Topic: Fall Prevention

New Technology at KGH Is Improving Patient Safety, Health Authority Says

Posted on April 29, 2022 by - Uncategorized

Kelowna General Hospital is now using AvaSure TeleSitter®, a remote patient video monitoring system that aims to improve patient safety by preventing falls and injuries.

“Our health-care teams strive for continuous improvement in the care we provide, and it’s exciting to see our team at KGH use this new technology to increase patient safety,” said Susan Brown, Interior Health’s president and CEO.


Brown said that they have already seen early success with the pilot project.

“In just two months, there have been more than 2,000 interactions with patients using the TeleSitter which helped prevent falls thanks to the ability to virtually monitor patients,” she noted. TeleSitter is an IV-like pole in a patient’s room that provides live video and two-way audio feeds to a trained staff member who is monitoring from a central screen. In the case that a patient tries to get out of bed unattended, the care aide monitoring the video can ensure the patient gets the assistance they need.

According to IH, up to 10 patients can be monitored at the same time.

KGH’s executive director of clinical operations, Jaymi Chernoff said she’s pleased with how the roll-out of TeleSitter has gone at KGH.

Within 10 hours of monitoring patients, she explained, a care aide was able to provide assistance to a patient and prevent a potential fall from happening.


“Having the ability to virtually monitor patients who may be at risk of falling, means the caregivers who sit bedside and don’t want to leave their loved one unattended, can go home and get some rest,” Chernoff explained.

“The feedback from caregivers has been so positive so far; they are grateful and appreciative of the technology.”

Since initially launching with two devices in January, ten TeleSitters have now been deployed to help monitor patients at the hospital and there are plans to expand the service to additional units. IH said that KGH is the first hospital in the region to implement this technology and the health authority will continue to review the success of the project before expanding to other hospitals.

Read the full article here.

The TeleSitter® Solution: What’s New and Where It’s Heading

Posted on June 7, 2021 by - Uncategorized

nurse on computer using AvaSure virtual care

To share research results in three recent national studies on the use of the TeleSitter® solution, AvaSure recently hosted Telesitter: What’s New and Where it’s Heading, a webinar attended by over 500 chief nursing officers from all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., including VAs from around the country. The webinar was presented by AvaSure’s Chief Innovation Officer Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN, and Nurse Consultant Patricia Quigley, PhD.

Their studies on Patient Engaged Video Surveillance (PEVS) based on AvaSure’s Online Reporting Of Nursing Analytics (ORNA), the groundbreaking research is clear:

  • PEVS is clinically proven to foster significantly safer hospital environments for patients and caregivers
    In addition to considerable cost savings with the use of PEVS, perhaps the most telling outcome of the studies is the substantial improvement in safety for patients in witnessed events.
  • Prevent Falls
    In Falls Prevention, the 12-month study of 71 hospitals and 15,021 patients considered as high risk for fall by nursing staff, shows that with PEVS, falls were reduced to .38 falls/1000 patient days of surveillance.

“This is getting to zero, where falls hardly exist,” Quigley said. The study revealed that hospitals equipped with PEVS saw:

  • A savings of 453 annualized FTEs typically used for traditional sitting, representing over 943,000 hours
  • A 92 percent reduction to 38 FTEs to monitor PEVS

Improving nurse safety against violence
The second study focused on violence against nursing workforce.

“While industry principles, OSHA guidelines and Joint Commission challenges to reduce sentinel events have been published in the past few years, there hasn’t been much improvement in reducing violence,” said Votruba.

This study included 300 witnessed events, 15,434 patients in 73 hospitals over a 21-month period to learn impact of PEVS on nursing workforce safety. The study found that with PEVS, for every abusive event witnessed, 25 were reported, including usually non-recorded verbal incidents.

And while most of the patients in this study were being monitored for fall prevention, and not violence, Votruba noted that these findings present an opportunity for more research on how to identify which patients might have the tendency to become violent.

Using PEVS for COVID-19 isolation patients
The third study, by Quigley, Votruba and Jill Kaminski just released in MedSurg Nursing, focused on PEVS for COVID-19’s acute isolation population, monitoring 1,625 patients in 97 hospitals over a two-month (March-April 2020), and representing 98,918 hours of observation.

