A retrospective cross-sectional study showing wearable smartwatches enhance patient safety and efficiency in the intensive care unit (8 August 2025)

Summary

Wearable smartwatches present a novel approach to continuous patient monitoring in ICU settings. This study evaluated the impact of smartwatch use on alarm response rates and clinical outcomes in a 27-bed intensive care unit (ICU). Nurses in the ICU wore smartwatches in wards and researchers evaluated their response to alarms and the efficiency of their nursing work. Their findings suggest that using wearable smartwatches can significantly improve alarm response rates, reduce alarm response times and the number of alarms, and decrease alarm fatigue and adverse events.