The safety of UK video telemetry units: Results of a national service evaluation

Abstract

The results provide an evidence base for the production of national standards and guidelines for surveillance of patients during video telemetry to improve patient safety.

Patients’ safety in the epilepsy monitoring unit

“…The single prospective study collected data from 27 EMUs in the United Kingdom over a period of 2 months, translating into evaluation of 272 seizures[14 …”

A European survey on current practices in epilepsy monitoring units and implications for patients' safety

“…For instance, almost all SUDEP cases reported in EMUs occurred at night in patients who were not or ill supervised [18]. Lack or delay of attendance to patients having seizures by nurses also tended to occur more frequently when supervision was limited [11].…”

“…Since the optimal yield is to obtain the maximal amount of information by recording seizures while minimizing the stay in the hospital, provocative procedures to elicit seizures, such as tapering of antiepileptic drugs, sleep deprivation, and hyperventilation, are commonly used. However, this practice may expose patients to potentially serious adverse events (SAEs) that have recently caught attention and raised concerns about patients' safety in EMUs [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The International League Against Epilepsy [1], the American Clinical Neurophysiological Society [15], and the National Association of Epilepsy Centers [16] have issued guidelines and recommendations regarding the clinical indications and the requirements for LTM in EMUs, which only marginally dealt with safety issues.…”

Video telemetry: current concepts and recent advances

“…The first and foremost concern is to ensure that the patient is closely observed at all times 5. Although video is being constantly recorded, this is of no use at all if no one is looking at it.…”