Study Shows Economic Benefit of Using Masimo’s Continuous Monitoring Tools

Masimo is sharing the results of a study published in the Journal of Patient Safety that demonstrate the use of its surveillance tools to continuously monitor general floor patients can yield significant cost savings.¹

In prior studies, the clinical outcome benefits of continuously monitoring patients using Masimo SET and Patient SafetyNet have been shown to include lower mortality, improved resuscitative outcomes, and fewer rapid response team activations and transfers to higher-acuity care units, achieved through earlier detection and intervention to prevent patient deterioration.^2-5 Now, in this new retrospective analysis— involving three and a half years of data and nearly 32,000 patients—the Dartmouth-Hitchcock investigative group has demonstrated that continuous patient surveillance monitoring resulted in increased net operating margin (OM), and is thus cost-effective, due to the financial impact of avoiding care escalations while taking into account the cost of implementing such a system.

Each rescue event avoided had a positive OM impact of approximately $5,500 per patient and each transfer event avoided, about $10,700 per patient. New Hampshire-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center calculated that each 10% reduction in rescues and transfers led to a projected savings of about $350,000 and $409,000 a year, respectively, for 200 general floor beds equipped with Masimo monitoring. The researchers said their findings strongly support that “[s]urveillance monitoring is operationally cost effective, generating significant operating margin impact when associated with reductions in patients requiring rescue and/or transfer.”

“This study clearly demonstrates that continuously monitoring all patients costs hospital systems less—not more—while solidly debunking the myth that cost remains a barrier to achieving the superior clinical outcomes associated with surveillance monitoring,” Masimo Chief Medical Officer Daniel Cantillon, M.D., said. “We believe these findings may even be generalizable beyond the hospital, to institutions such as freestanding ERs and ambulatory surgery centers, and we encourage them to conduct their own cost-benefit analyses. We’re hopeful that key opinion leaders and professional societies will consider these important data in updating clinical practice guidelines.”

As the researchers note, healthcare organizations often balk at the up-front costs of implementing a continuous patient monitoring surveillance system. Based on their own experience, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock team sought to refute that contention by quantifying the savings associated with improved patient outcomes.

In their previous investigations, published between 2010 and 2021, the researchers analyzed the impact of surveillance monitoring on patient outcomes by implementing a system that included continuous pulse oximetry monitoring with Masimo SET and Masimo bedside devices. The devices were configured to help detect patient deterioration on post-surgical patients in the general care setting, paired with Masimo Patient SafetyNet, a supplemental monitoring platform, that made patients’ data available to clinicians at centralized view stations. After successfully implementing them in a smaller unit, where they found a 65% reduction in rapid response team activations and a 48% reduction in transfers back to the ICU,² the Masimo continuous monitoring system was expanded to cover more than 200 inpatient beds in all medical and surgical units. After 10 years, officials reported the system was associated with a 50% reduction in unplanned transfers and 60% reduction in rescue events³ while achieving zero preventable deaths or brain damage due to opioid-induced respiratory depression.⁴ The benefits of Masimo SET with Patient SafetyNet were subsequently and independently confirmed in a 2022 study published by a large, 1,200-bed hospital system in Saudi Arabia, which additionally found a reduction in all-cause mortality and improved resuscitative outcomes when comparing the time periods pre- and post-deployment of Masimo’s continuous patient monitoring surveillance system.⁵

The current Dartmouth-Hitchcock cost-savings study builds upon an earlier published cost-benefit analysis estimating the Masimo system saved Dartmouth-Hitchcock $1.48 million annually.⁶ This newly published study applies more rigorous and granular methods in calculating financial savings associated with the improved outcomes made possible by continuous general floor monitoring. To do so, the research team examined retrospective patient data for 31,993 general floor patients, admitted between July 2016 and December 2019, and methodically calculated the operating margins for patients with “uncomplicated” and various degrees of “complicated” care experiences.