Key findings included:

  • 42 witnessed adverse events experienced among 39 patients
  • 29 of the events involved a dislodgement of lines
  • 9 falls (one unassisted)
  • 2 self-harm events
  • 2 physical abuse toward nursing events
  • while response time was lowered due to the donning of PPE, there were more verbal interactions per day to comfort isolated patients during this surge period

These studies show that real-time surveillance at the point of care is cost-effective, improves safety and is easily adoptable by nurses. Nurses were resourceful in fast-tracking the technology in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic as they were pulling from as many resources as they could at the height of the surge.

Lisbeth also shared highlights from several studies she recommends for further reading as CNOs consider the technology for their hospitals. Those studies are linked below for further reading.

AvaSure is working hard to advocate that PEVS programs be a workplace safety initiative through the American Nursing Association.

Fall Prevention and Injury Reduction Utilizing Virtual Sitters in Hospitalized Patients: A Literature Review

Posted on May 28, 2021 by - Uncategorized

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Fall Prevention and Injury Reduction Utilizing Virtual Sitters in Hospitalized Patients: A Literature Review
Quigley BH, Renz SM, Bradway C. Comput Inform Nurs. 2021;39(12):929-934.

Challenge

Falls remain one of the most well-documented hospital incidents among patients. Yet more than one-third could be prevented.

 In-hospital falls are a global problem—and the statistics in the United States alone are staggering:

  • There are up to 1 million falls each year, which translates into 2.3 to 7 falls per 1000 inpatient hospital days
  • There are nearly 11,000 deaths per year from an injury sustained in a fall during hospitalization
  • Costs to Medicare for falls exceeded $31 billion in 2015
  • Falls and fall-related injuries add 6 to 12 inpatient days to a hospital stay, with costs of more than $30,000 per incident

What’s more, the US Joint Commission has suggested that as many as 33% of falls could be prevented.

Solution

Video monitoring using virtual sitters is a novel, cost-effective approach to reduce the risk of falls and maintain safety for hospitalized patients. In a review of the clinical literature, 12 articles that focused on a study or quality improvement project utilizing continuous video monitoring with virtual sitters to prevent falls were analyzed.

The change from 1 sitter per patient to 1 virtual sitter per a cohort of patients consistently demonstrated a decrease in costs, with some studies reporting a decrease in fall rates.

Conclusions

Prevention of falls and fall-related injuries is a hallmark of quality patient care and an expected outcome of hospitalization. Video sitter surveillance was developed for just this reason, while also offering a cost-effective alternative to the use of 1:1 sitters.

This literature review supports the use of video surveillance/virtual sitters as a strategy to decrease or plateau fall rates with an added cost savings benefit. It is likely that future use of video surveillance to maintain safety, prevent or minimize falls and fall-related injuries, and achieve high-quality patient care will expand to other clinical scenarios, such as seizures, substance withdrawal, self-medicating, self-harm, and abuse situations, or to monitor patients in isolation.

Technology Utilization in Fall Prevention

Posted on January 1, 2021 by - Uncategorized

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Technology Utilization in Fall Prevention
Oh-Park M, Doan T, Dohle C, Vermiglio-Kohn V, Abdou A. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2021;100(1):92-99.

Challenge

There is a need for cost-effective fall prediction and prevention systems. Recently, technology-based applications have been introduced in healthcare in order to achieve superior patient care outcomes and experience via efficiency, access, and reliability.

Solution

Video monitoring using virtual sitters is a novel, cost-effective approach to reduce the risk of falls and maintain safety for hospitalized patients. The common applications of technology are to:

  • Assess the risk of falls
  • Detect falls
  • Prevent falls
  • Intervene

Solutions include a range of approaches—from instrumented gait mats and wearable sensors to robotic systems, wearable airbags to prevent hip injury, and even virtual reality systems—that may be used in patients’ homes or in the hospital.

In the hospital setting, virtual sitter technology that enables 1 sitter to monitor multiple patients has been shown to reduce falls and the cost of care.

Although each of these technology-based applications are associated with both advantages and limitations, combining them with more traditional fall prevention interventions offers promising results in the prevention of falls among patient populations.

The Miriam Honored for Reducing Patient Falls with Use of Monitoring Devices

Posted on October 6, 2020 by - Uncategorized

PROVIDENCE – AvaSure, a Michigan-based patient-monitoring system producer, honored the hospital with its Path to Zero Award in late September.

