UMC Utrecht is to carry out a pilot project in which it monitors patients from the medical direction centre 24/7. The wide deployment of remote monitoring is expected to help reduce pressure on the Dutch healthcare system. The project is called COVERED and will receive over 650,000 euros in funding from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.
During COVERED, UMC Utrecht will monitor patients from its medical direction centre. This is a monitoring room set up in spring 2020 to remotely monitor corona patients via a smart patch. Meanwhile, UMC Utrecht is structurally deploying this monitoring room for smart remote care. The room has been renamed the medical direction centre.
'Promising innovations'
Utrecht UMC also deployed two e-health applications during the corona crisis: Early@Home and CovidTherapy@Home. These are two e-health applications that were deployed for remote monitoring during the corona crisis. UMC Utrecht sees the solutions as "promising innovations" in terms of patient-centredness, patient safety, reducing the risk of infection and the scarcity of protective equipment at the time. The applications can also help better distribute the pressure created by an ageing population, staff shortages and corona across the entire healthcare system.
"Apart from new COVID waves, healthcare will only come under further pressure from 'ageing' in the coming years. It will increase the demand for care, while the labour market as a whole will shrink. This also applies to care workers. These kinds of innovations should start helping us keep care accessible as soon as possible. Now and in the future," says Remco van Lunteren, member of the Executive Board of UMC Utrecht.
How and with whom to deploy?
COVERED is aimed at 24/7 monitoring of COVID patients and patients with other infectious diseases. Among other things, the project identifies how and in whom this form of monitoring can be optimally and safely applied. For this purpose, the medical direction centre first monitors patients on a regular nursing ward using the Checkpoint Cardio system. This system measures vital functions, such as heart rate, breathing frequency, oxygen saturation, blood pressure and temperature.
Project leader COVERED and technical physician Martine Breteler: "To investigate how we can optimally and safely apply 24/7 home monitoring and in whom it can be done, we are now first monitoring patients on a regular nursing ward with the Checkpoint Cardio system. We monitor vital signs such as heart rate, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure and temperature from the Medical Direction Centre (MRC). This gives nurses on the ward room to learn how to work with continuous monitoring."
No substitute for nurse or medical specialist
Currently, home monitoring of COVID patients is done manually, three times a day. This has limitations. For instance, the system is only suitable for a small group of relatively healthy patients. With continuous monitoring, UMC Utrecht is expected to be able to monitor a larger group of patients. The medical direction centre is in daily telecontact with patient and healthcare provider. "This is very important. Continuous monitoring is a tool to remotely detect deterioration and intervene if necessary, but it is never a substitute for the clinical view of the nurse or medical specialist. The human touch, attention to and daily conversation with the patient remains essential," Breteler said.
Remote monitoring relieves healthcare providers. Especially in evening and night shifts, when they are often with fewer colleagues. Continuous monitoring allows care providers to signal in time that someone is deteriorating, so that they can intervene. In addition, care providers no longer need to manually check all vital signs of the patient and enter them into the system. This saves time. "This gives nurses more space for other care tasks and they have extra time for their patient," Breteler explains. Patients are also given more control and can recover in their own, familiar surroundings.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Photo: Pixabay / StockSnap
