British journal of anaesthesia
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The IMPROVE study describes a large perioperative quality improvement project with reporting of both compliance with improvement activities and patient outcomes. It highlights the importance of such projects, as well as the challenges in implementing change and proving benefit. Challenges identified include the importance of effective training in practice change, selection of trial design and relevant quality measures, and how the context of quality improvement initiatives may influence outcomes. Quality improvement programmes of this nature, despite the difficulties with implementation and trial design, remain a high priority because of their positive influence on improving clinical practice.
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Conventional patient vital signs monitoring fails to detect many signs of patient deterioration, including those in the critical postoperative period. Wearable monitors can allow continuous vital signs monitoring, send data wirelessly to the electronic healthcare record, and reduce the number of unplanned admissions to intensive care.