR) who belong to one of the following groups:
- Patients who have undergone high risk elective surgery (Whipple procedures, high risk vascular surgery, high risk general surgery, among others)
- Malignant haematology or oncology patients at high risk for deterioration
- Patients with infection admitted from the Emergency Department (ED) to the ward
- Other high-risk patients determined at the discretion of the clinical team
Exclusion Criteria:
- Patients admitted to a unit with higher level monitoring (Neurological Acute Assessment Unit, Acute Monitoring Area, Trauma Step-Down, Intensive Care Unit)
- Patients with Category III (Full Care except Respiratory or Hemodynamic Life Support, or CPR) or IV status (Comfort Care)