Use of monitoring system helps to save lives

East Sussex Healthcare is one of the top performing Trusts for monitoring patients using a clinical monitoring system called ‘VitalPAC’. VitalPAC is used across both Conquest Hospital and Eastbourne DGH to assist with the monitoring and analysis of patients’ vital signs, helping to save lives by the early detection of a patient’s deterioration, enabling quicker clinical intervention.

In the latest bench marking data recently released, nursing teams across the Trust achieved an average of 91% of all patient observations completed on VitalPAC taken on time. This made the Trust the fourth best in the country and was a marked improvement on 77% of observations taken on time a year earlier.

Alice Webster Director of Nursing said: “The extensive use of this clinical monitoring system has improved patient safety and patient outcomes. It has helped to enable specialist teams such as critical care outreach, infection control and pain services, to use this as a surveillance system to identify and intervene proactively with fewer patients going into intensive care and fewer cardiac arrests. More importantly it has enabled us to reduce our mortality rates and improve patient outcomes.”

VitalPAC has been in operation across Conquest Hospital and Eastbourne DGH for two years. It provides real time patient observation data to clinicians, nursing teams and allied health professionals. It is a paperless system using hand held technology to monitor patients to ensure a patient’s deterioration is detected and escalated earlier with interventions starting sooner. The use of this clinical monitoring system along with other initiatives has led to a continued reduction in patients experiencing unexpected cardiac arrests on our acute wards.