The Monitor Staffs First Save Using the TeleSitter®: A Moment Of Glory

This is the moment when AvaSys users first begin to really understand the opportunity they have at their fingertips. It’s the giddy excitement that flows from the monitor station and makes its way throughout the hospital: “Hey, this thing is really going to work. This can actually make a difference in keeping our patients safe!”

It takes time and huge effort to get to this moment, time that AvaSure’s project team spends preparing an AvaSys program tailored to the hospital’s or health system’s unique circumstances but incorporating lessons we’ve learned from more than 450 installs across the country. For the hospital user, much of that effort is hidden, and what they experience is well-rehearsed clinical education delivered by a team with unique clinical training and experience.

You will feel something the moment these educators walk through your hospital doors. They bring energy, enthusiasm, commitment and belief in AvaSys. This isn’t just a job to our trainers; it is a way for them to directly impact patient safety and help fellow clinicians provide the best care they possibly can.

So, it is no wonder that after several days of detailed training, when it is time to begin utilizing the AvaSys system live, when it is time to support the monitor tech watching the patients, when it is time to show the nurses that this system really works, that first save is always the AvaSure trainer’s Moment of Glory.

Nothing can fully describe it. The culmination of many weeks leads to this moment when the monitor tech speaks to a patient and successfully gets him to stay in bed, or the tech calls a nurse who gets to the room in time to help a patient move from the chair to the bed, or she sets off an alarm and five people show up in the room in a matter of seconds.

It’s the same every time: The situation is controlled, the fall is prevented, and everyone suddenly knows they have a powerful new tool to keep a professional eye on patients 24/7 and a means of instantly communicating when a threat to safety arises.

Of course, much more is to come once staff realizes the many other uses of this system. We are always heartened to hear of AvaSys saving lives in patient holding areas; of elopements avoided; of nurses simply feeling better about being late for rounding while they deal with an emergent patient, knowing someone is watching their at-risk patients.

Those are great moments too, but for us, nothing quite matches the feeling of seeing that first save and what it means for the nurses and techs who care just as much as we do about keeping patients safe.

Stacey Overholt, RN, BSN, MBA, VP of Clinical Services at AvaSure