Impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the patterns of vital signs recording and staff compliance with expected monitoring schedules on general wards.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) placed increased burdens on National Health Service hospitals and necessitated significant adjustments to their structures and processes. This research investigated if and how these changes affected the patterns of vital sign recording and staff compliance with expected monitoring schedules on general wards.

Methods

We compared the pattern of vital signs and early warning score (EWS) data collected from admissions to a single hospital during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic with those in three control periods from 2018, 2019 and 2020. Main outcome measures were weekly and monthly hospital admissions; daily and hourly patterns of recorded vital signs and EWS values; time to next observation and; proportions of 'on tim

SUBMITTER: Kostakis I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7676313 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature