Central surveillance patient monitoring has been around for more than twenty years. In fact previous VitalCom (1990s) which through a series of transactions that was migrated finally into a huge patient monitoring company validated the use and technology model. They (VitalCom) somewhat blazed the trail for this back when there was VHF and also UHF telemetry for the enterprise networked model.
Custom VHF transmitters per this technology design were then affixed to portable agnostic monitors via a proprietary interface thus allowing vital signs monitoring throughout an antenna system installed across the entire footprint of the facility. In those days they were simply called “transport monitors”.
Hence when you transferred a patient from the ER to the catheterization lab you used either a “transport monitor” or a defibrillator with a monitor, ideally connected to the antenna system in the facility.
These monitors (transport monitors) as well as patient worn telemetry transmitters were then viewed from what they called a centralized viewing area. Trained monitor technicians then viewed and watched the physiological signals for any abnormalities.
When something alarmed or looked out of the ordinary, they could send out a designated page that would alert the clinician via a standard paging system. Even several facilities from hundreds of miles away could be monitored through wide area links that were a part of this architecture and could include this paging option.
ER diversions were curtailed by this deployment because you could make any “bed” a monitored bed. Patients could leave high acuity areas lowering costs because of the increased level of patient monitoring. That was in 1997. Know a lot about this as described because I ended up designing the majority of the VHF antenna infrastructure in hospitals across the United States for this architecture to include the wide area links. First what I would consider telemedicine for the wide area links.
In 2015 many medical device companies have “portable vital signs monitor” and the term patient worn monitoring is also being used”. Instead of custom VHF antenna systems; we now have the WLAN (Wireless LAN). However the use of spot check (intermittent) vital signs use monitoring continues on unabated as this is the standard.
The challenge to simply to make every sub acute bed a monitored bed; is the cost of around approximately 5-7K per bed. You also need to have to have skilled and trained clinicians at this level of acuity to monitor “continuous” vital signs and manage alarms in the correct clinical fashion.
