Telemonitoring for better care

Adjunct Professor Adam Scott

Showcasing a live demonstration of the Australian first tele-observation trial at Kilcoy Hospital

Ordinarily, manual patient observations including blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and blood saturations are taken by nursing staff every four hours during an admission. Supported by Clinical Excellence Queensland, Metro North Hospital and Health Service is conducting an Australian first wireless vital sign monitoring pilot at Kilcoy Hospital.

In this innovative trial, patients will be connected to a monitoring system which sends live, up-to-date observations to a tablet at the end of their bed and directly to the nurses’ station dashboard or another monitoring facility. The observations are cross-checked against Q-ADDS scores, allowing for deterioration to be picked up and treated earlier.