Patients who are continuously monitored after surgery experience significantly less time with dangerously low oxygen levels compared to those monitored using routine spot checks.
This is according to a new study from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, published in JAMA Network Open.
The research represents the first large, randomised crossover trial and the largest dataset to date evaluating continuous wearable monitoring technologies on hospital surgical floors.
Ashish K Khanna, professor of anaesthesiology, vice chair of research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said: ‘Even modest amounts of hypoxemia may meaningfully affect recovery and could be an early indicator of a downstream clinical event.
‘This trial shows that real-time visibility into patient physiology helps teams respond sooner and more effectively. While our work was not powered for patient-centric outcomes, those point estimates are encouraging and should motivate the scientific community to conceive larger pragmatic trials with hard outcomes.’
Researchers compared standard intermittent vital sign checks, typically every 4 hours, with a novel continuous wearable monitoring system that recorded multiple vital signs. Those included oxygen saturation, heart rate and blood pressure every 15 seconds.
The trial was conducted across two postoperative surgical units, with monitoring methods alternating every four weeks over a full year. Nearly 3,700 patients, including 800 high-risk patients, were included in the primary analysis.
According to Khanna, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre is the only large US hospital to have successfully deployed this continuous monitoring technology and conducted this type of trial at scale.
Traditional vital sign checks every four to six hours on general inpatient nursing units often fail to capture early deterioration. Wearable continuous monitoring provides clinicians with real-time alerts, enabling earlier interventions.
Researchers noted that earlier bedside interventions, including airway repositioning, stimulation, and supplemental oxygen, likely contributed to improved outcomes.
With hundreds of millions of surgeries performed worldwide each year, the postoperative period remains one of the most vulnerable times for patients.
Continuous wearable monitoring offers a scalable, feasible pathway to improving outcomes and reducing preventable complications and provides ‘an important push for the worldwide surgical and perioperative community’, Khanna said.
