Use of Wearables in Hospitalized General Medicine Patients

Hospitalizations Clinical Trial

Official title: Use of Fitbit Charge 2 in Hospitalized General Medicine Patients to Monitor Health Outcomes

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

This study will focus to determine the usefulness of continuous monitoring and the role it would play in improving inpatient management. The study is also conducted to collect patient's experiences regarding use of the wearable device for health monitoring. There will be no control or comparison group for this prospective cohort study. For each participant, the investigators will provide summary of their data to nurses and physicians who are directly involved in the patients' care. At the end of the study for each participant, the investigators will ask questions related to how useful they found the data. As a secondary endpoint for this study, the study team will also be evaluating the accuracy of the heart rate, sleep and activity data gathered from the wearable against the current gold standard used in hospitals (ie. information gathered by nurses or using sleep assessment patient questionnaires). The investigators predict that wearable devices will be well received among participants and that they can provide accurate information about patients on GIM.

Clinical Trial Description

Patients admitted to general internal medicine are admitted because they are sick and need monitoring that cannot be provided at home, need expedited testing and/or need treatments that are best administered in hospital. Currently, standard monitoring on the hospital ward consists of measuring vital signs typically twice a day. The rapid development, uptake of affordable wearables such as smartwatches and wearable devices that involve continuous measurement of vital measures may provide added information to the care of inpatients. To date, there have been limited studies on the use of wearables in hospitalized medical patients. The rationale for the study is to determine feasibility of using wearables in GIM patients and usefulness of the data that wearables provide.

The wearable chosen for this study will be the Fitbit Charge 2. The Fitbit will be worn by all patients who are recruited to participate in the study. It will be worn like a watch on a wrist and uses photoplethysmography (PPG) to detect periodic changes in blood flow beneath the sensor; thereby measuring changes in heart rate. Heart rate will be measured nearly continuously. Fitbit will also assess activity and will also assess sleep. Fitbit data will be transmitted via Bluetooth to a mobile app which then is uploaded to Fitbit servers. The Fitbit data will then be accessed via the Web. The data will be downloaded from Fitbit servers to a secure UHN server.

In an effort to reduce the risk of potential iatrogenic infection, the study team will use disinfectant wipes to thoroughly clean wearables between uses. Participants will be shown how to wear the band by a study investigator or research personnel.

At the end of the study for each participant, the investigators will ask the questions related to how useful they found the data. For each participant, the study team will provide summary of their data to nurses and physicians who were caring for them. The investigators hope to get 2 nurse surveys per patient (because of there being multiple shifts per patient) and to get 1 attending survey per patient. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Hospitalizations

• NCT number: NCT03646435
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University Health Network, Toronto
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 12, 2019
• Completion date: November 1, 2019