Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

40 Executive Briefing CareView offers an innovative suite of HIPAA compliant products that enhance patient safety, improve quali- ty of care, and reduce hospital operating costs. Leading hospitals throughout the country have dramatically reduced patient falls and lowered 1:1 sitter costs by deploying CareView's Clinical Safety System. Using our patented Virtual Bed Rails® and Virtual Chair Rails®, nurses draw invisible motion-sensitive borders around the patient's bed on the SitterView® monitor. When movement by the patient breaks the barrier, a trigger is activated sending a visual and audible alarm to the monitor. This rapid notification allows staff to reach their patient faster, significantly reducing falls. The CareView Clinical Safety System is offered as a monthly managed service with an affordable fee. CareView provides all equipment, installation, training, and support. No capital expenditure is necessary. By reducing sitter usage and preventing patient falls, hospitals realize savings very quickly. Virtual sitters are categorized by the use of video monitoring, which require a large, upfront capital expense. These systems can include the capability of communication with the patient in the form of one-way remote dialogue to the room to cue patients to stay in bed, and some systems allow the patient to respond in a two-way exchange. Because it relies solely on human diligence in monitoring, virtual sitters do not necessarily reduce the cost of salaried sitters — the greater number of mon- itored patients still requires greater personnel to safely monitor the program. Generally, video monitoring depends on the quality of the camera, and the portability of the device leads to more oppor- tunity for breakage. Many times, camera devices are depen- dent on wireless functionality and heavy bandwidth usage, potentially slowing other operations in the healthcare setting. Enhanced video monitoring may also be "conveniently" por- table, but is also vulnerable to breakage and loss. If plugs and cables are required, this form of monitoring can actually pres- ent a greater fall risk to patients and visitors. These cameras share other negative attributes with video monitoring: they do not allow more time to respond, are dependent on the quality of the camera and wireless internet functionality, and interrupt operations of other applications by consuming large amounts of bandwidth. Once again, the process for rescuing the patient is reactionary. Healthcare workers are constantly responding to weight relief, alarm noises, or actual falls. Summarizing the available tech- nologies to date, it is known from the literature that reactive processes do not reduce fall rates, the costs associated with falls or the prevention of harm from falls. Beyond video monitoring: The CareView approach More hospitals are seeing value in investing in fall prevention solutions. Until recently, the only alternatives besides costly, personal sitters or ineffective alarms were expensive vid- eo-monitoring systems. CareView Communications offers the opportunity to protect patients from harm, protect reimbursement and implement proactive solutions for at-risk patients. In addition, the results are more consistent because CareView's solution utilizes pre- dictive monitoring technology rather than human surveillance to alert staff. Other benefits of the CareView® solution include its predictive capabilities and ability to integrate with the EHR, data capture for analysis and use of television cable that is less prone to outage. The technology is flexible and efficient, and its predic- tive nature allows additional time to react and prevent falls. The single most differentiating feature is the application of Virtual Bed Rails® and Virtual Chair Rails® Technology. Virtual Bed Rails and Virtual Chair Rails are based on mo- tion-detection software that provides advance notice of a patient's intent to rise. The infrared cameras and specialized room control platforms combine to provide HIPAA-compliant, secure observation as needed. The early notification provides more time to respond, increasing the likelihood of successful fall prevention. The patented algorithms within the software create invisible borders around beds or chairs, and when the preset limits defined by the trained caregiver are breached, the caregiver is alerted immediately. This innovative, early notifica- tion system has resulted in 40 percent to 75 percent reduction in falls. Another distinguishing benefit of the Virtual Bed Rails and Virtual Chair Rails technology from CareView is the use of captured data. The software integrates with the EHR to provide valuable insights. With this platform, an analyst has the ability to separate patients by type, such as ventilator dependent pa- tients, core measures diagnoses, risk for violations of National Patient Safety Goals, and others. It can provide readily avail- able, accurate quality data to easily measure nursing sensitive outcomes. This objective data is valuable after an event, such as when the Virtual Bed Rails or Virtual Chair Rails are activated. More importantly, it provides data prospectively to identify fall risk and aid in implementation of an effective care plan that supports fall prevention. Summary The link between hospitals' financial and clinical priorities has never been so apparent. There are high penalties for failure to prevent harm and recover patients who experience adverse events in hospitals. One fall with injury can increase length of stay, place the patient at risk for additional complications, and cost the system tens of thousands of dollars per event. That cost is well above what CMS would have paid for the original diagnosis that initially brought the patient to the hospital. The complications of patient falls are virtually endless. Care- View Communications has the solution: Virtual Bed Rails and Virtual Chair Rails are the predictive technologies that will make a difference in the culture of patient safety. n

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