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Heart rate variability (HRV) has been described as a “new vital sign” and is theorized to relate to severe illness and increased mortality in trauma victims, even before traditional vital sign disturbance occurs; however, the inability to measure HRV in real time has limited its adoption in clinical practice, so researchers developed a miniaturized device that analyzes electrocardiography output in real time to instantaneously determine HRV and heart rate complexity (HRC, the degree of variation in R–R intervals over a series of sampled time intervals). They prospectively assessed the predictive value of HRV and HRC in 82 adults who presented to a single level I trauma center and met criteria for trauma team activation.
Decreased HRC was an …