With the use of audiovisual equipment in patients’ rooms, The Miriam saw its rate of patient falls drop by 25% during its second year of using the devices.

The hospital has used the equipment for about three years.

Designed to monitor patients with impaired mobility or conditions such as dementia, the portable cameras allow hospital staff to keep a remote eye on patients who may be at risk for falling. Staff can speak to patients through a microphone built into the device and quickly send a nurse to hospital rooms to help patients who need help to safely stand up or move around.

“The Miriam Hospital has played a significant role in making strides toward change with the use of our technology. As has been shown in numerous clinical and economic studies, AvaSure is in tune with the need for cost-effective, quality care,” said Lisbeth Votruba, vice president of clinical quality and innovation at AvaSure.

Read the full article on Providence Business News.

AvaSure Recognizes the Miriam Hospital for Most Impressive Fall Reduction Program

Posted on October 1, 2020 by - Uncategorized

AvaPrize graphic

BELMONT, Mich. – AvaSure, a leading provider of advanced audiovisual monitoring systems used to care for patients and protect caregivers, honored the Miriam Hospital with the Path to Zero Award as part of AvaPrize, its prestigious annual healthcare awards program.

The AvaPrize program honors individuals and organizations who have advanced patient and staff safety, eased the working lives of nurses and achieved new efficiencies in care delivery. Winners demonstrate the ever-evolving role of continuous video monitoring as it becomes a vital tool in patient care and staff development throughout a healthcare organization.

The Miriam Hospital’s honor, the Path to Zero Award, recognizes an organization with the most impressive fall reduction program centered around patient video monitoring.

“Most experts believe the post-pandemic U.S. healthcare system will be fundamentally different, as downward pressure on costs and a need to show value for dollars spent will fuel widespread reforms,” said Lisbeth Votruba, Vice President of Clinical Quality and Innovation at AvaSure. “The Miriam Hospital has played a significant role in making strides toward change with the use of our technology. As has been shown in numerous clinical and economic studies, AvaSure is in tune with the need for cost-effective, quality care.”

AvaSure selected the Miriam Hospital for the award because its use of the technology decreased falls by an additional 25% in the second year of implementation, dropping the rate below the NDNQI benchmark due to ramping up utilization and garnering buy-in from all inpatient units.

The winners were honored during the company’s symposium Sept. 23-24. The AvaSure national symposium brings together senior leaders, frontline staff and health policy experts to share best practices and new uses for continuous remote patient care. This year’s theme was Leading Through Change.

The fifth consecutive healthcare awards program presented at industry-leading symposium

A Systematic Review: Sitters as a Patient Safety Strategy to Reduce Hospital Falls

Posted on March 3, 2020 by - Uncategorized

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Sitters as a Patient Safety Strategy to Reduce Hospital Falls: A Systematic Review
Greeley AM, Tanner EP, Mak S, Begashaw MM, Miake-Lye IM, Shekelle PG. Ann Intern Med 2020;172(5):317-324.

Challenge

Bedside sitters are often used for patients at high risk for falls, but they are expensive and their effectiveness is unclear. Nurses and other personnel have long been used to monitor patients and prevent falls via continuous or constant observation. The reason for this is logical and rooted in tradition: Staff is by the bedside and on hand to help prevent a fall. However, this practice is costly—US acute care hospitals can each spend more than $1 million annually on sitters.

What’s more, despite a compelling rationale, the evidence supporting the use of 1:1 sitters to reduce falls is lacking.

Solution

Video monitoring is well supported by the literature. The strongest evidence regarding sitter alternatives was seen in articles evaluating the benefits of video monitoring:

  • Eight studies provided the most consistent results of either no change or a decrease in falls after implementation of video monitoring, as well as a dramatic decrease in sitter use
  • Several studies also reported a cost savings with video monitoring compared with sitter use

A Trailblazer’s Road to Success

Posted on August 15, 2019 by - Uncategorized

webinar graphic

The Cincinnati VA Medical Hospital was the first VA Hospital in the nation to adopt the AvaSure TeleSitter® for continuous patient video monitoring. Within their first year, they were able to reduce sitter costs by 65% and saw a 50% reduction in patient falls. During this webinar, Beth Ackerson, Chief Nurse Procedural Services & Chief Health Informatics Officer, will share Cincinnati’s road to innovation and how they’re blazing the trail for the spectrum of continuum care.

