When Collette Health is installed as a patient fall avoidance tool, hospitals can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in fall-related costs.
No one goes to a hospital expecting to fall. A safe hospital stay is a reasonable expectation of every patient. Tragically, patient falls in hospitals can lead to an extended hospital stay and even significant injury. When Collette Health is installed as a fall avoidance tool, hospitals can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in fall-related costs.
How much does a fall cost?
Falls have been deemed a “never event” by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Source: Agency for Healthcare Research Quality), which means that reimbursement for patient falls in severely limited. However, every year, 700,000 to 1,000,000 patient falls occur in US hospitals with roughly 250,000 of those falls leading to injury (Source: NCBI). Of those patients who fall, 30%-35% will sustain an injury, and each injury, on average, adds more than six days to apatient’s hospital stay. (Source: Market Scale). That adds up to an average cost of a fall with injury to more than $14,000 per patient. (Source: Market Scale). So the question is, how do these falls happen? And what can we do to prevent them?
How do falls happen?
No one enters a hospital expecting to sustain further injury. That being said, both intrinsic and extrinsic factors can lead to patient falls. Intrinsic factors include advance age, muscle weakness, poor vision, postural hypotension, arthritis, stroke, Parkinson’s, dementia, and more. Extrinsic factors include poor lighting, obstacles & tripping hazards, slippery or uneven surfaces, and psychoactive medications. (Source: CDC).
Patient falls can happen even when the greatest of precautions are taken. Patients can get caught in their lines or tubes while trying to get up, or have dementia and try to get up when they shouldn’t. Studies have shown that a multifactorial fall prevention program is the most effective in lowering patient fall rates, (Source: NCBI) with patient observation playing a significant role. Let’s look at how exactly Collette Health can help reduce patient fall rates across the board.
What Is Collette Health?
Remote patient observation is a technology-enabled solution that connects at-risk patients to remote observers over video. Mobile carts equipped with cameras are left with at-risk patients. An observer at a command center can observe multiple patients (up to ten!) at one time via a video connection and can contact both the patient and onsite medical staff as necessary. Utilizing one patient observer for several patients serves to stretch staff resources without sacrificing patient safety. It also helps patient observers to avoid infectious disease, since they are no longer required to be in the room with the patients they are observing.
How Collette Health Helps Prevent Patient Falls
The Collette Health patient observation system is best-in-class and was specifically designed to prevent patient falls. The Collette Health solution can turn one patient observer into ten. One observer at a command station can effectively monitor multiple patients at once, thus extending staff resources without sacrificing patient safety. Not to mention giving much needed relief to overburdened nursing departments. Overall, this system saves nurses time and effort.
Patient safety is a major priority for patients, patient care staff, and hospital administration. Patient observers can be used to help keep patients safe during their stay, but staffing and budgetary limitations make 1:1 observation difficult to maintain. Collette Health puts one virtual observer in front of up to ten patients at one time, preserving staff resources without sacrificing patient safety—to stop patient falls in hospitals before they happen.
If you are interested in exploring a virtual patient sitting solution for your hospital, visit the Contact Us page now to schedule a free demo of the Collette Health product.