Patients at Broadmoor Hospital could be set to test a camera that remotely monitors a person’s vital signs, such as their heart rate or breathing. But before you go thinking that such cameras would, of course, be a huge invasion of the patients’ privacy, they are simply detection devices and don’t actually send pictures at all.
Broadmoor is a high-security psychiatric hospital where staff take care of around 200 men suffering from severe mental health problems.
Staff need to carry out regular checks on the patients throughout the night, to make sure they are all alive and well. However, some patients need to be checked on as many as four times in an hour. And every time a member of staff enters the room, they have to flash their torch or turn on the light so that they can see what they're doing. Of course, this is likely to disturb the patient in question.
But the optical monitors could take those checks out of the equation altogether, allowing staff to concentrate on the patients that need their help the most.
The technology, created by high-tech company Oxehealth working with Broadmoor, allows for remote monitoring of a person’s vital signs, even when they are inside a secure room.
The cameras are mounted on the wall and monitor the chest movements of a person, which helps to estimate breathing rate. Subtle changes in skin colour called by microblushes - made through the movement of blood beneath the skin - combined with a sophisticated algorithm to calculate a person's heart rate.
And as the devices uses infra-red, it works just as well in the dark as in a brightly lit room. This means that patients wouldn't have to be disturbed so often through the night, being woken up just to make sure they are still breathing.
Broadmoor clinical director and consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Amlan Basu is already thinking about the benefits of installing the technology in patients' rooms. "My hope is that... nursing staff will be freed up to perhaps spend their time more effectively by actually engaging with patients," he said.
Oxehealth has already tested the technology on premature babies and kidney patients at Oxford University Hospitals Trust. The optical monitors ran alongside conventional monitoring equipment, to test and compare their accuracy.
Both the peer-reviewed and published initial results were promising, so Oxehealth and Broadmoor have decided to step up their game. Monitors for temperature, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels are now being incorporated into the device as well.
Jonathan Chevallier, chief executive for Oxehealth, said that the technology had the potential to be extended into a broad range of settings, outside of the hospital scene. For example, optical monitors could be set up in a care home to keep an eye on residents' health, or perhaps even in prisons or on a car dashboard. Another idea is that it could give older people a little more peace of mind about their health.
“If you are over the age of 65, you probably have friends who have had a stroke,” he explained. “You probably don’t spend too much time thinking about it because it is a bit scary. But if you knew there was a technology you could have in your home… and it’s going to detect when you’re developing an irregular heartbeat, so you can see your doctor and avoid a stroke, I think that’s a massive benefit.”
To begin with, the optical monitors will be tested by volunteer staff at Broadmoor hospital. If they prove successful, some patients will be able to issue their consent to have the cameras tested on them.