Speaker: Beth Ackerson, RN, MSN, CNOR Chief Nurse Procedural Services & Chief Health Informatics Officer

Outcomes of Patient-Engaged Video Surveillance of Falls and Other Adverse Events

Posted on May 8, 2019 by - Uncategorized

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Outcomes of Patient-Engaged Video Surveillance on Falls and Other Adverse Events

Quigley PA, Votruba L, Kaminski J. Clin Geriatr Med. 2019;35(2):253-263.

Challenge

Traditional surveillance measures aimed at reducing adverse events such as falls create a false sense of safety. For decades, nurses have relied on traditional surveillance methods to proactively meet patient needs: hourly rounding, patient-activated call lights, and movement-initiated alarms.

The ineffectiveness of these traditional interventions has been confirmed by a limited number of published studies and the epidemic of harm still occurring in hospitals. For example:

  • Studies on hourly rounding have been found to be inconsistent in their reporting of the quantity, quality, and reliability of rounding
  • Another study on call light response times reported response times of as long as 17 minutes and 27 seconds, which is more than enough time for a patient to fall out of bed or a chair

Although movement alarms are among the most commonly used fall prevention strategies in  hospitals, studies on patients rescued from experiencing a fall and on the reduction in falls, fallers, or fall rates are very limited, and there are no published studies on the timeliness of nursing staff response to patients’ activated movement alarms.

Solution

Patient-engaged video surveillance (PEVS) provides a much-needed safety net for patients. In this study of 71 hospitals and 15,021 patients believed to be most at risk of falls and other adverse events, the incidences of falls; room elopement; and line, tube, or drain dislodgement were rare when patients were monitored using PEVS with the AvaSure TeleSitter® solution.

  • The overall fall rate was 1.50 falls per 1000 days of surveillance. It was even lower (0.38 falls per 1000 surveillance days) in patients aged 85 years and older—the oldest group and the most vulnerable to fall injury. This greatly exceeds the aggregate fall and fall rate reduction among all of the hospitals enrolled in Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Engagement Network/Hospital Innovation Improvement Networks (2010–2014)
  • The average PEVS alarm response time was 15.8 seconds
  • There were69 elopements per 1000 days of surveillance
  • There were <3 lines, tubes, or drains dislodged per 1000 days of surveillance

The TeleSitter® solution enables 1 safety attendant to monitor up to 16 patients at one time. As such, this study calculated that there would need to be 453 annualized full-time equivalents to provide 942,482 hours of surveillance using the traditional one-to-one sitter method. With PEVS providing a monitoring-staff-to-patient ratio of 1:12, the total number of required full-time equivalents is reduced by 92% to 38 full-time equivalents—substantially reducing costs (actual reductions in cost would vary based on the hourly wages of the one-to-one sitters and monitoring staff).

Conclusions

The findings of this study should compel all organizations to implement a PEVS program, such as the AvaSure TeleSitter® solution, in order to be in the position to best correct root causes of harm and create a real-time, broad safety net for patients.

Individualized Fall Prevention Program in an Acute Care Setting

Posted on April 8, 2019 by - Uncategorized

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Individualized Fall Prevention Program in an Acute Care Setting: An Evidence-Based Practice Improvement
Spano-Szekely L, Winkler A, Waters C, et al. J Nurs Care Qual. 2019;34(2):127-132.

Challenge

A hospital’s fall prevention program was not consistently effective. The baseline fall rate was 3.21—higher than the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators’ median of 2.91. Before the implementation of this evidence-based fall prevention protocol, the fall prevention program at as 245-bed Magnet- and Planetree-designated community hospital located in the Northeast was inconsistent and not effective.

Solution

Adding video monitoring. A clinical practice guideline with 7 key practices was used to guide the development of an individualized fall prevention program with interventions to address 4 fall risk categories and an algorithm to identify interventions. Interventions included nurse-driven mobility assessment and purposeful hourly rounding.

Video monitoring was also implemented. Using the video monitor, a safety technician was able to see if patients started to get out of bed and then use the intercom to redirect the patient, thus preventing falls. These “good catches” would not have happened without video monitoring.

With full and consistent implementation of the fall prevention program and the addition of video monitoring, this hospital saw:

  • A 54% reduction in falls from 2.51 falls per 1000 patient days to 1.15 falls per 1000 patient days
  • A 72% reduction in sitter usage, equating to $84,000 in annual savings