Dr. Matt Ryde joined us in September 2024 following Esther’s departure and continued to focus on Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) in an acute paediatric setting. Matt’s focus was conducting a feasibility remotely monitoring children on long term ventilation at home.
The chosen technology partner for the feasibility study was Masimo. Their devices enable remote monitoring via Bluetooth with a mobile phone or tablet associated application which then facilitates live data collection and alerts clinicians responsible for the children’s care via a web-based dashboard enabling monitoring of multiple patients simultaneously.
For the study, three children dependent on LTV and their parents were enrolled. These children and their families were well known to the Paediatric Critical Care, Respiratory, Palliative Care and Community Nursing teams in Oxford as they were frequently admitted to hospital (often critical care) with respiratory exacerbations.
The parents were provided with Masimo Radius PPG sensors and over a period of three months they were instructed to apply the devices when there was any concern that their child was unwell and to leave the RPM devices in-situ for 72 hours (regardless of whether they recovered rapidly or were reviewed/admitted to hospital). In addition, the parents were encouraged to apply the devices for the same period when their child was well to gather further vital signs data.
Matt was supported by Dr Helen Turnham (Paediatric Critical Care Consultant) and produced a report on his feasibility study. Since Matt’s time as an Innovation Fellow has come to an end, Dr Turnham and other key stakeholders in Paediatric Critical Care continue to evaluate remote patient monitoring for their paediatric patients.