More time for patient care: How your generosity is transforming care at the CHUM with new medical equipment
Taking a hospitalized patient’s vital signs is one of the most essential aspects of care. Heart rate, breathing, oxygen saturation and blood pressure: these measurements help care teams monitor a patient’s condition and respond quickly when it changes.
But behind this routine clinical task is a very practical challenge for nursing staff. To take these measurements, they need to access a monitor, find it, bring it to the patient’s bedside and ensure it has been properly disinfected before it can be used elsewhere.
At the CHUM, a new approach is making this routine considerably easier.
Thanks to the generous support of CHUM Foundation donors, 470 multiparameter monitors have been added to the approximately 100 already available. This means every hospitalized patient can now have their own vital signs monitor throughout their entire stay.
It may seem simple, but the impact is significant: it makes everyday tasks easier for care teams and helps deliver care more efficiently and safely.
Your impact is felt every day
More time for patient care
Vital signs are essential to monitoring a hospitalized patient’s condition. They must be checked regularly—at least every four hours—and sometimes much more frequently when a patient’s condition is unstable.
With a multiparameter monitor already available in the patient’s room, care teams no longer have to walk around the unit looking for one whenever they need to take these measurements. Those few minutes saved can be redirected to where they matter most: at the bedside of patients who need care and attention.
Safer care
When a monitor is shared among several patients, it must be disinfected between uses. At a time when some microorganisms are becoming increasingly difficult to eliminate, every step matters in reducing the risk of transmission.
By having a monitor dedicated to each hospitalized patient, care teams can limit the movement of equipment from one room to another, along with the disinfection steps that come with it.
The benefits are especially clear when care is needed quickly. In an emergency, teams know that a monitor is already at the patient’s bedside and ready to use. There is no need to look for one—or, just as importantly, disinfect another before it can be used.
Technology that keeps information moving
The project’s impact extends beyond day-to-day care. It also improves how information is shared across the CHUM.
Over time, the multiparameter monitors will be connected to electronic medical records. The measurements collected will then be transferred directly to each patient’s record and made available in real time to the various specialists involved in their care. This means a consulting physician will be able to access the information they need even while in the operating room, at the university or in an outpatient clinic. The same technology will also support the CHUM’s research and teaching activities.
In this way, a single piece of equipment can support several aspects of the CHUM’s mission: improving care today, training the next generation of medical professionals and advancing scientific knowledge.
For Karine Bouchard, Director of Nursing at the CHUM, having enough monitors to meet the needs of every unit represents a meaningful improvement for the teams providing care every day.
“Having this type of monitor available for every patient gives our teams the tools they need to work more efficiently and devote more time to what matters most: providing the safest possible care to every patient. We are very grateful for the generosity of the CHUM Foundation community, which has made this project possible.”
An innovation inspired by the experience of care teams
This improvement builds on an initiative that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, care teams needed to conduct as many interventions as possible whenever they entered the room of an infected patient, particularly after putting on their personal protective equipment. In response, the CHUM introduced multiparameter monitors connected directly to electronic medical records in the two units caring for patients with COVID-19.
Since then, the number of monitors available across the hospital’s units has gradually increased.
A heartfelt thank you to the CHUM’s Infection Prevention and Control team (IPC), as well as its Directorate of Logistics, Technical Operations and Infrastructure (DOLTI), for their valuable collaboration and commitment throughout this project.
When a need becomes reality through philanthropy
This tangible improvement is a powerful example of what philanthropy can accomplish: giving CHUM teams the means to turn an idea born from their day-to-day experience into a meaningful improvement for the people in their care.
And this project is just one example of what your generosity can make possible.
At the CHUM Foundation, donations help support CHUM teams across several areas of their mission: advancing care, driving research forward and transforming medical education. Whether funding state-of-the-art equipment, advancing research projects or supporting initiatives that improve care and training, every contribution has the potential to make a meaningful and lasting difference.