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| The Oxecam--Courtesy of Oxehealth |
The U.K. is well known for examining healthcare costs closely and incorporating them into decision-making on spending. Now, in order to help cut healthcare costs and address a nursing shortage that is squeezing countries internationally, the government agency Innovate UK is funding a trial for a camera-based vital sign technology from startup Oxehealth.
The startup spun out the University of Oxford's Institute of Biomedical Engineering in 2012 and the study is being conducted in collaboration with it. In the study, Oxehealth will monitor simultaneously 5 essential patient monitoring vital signs: heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygenation, blood pressure and temperature. The technology is based on images from a video camera in the patient's room.
The resulting video is analyzed continuously via a set of algorithms to detect significant variations in those 5 vital signs. It works at night via invisible infra-red illumination, which allows the patient to sleep undisturbed. Upon any significant changes, hospital staff are alerted with an alarm.
"One of the most important, yet time-consuming, activities performed by nurses is the recording of vital signs," Catherine Stoddart, Chief Nurse at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, said in a statement. "Nurses currently complete their routine monitoring for most hospital patients every 4-6 hours."
The U.K.'s National Health Service is predicting a nursing shortage of about 47,500 nurses by next year. A nurse now spends a median of 7 minutes to check a patient's vital signs--which can quickly add up over multiple patients during a single shift, noted the company.
Oxehealth has previously tested the technology in studies at the kidney unit of Churchill Hospital and the neonatal intensive care unit at John Radcliffe Hospital. But those studies were confined to just three vital signs: heart rate, breathing rate and blood oxygenation.
The latest study is being conducted in collaboration with the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust that includes four hospitals: John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Horton General Hospital. It has a project value of £606,000 ($908,000).
The study will be conducted in an upper gastrointestinal ward of patients who have had cancer surgery. It will focus on the two to five days after surgery, when accurate monitoring is essential.
"Oxecam has the potential to help support hospital staff and greatly improve patient safety by providing round the clock monitoring of all five essential vital signs, thus allowing sudden and unexpected deterioration to be recognized early, and treated quickly," said Stoddard. She expects the technology could "help alleviate pressures within the hospital system, and improve the quality of care nurses are able to provide."
- here is the release