When staff sees the advantages of new technology, they are more likely to champion widespread use and new applications. Two hospitals describe how they achieved and communicated success right from the beginning of their program.
Presented by:
In what is always a popular session, some of the most successful monitor staff from across the U.S. will share best practices that enhance patient and staff safety and the patient/family experience of care.
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Nurse leader, Lisa Crochet at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital discusses the impact of remote video monitoring for overworked staff seeking to focus on their core roles as direct caregivers.
Presented by Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital
Development and Psychometric Testing of the Remote Visual Monitoring Acceptance Tool
Barnett SD, Desai D, Davis T, et al. J Nurs Meas. 2020;28:339-454.
Studies have shown a strong correlation between nurses’ acceptance and use of new technologies to improve patient care—yet, there are currently no studies that have addressed nurses’ acceptance of remote visual monitoring
Assessing nurses’ acceptance of remote visual monitoring (RVM) will provide hospital administrators with a better understanding of how best to mitigate the underutilization of this safe and cost-effective intervention.
RVM Assessment Tool (RVMAT)
The RVMAT was designed to assess the perceived:
The 25-item RVMAT uses a 5-point Likert scale: Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Neither agree nor disagree = 3; Agree = 4; and Strongly agree = 5. A higher rating indicates a greater acceptance of RVM technology.
Putting the RVMAT to the test
The RVMAT was tested among nurses recruited from a large health system.
Participants were eligible to enroll in the study if they met the following inclusion criteria:
Completed surveys were available from 412 nurses. The overall total scale mean score was 3.73, indicating a high level of endorsement for RVM among this group of nurses.
The results from this study show that the RMVAT is a valid and reliable instrument to measure nurses’ acceptance and use of RVM technology.
Despite the fact that the majority of nurses who took part in this study had more than 5 years of experience and that the study findings may not be generalizable to nurses with fewer than 5 years of nursing experience, the strengths of the study outweigh the limitations.
Because nurses are one of the largest users of healthcare technology, using a valid and reliable tool like the RVMAT to measure their acceptance and the perceived usefulness of RVM technology is needed to gain an in-depth understanding of the factors that influence their adoption of healthcare technology. Such information can guide nurse leaders to implement strategies that create a supportive practice environment where direct care nurses are empowered to incorporate innovative technologies into nursing care to improve overall patient health outcomes.
Continuous Video Monitoring: Implementation Strategies for Safe Patient Care and Identified Best Practices
Abbe JR, O’Keeffe C. J Nurs Care Qual. 2021;36(2):137-142.
Multiple compounding factors result in the increased demand for additional safety monitoring in the inpatient setting
At a large, academic, Magnet-designated medical center in the Pacific Northwest, nursing leadership saw that the need for sitters was rising. Much of this increasing need was being driven by an increase in admissions for inpatient mental health care, requiring additional inpatient monitoring for suicide risk, substance withdrawal, fall risk, eating disorders, elopement, and general safety concerns for both adult and pediatric populations.
Providing 1:1 care for all is costly, ineffective, and resource-intensive—and has a negative effect on staff satisfaction, patient safety, and productivity.
Continuous video monitoring (CVM) was identified as a bridge for the nursing staff to enhance safety for patients and as an additional safety intervention when sitter use was not reasonable or feasible. The trick was implementing this program in a way that would enable it to become an accepted part of the healthcare environment.
Adoption of the AvaSure technology was influenced by nurse enculturation and education, leader standard work (standard parameters used by nurse leaders for process improvement), data tracking management, and patient/family feedback.
Implementation of this program was organized with representatives from across the hospital, including nursing leadership, clinical nursing staff, Clinical Technology Services, Psychiatric Professional Practice Leader, Marketing, Department of Quality Management, Nursing Resource Management, and Nursing Administration.
The monitoring staff received specialized training related to anticipation of at-risk behaviors, system functionality, determination of adverse events, and chain of resolution. Education focused on the clinical nursing staff and consisted of unit in-services, leadership classes, champion classes, case management classes, and transitional care classes for community partners. Clinical nurse champions were integral to the adoption of technology in all settings.
Clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria for CVM with the input from clinical nurses allowed for clear expectations for clinical staff members. A decisional algorithm was designed to help nurses with clinical decision-making regarding whether to use a sitter or CVM as an intervention.
Lean management principles are critical to continuous improvement and empower the frontline staff to solve problems, eliminate waste, standardize work, and improve the value of care delivered to patients. Because Lean management focuses on the frontline staff, it provides an opportunity to enculturate new systems and to identify barriers.
With proper implementation, the benefits became clear.
The CVM program at this hospital has provided a bridge for the nursing staff to use technology to enhance patient safety and to provide an additional opportunity for intervention when sitter use is not reasonable or effective. Implementation of CVM reduced costs, improved resource allocation, and enhanced staff and patient family satisfaction.
Hear how health systems use centralized monitoring stations and enterprise software to save money, simplify hiring and training, and save lives.
Presented by Loyola University Medical Center, Trinity Health of New England
Sarah Brown MSN, RN, CMPE, NEA-BC at UnityPoint Health, discusses the challenges her nursing staff faced during the pandemic and how this caused massive burnout throughout their system. Quality of care was being compromised, so leadership agreed to make innovative changes and identified the use of AvaSure TeleNurse™ solutions as a potential solve. Sarah noted, “Virtual Nursing in the med-surg area immediately helped our nurses at bedside and has grown astronomically quickly.”
Early results of TeleNurse™ Programs:
When is a virtual nurse needed? What are the skills required? What outcomes are hospitals seeing? Lisbeth Votruba, RN, chief clinical officer at AvaSure, explains