School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Kingwoods, NSW 2751, Australia.
MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Milperra, NSW 2560, Australia.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Nov 15;21(22):7586. doi: 10.3390/s21227586.
Triage is the first interaction between a patient and a nurse/paramedic. This assessment, usually performed at Emergency departments, is a highly dynamic process and there are international grading systems that according to the patient condition initiate the patient journey. Triage requires an initial rapid assessment followed by routine checks of the patients' vitals, including respiratory rate, temperature, and pulse rate. Ideally, these checks should be performed continuously and remotely to reduce the workload on triage nurses; optimizing tools and monitoring systems can be introduced and include a wearable patient monitoring system that is not at the expense of the patient's comfort and can be remotely monitored through wireless connectivity. In this study, we assessed the suitability of a small ceramic piezoelectric disk submerged in a skin-safe silicone dome that enhances contact with skin, to detect wirelessly both respiration and cardiac events at several positions on the human body. For the purposes of this evaluation, we fitted the sensor with a respiratory belt as well as a single lead ECG, all acquired simultaneously. To complete Triage parameter collection, we also included a medical-grade contact thermometer. Performances of cardiac and respiratory events detection were assessed. The instantaneous heart and respiratory rates provided by the proposed sensor, the ECG and the respiratory belt were compared via statistical analyses. In all considered sensor positions, very high performances were achieved for the detection of both cardiac and respiratory events, except for the wrist, which provided lower performances for respiratory rates. These promising yet preliminary results suggest the proposed wireless sensor could be used as a wearable, hands-free monitoring device for triage assessment within emergency departments. Further tests are foreseen to assess sensor performances in real operating environments.
分诊是患者与护士/护理人员的首次互动。这种评估通常在急诊部门进行，是一个高度动态的过程，有国际分级系统根据患者的病情启动患者的就诊流程。分诊需要进行初步的快速评估，然后对患者的生命体征进行常规检查，包括呼吸频率、体温和脉搏率。理想情况下，这些检查应该连续、远程进行，以减轻分诊护士的工作量；可以引入优化工具和监测系统，包括一种不会影响患者舒适度的可穿戴患者监测系统，并且可以通过无线连接远程监测。在这项研究中，我们评估了一个小型陶瓷压电盘浸入皮肤安全的硅酮圆顶中的适用性，该圆顶增强了与皮肤的接触，以在人体的几个位置无线检测呼吸和心脏事件。为此评估，我们为传感器配备了呼吸带和单导联心电图，同时采集。为了完成分诊参数采集，我们还包括了一个医用级接触式温度计。评估了心脏和呼吸事件检测的性能。通过统计分析比较了所提出的传感器、心电图和呼吸带提供的即时心率和呼吸率。在所有考虑的传感器位置，除了手腕外，都能非常高的性能检测到心脏和呼吸事件，手腕的呼吸率性能较低。这些有希望但初步的结果表明，所提出的无线传感器可作为一种可穿戴、免提的监测设备，用于急诊部门的分诊评估。预计将进行进一步的测试，以评估传感器在实际操作环境中的性能。
