Abstract

Patient safety is a top priority for all healthcare organizations, but as a healthcare facility, is everything, within the means of the facility, being done to ensure patient safety? Challenges exist for all healthcare organizations when faced with patient safety, but there it is a necessity for these healthcare organizations to overcome these challenges and protect their patient population. A common challenge within the acute care setting is the prevention of falls. “Falls during hospitalization harbor both clinical and financial outcomes” (Gringauz et al., 2017, p. 1). Research on fall interventions has shown that a multifocal approach is most effective to prevent falls for adult inpatients in the acute care setting. Currently, for those patients who are at highest risk of falls, the primary intervention is the use of a 1:1 sitter. This intervention is quite costly for the healthcare organization and has not shown a reduction in fall rates, or any return on investment. In addition to the use of 1:1 sitter and the implementation of current fall interventions, technology has presented the opportunity to intervene in these situations in a different manner. This healthcare organization researched the possibility of remote video monitoring as an available option to protect patients from experiencing a fall while in the acute care setting. There has been reported success with remote video monitoring for the reduction in falls (Votruba, Graham, Wisinski, & Syed, 2016).

As an increased endeavor, this healthcare organization has outlined a plan to conduct a three-month pilot program utilizing portable monitoring devices for in-patient rooms with a centralized observation station. The observation station will allow for one video monitor technician (VMT) to observe and interact with up to 12 patients simultaneously, with the inclusion of the patient care team, thereby decreasing the expense of sitter. The implication of utilizing and incorporating video monitoring for fall prevention and sitter reduction led this healthcare organization to inquire about adult patients in an acute care setting who are at risk for falls, how does the use of a telemonitoring sitter program compared to the use of in person sitters reduce the number of falls over three months? The investment and utilization of this Telesitter technology will allow this healthcare organization to achieve that goal.

Date of publication

Spring 4-23-2021

Document Type

MSN Capstone Project

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/3686

Degree

Masters in Nursing Education

Included in

Nursing Commons

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