Vision-based patient monitoring and management in mental health settings (January 2021)

Summary

Successful adoption of novel noncontact physiological measurement and physical monitoring requires analysis of how they support patient care. Lloyd-Jukes et al. review available technologies and present their vision-based patient monitoring and management system, supported by a framework enabling its integration within clinical workflows. The framework links tasks such as assessing patients to elements of the patient journey (eg, risk factors and early warning signs). The system enabled insights from patient activity reports and noncontact vital sign measurements. It supports staff in ensuring patients' health follows desired trajectories, avoiding adverse events, making observations without disrupting patients' rest, intervening proactively, and learning from incidents.

Content

The vision-based patient monitoring and management system described in this article has been deployed, or scheduled for deployment, in 18 Mental Health Trusts in NHS England (in April 2020). The system is not a replacement for nursing skills. Rather, it provides an enhancement to nursing practice.

As with the adoption of any new technology into clinical workflows, it is important for practitioners to learn how to manage the cultural shift required to take advantage of a vision-based patient monitoring and management system. The engineering framework described in this article will help them to understand how the tasks involved in patient care (assess, observe, intervene, and improve) can be optimised through the adoption of a vision-based system, which offers nonintrusive physical and physiological monitoring of quantified patient state.

Potential further developments in the vision-based system include metrics of sleep quality, agitation, and more detailed analysis of patterns of behavior. Development of non–contact-sensing of patient temperature at a distance and with affordable technology would also be valuable.