TY - JOUR
AU - Hillman, K.
AB -  The most common intervention we perform in hospital medicine is measurement of vital signs – pulse rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure and temperature. A nurse recording these on a chart at the end of the patient's bed is one of the more powerful images associated with the care one receives in hospitals. Interestingly, much of the current practice surrounding vital sign measurement, such as their accuracy, how they are used and the frequency of measurement, has been the subject of very little research [ 1 ]. Our practice is based on a tradition that has remained largely unchanged for over 150 years. The article in this issue of Anaesthesia [ 2 ] is one of the first to study the clinical use of vital signs. A randomised controlled trial was conducted comparing continuous and electronically recorded vital sign recording in acute medical and surgical wards with the standard way of intermittently and manually recording them. The measured outcomes included major adverse events such as urgent staff calls and changes to higher levels of care as well as rates of cardiac arrests and deaths. There was no difference – how are we to interpret this? It may be that 
TI - What is vital to measure?
JF - Anaesthesia
DO - 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2006.04827.x
DA - 2006-11-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/what-is-vital-to-measure-ZBALEPlpu4
SP - 1027
VL - 61
IS - 11
DP - DeepDyve
ER -