Hospital staff are using baby monitors to keep an eye on COVID-19 patients in an attempt to reduce their own risk of infection, according to a US infectious diseases specialist.

Dr Stephen Parodi, incident commander of hospital network Kaiser Permanente’s national response to COVID-19, says baby monitors reduce the number of staff going into a patient’s room and help preserve limited PPE stock.

“A physician can actually virtually examine a patient with another practitioner in the room,” he told JAMA editor-in-chief Dr Howard Bauchner during an extensive interview.

“You’re … cutting down on the number of people [and] protecting the healthcare workforce maximally.”