Continuous Monitoring of Respiratory Rate on General Wards What might the implications be for Clinical Practice?

A high respiratory rate is a significant predictor of deterioration. The accuracy of measurements has been questioned. We performed a prospective observational study of automated electronic respiratory rate measurements and compared measurements with electronic counts obtained in the 10 minutes prior to the manual measurement. For 182 patients 1331 matching measurements could be compared. The mean age of these patients was 68 (SD 14) years. 96 (53%) of patients were female. While mean and median measurements were similar frequency distributions were significantly different. Manual measurements were markedly lower than electronic measurements in patients with higher respiratory rates. While electronic measurements are likely to be more reliable clinical implications require further investigation to clarify whether existing algorithms including Early Warning Scores will need adjustment.