Learning and development opportunities for healthcare students to monitor vital signs and improve patient outcomes

Abstract

Vital sign monitoring is a crucial component of patient care as it facilitates the detection of developing complications. This paper provides healthcare students with a practical guide for understanding the importance of monitoring vital signs, the tools available for intermittent and continuous monitoring, and the strategies and learning opportunities available to address and overcome common challenges surrounding vital signs monitoring. Normal adult physiological parameters are presented, including temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, essential for assessing a patient’s status and recognising deterioration. The advantage of continuous monitoring is discussed for high-risk cases where early recognition is imperative because physiological changes can occur rapidly and indicate an impending or sudden severe deterioration, such as a cardiac arrest. Continuous vital sign monitoring enables health professionals to recognise early signs of deterioration more easily, particularly in intensive care units. Nevertheless, challenges exist for both continuous monitoring, such as difficulties in gaining precise continuous measurements, limited medical equipment to maintain continuous monitoring and the increased time required by health professionals to ensure that continuous monitoring is effective. As such, most clinical areas currently adopt intermittent vital signs monitoring using tools such as the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2). This means healthcare students must contribute towards decisions surrounding who requires continuous vital signs monitoring, the intervals or situations where measurement of vital signs is imperative for improving treatment and the recognition of vital signs changes that may indicate deterioration. This requires considerable skill and this paper outlines the learning opportunities available for healthcare students to develop skills and decision making surrounding vital signs monitoring that can improve outcomes for patients.