Why ‘Telesitting’ Is Becoming A New Standard Of Bedside Care

AvaSure’s AvaSys Solution Lowers Costs, Improves Patient Safety and Enhances Staff Engagement

In 2008, AvaSure deployed the AvaSys TeleSitter Solution in its first U.S. hospital. AvaSys is a continuous virtual care solution developed for patients at risk of adverse events and disruptions – such as falls. Before AvaSys, hospitals used one-to-one nurse assistants to keep patients safe. Now in use across the nation, AvaSys has helped to address the falls problem but goes far beyond that initial application to solve a wide range of patient safety, quality and workflow challenges while allowing nurse assistants to return to the jobs they trained for and saving hospitals millions of dollars in the process.

WHAT IS TELESITTING?

BP: TeleSitting is an evidence-based, data-driven and very cost-efficient solution toprovision care for patients in need of continuous observation. It provides real-time video and audio engagement of multiple patients simultaneously from a remote station with trained monitor staff,who can immediately intervene in time to redirect patients away from harming themselves or others. If the patient tries to do something he or she shouldn’t — such as get out of bed without assistance — the monitor staffwill intervene, saying, “Please do not get up by yourself, Mr. Jones. I’m going to get somebody to help you.” If the patient is unresponsive to verbal direction, there is a distinctive and loud Stat alarm on the room unit that sends nurses running to the patient’s room.

The underlying technology includes mobile or fixed monitoring units in patient rooms, reliable software and servers that keep the video and audio connection live at all times, as well as software for the monitoring station.

Even more important than technology is our clinical program, designed and led by our team of RNs, who have seen most of the different workflows used by hospital systems across the country. Our clinician teams work with hospital systems to create policies, procedures and protocols that ensure reliable identification of patients who require continuous care; consistent patient monitoring criteria; comprehensive onsite training; and accurate data collection. We apply best practices developed over years from hundreds of deployments to ensure success and follow up over time.

AvaSys also includes Online Reporting of Nursing Analytics, or ORNA, so that hospital TeleSitter program administrators have comparative efficacymetrics such as system utilization and interventions by monitor staff by patient condition. ORNA produces comparative data with millions of monitoring hours – by monitor staff,patient type, unit and shift, enabling a hospital or system to optimize efficacy across their many care teams.

WHY DO HOSPITAL SYSTEMS DEPLOY AVASYS?

BP: We have seen many hospitals attempt a homegrown solution with the hopes of achieving a similar, simple technology. But organizations underestimate the complexity of a consistent 24/7 video streaming platform that AvaSure has been engineering for 10 years, and they especially miscalculate the ROI. Hospital systems deploy AvaSys because it works reliably over scale; our clients – which include six of the top seven U.S. News Honor Roll hospitals, 40 of the 60 largest health systems and over half of all health systems – have produced dozens of published reports and presentations showing dramatic reductions in adverse events such as falls, while removing tangible, existing expenses such as the loss of payment from falls with injury and sitters. Savings range well into seven figures annually for sitters alone.

It is an open secret that most patient and staff safety interventions don’t achieve their goals. Where AvaSys is effectively deployed – in enough patient rooms and with the right attention to training and oversight – adverse events such as falls with injury are nearly eliminated.

WHAT IS AVASYS BEING USED FOR BESIDES FALLS AND SITTER COSTS?

BP: Organizations are using AvaSys to protect staff from potentially violent patients and visitors, to stop elopements, take pressure offnursing resources, improve patient throughput in the emergency department and reduce costs. A major application for AvaSys today is for behavioral health patients, ensuring the safety of patients and staff for substance use disorder and suicide ideation. AvaSys monitor staff have also prevented patients from disrupting surgery schedules by eating prior to surgery, stopped the sale and use of illegal drugs and saved the lives of patients who had stopped breathing.●