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A retrospective cross-sectional study showing wearable smartwatches enhance patient safety and efficiency in the intensive care unit

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Wearable smartwatches present a novel approach to continuous patient monitoring in ICU settings, with the potential to enhance patient safety and clinical efficiency. This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluated the impact of smartwatch use on alarm response rates and clinical outcomes in a 27-bed ICU. Data were collected over two periods: pre-implementation (May 12, 2023, to July 11, 2023) and post-implementation (October 22, 2023, to December 22, 2023) of smartwatches worn by healthcare workers. Our findings indicate that the adoption of smartwatches significantly improves alarm response rates from 12.58% to 14.85% (p < 0.0001). In addition, the reduction in response time, fatal and high alert, medium alert, and low alert within 30 s response rates increased from 51.51%,70.42%, and 74.03% to 60.04%, 74.02%, and 76.71%, respectively (p < 0.0001), resulting in fewer high and fatal alerts. Moreover, the use of smartwatches is associated with reduced durations of mechanical ventilation and ICU stays, signifying improved clinical outcomes. Wearable technology has the potential to simplify ICU operations, reduce alarm fatigue, and ultimately improve patient care and reduce adverse events. The intensive care unit (ICU) uses a lot of technology, with each patient generating hundreds of alerts daily. As a result, the ICU is a stressful area for nursing staff to work in as they are constantly responding to these alerts. Nurses in the ICU wore smartwatches in the ICU wards and we evaluated their response to alarms and the efficiency of their nursing work. Our findings show 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. Thus, introducing smartwatches more widely could improve the treatment of patients and improve the experience for nurses. Ma, Wang, Meng et al. conducted a retrospective study to investigate the impact of using smart watches in intensive care units (ICU) on alarm response and the impact on the work efficiency of nursing staff. Response times shortened leading to fewer high-level and fatal alarms and reduced durations of mechanical ventilation and ICU stays.

Source: Communications Medicine

DOI: 10.1038/s43856-025-01072-6