[u801e]

> Sometimes in sick patients, checking vitals is required (to make sure you aren’t dying).

Could this be accomplished by using devices that monitor patients vital signs and report the data back to the nurses station? Then spot checks would not really be needed.

> Additionally, there is evidence that hourly rounding prevents some bad outcomes like patient falls.

Could you list some of the studies you're referencing?

[joshgel]

I'm really excited about [0], but as far as I know there is no way to take blood pressure without touching the patient. If someone here could invent it, I could probably provide a test environment for large scale investigations.

Re: studies. I can't say I know the evidence that well, so I wouldn't want to mislead, this isn't my area. A google search for Hourly Rounding reveals lots of articles, but I haven't poked into the underlying data that proves it is a successful strategy (if that exists). I guess I overstated my confidence above.

[0]: http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/

[eitally]

For blood pressure, our experience was that the staff were perfectly happy to leave a cuff on our daughter's leg, which automatically took a reading every hour (or on demand).

[joshgel]

For some patients, with vascular disease for example, the blood pressure cuff can be very painful... (What you describe is usually what we do.)

[NikolaeVarius]

I find that anecdotally, I really REALLY hate being connected to shit during a hospital stay. A nurse waking me up is infinitely less disruptive than having another dozen sensors on me permanently.

Doubly so when, now nurses have to track uptime of all those sensors.