All enrolled patients received standardized continuous SpO₂ monitoring using Masimo SET pulse oximetry on tetherless Radius PPG sensors, with automated data transfer to Patient SafetyNet; vital signs were spot-checked every four hours. The patients were segmented into groups depending on whether they a) survived to hospital discharge without rescue or transfer (“uncomplicated” patient scenarios); b) needed rescue but not transfer to a higher level of care (HLOC); c) needed rescue and transfer to HLOC; and d) died in the hospital (increasingly severe complications). Of the enrolled patients, 92.7% had uncomplicated stays, and 7.5% suffered various degrees of complication. The researchers tracked each patient’s associated cost, revenue, and operating margin to calculate an average operating margin for each group, which served as the primary outcome for further analysis.

The researchers found that the uncomplicated group was associated with an average operating gain of $2,016 per patient (as well as a median length of stay, or LOS, of 3.2 days) and an overall gain of $17 million annually. Conversely, patients who needed rescue (but not transfer) were associated with an average operating loss of $3,516 per patient (and a median LOS of 6.7 days), a net loss of about $2.3 million annually. Avoiding a rescue (i.e. a patient’s stay becoming classed as uncomplicated) had a net favorable OM impact of $5,532. Patients who went on to need transfer to HLOC were associated with an average loss of $8,746 per patient (and a median LOS of 9.8 days), a net loss of $3.4 million per year. Avoiding a transfer after a rescue had a net favorable OM impact of $5,230 and avoiding a transfer and rescue altogether (i.e. becoming uncomplicated) had a net favorable OM impact of about $10,762.

Extrapolating from these findings, the researchers calculated that through the use of the Masimo supplemental monitoring system, the OM impact of reducing rescues and transfers by 10%—a conservative figure based on their previously reported experiences—translates into approximate net positive total margin impact of $350,000 and $409,000 per year, respectively, for a hospital with 200 Masimo-monitored beds. Though the exact amount will of course vary by institution, their methodology, as they noted, is “generalizable and easy to replicate”—a potential roadmap for other institutions to follow when evaluating the impact of implementing continuous patient monitoring.

The authors concluded, “This study adds to the literature refuting the contention that universal surveillance monitoring of patients in the general care setting is too costly to implement and sustain. These data strongly support that continuous monitoring and rapid response are cost effective and affordable on an annual operational basis. More importantly, hundreds of patients per year at the study institution avoid lengthy intensive care unit stays and the associated suffering and harm.”

Masimo is a global medical technology company that develops and produces a wide array of monitoring technologies, including measurements, sensors, patient monitors, and automation and connectivity solutions. Masimo SET Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry, introduced in 1995, has been shown to outperform other pulse oximetry technologies in more than 100 independent and objective studies. Masimo SET is estimated to be used on more than 200 million patients worldwide annually and is the primary pulse oximetry at all 10 top U.S. hospitals as ranked in the 2025 Newsweek World’s Best Hospitals listing.

References
¹ Blike G, McGrath S, Perreard I, and McGovern K. Estimating the Financial Impact of Surveillance Monitoring in the General Care Setting. J Patient Saf. 2025. DOI: 1097/PTS.0000000000001392.
² Taezner A et al. Impact of pulse oximetry surveillance on rescue events and intensive care unit transfers: A before-and-after concurrence study. J Am Soc Anesthesiol. 2010;112(2):282-287
³ McGrath S et al. Surveillance monitoring management for general care units: strategy, design, and implementation. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2016;42(7):293-302. doi:10.1016/s1553-7259(16)42040-4 ⁴ McGrath S et al. Inpatient respiratory arrest associated with sedative and analgesic medications impact of continuous monitoring on patient mortality and severe morbidity. J Patient Saf. 2021;17(8):557-561.
⁵ Balshi et al. Tele-Rapid Response Team (Tele-RRT): The effect of implementing patient safety network system on outcomes of medical patients—A before and after cohort study. PLoS One. 2022 Nov 22;17(11):e0277992. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277992.
⁶ Taezner A and Blike G. Patient surveillance – the Dartmouth experience. APSF Newsl. 2012;Spring-Summer:1-4.