SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

This Year’s Cause

Our fundraising focus for the 2011 Visions gala is Heart Health and General Surgery in the new Patient Care Centre at Royal Jubilee Hospital. Our goal is to raise $595,000 for 94 specialized vital signs monitors — sophisticated medical equipment that collects and displays key patient information, such as blood pressure, pulse, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, and temperature, as well as an electrocardiogram, a wave-form graphic of a patient’s heartbeat.

Now installed in every patient room in the Heart Health and General Surgery units, the new monitors enable caregivers to make immediate medical assessments right at their patients’ bedsides, without having to leave the room. They connect wirelessly to the hands-free communication devices worn by caregivers, making it possible for nurses to attend to one patient while remotely monitoring another. The monitors can also store patient data for 48 hours, allowing doctors to track patterns in a patient’s condition and identify larger health problems before they occur.

According to Dr. Daniel Wong, Medical Director of Heart Health, Vancouver Island Health Authority, “These monitors bring state-of-the-art technology right to the patient’s bedside and are an excellent addition to quality care, almost another member of our medical team.”