How long do nurses take to measure patients’ vital signs, and does it matter?

Patients in hospital may be at risk of unexpected deterioration. Monitoring patients’ vital signs, for example blood pressure and heart rate, ensures that any deterioration can be spotted early. This means that monitoring patients’ vital signs is an important part of safe patient care, and, if carried out effectively, has the potential to save many patients’ lives. However, previous studies have been unable to specify the workload this monitoring activity generates for nursing staff. This makes it difficult to plan how many staff are needed to monitor patients.Researchers at the University Of Southampton, University of Portsmouth and University of Oxford have teamed up to measure and estimate the time and workload associated with measuring patients’ vital signs, and this evidence brief reports what they found.