Use of electronic bed alarms in a hospital setting can result in fewer falls
Technology Project Proposal–Topic: Use of electronic bed alarms in a hospital setting can result in fewer falls
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Institution
Introduction
Background of the problem
Dramatic changes in the healthcare environment call for nurses to implement revolutionary changes. The health care industry is the most sensitive sector because it deals with saving lives of human beings. The industry currently faces many challenges due to evolving health problems, which lack adequate facilities and knowledgeable medical providers to offer the necessary solution. Nursing informatics forms one of the key areas of health care that need a thorough advancement. Effective application of nursing informatics supports safe and quality patient care. Physicians must utilize modern technologies now and in the future for quality improvement, effectiveness and teamwork (Batalden, & Kerrigan, 2010). Study shows that patients’ falls from hospital beds leads to more injuries and complications. In order to prevent falls from hospital beds, the following proposal aims at introducing electronic bed alarms technology.
Falls among hospitalized patients are very common and cause a serious threat to patient’s safety. Most hospitals report daily incidences of accidental falls that result into more complications an increased hospital stays. More than 25 percent of falls in hospitalized patients causes minor injuries while about 2 percent leads to fractures. In addition, accidental falls lead to substantial costs like increased hospital bills because of extended stay as the patient receives more care. The issue became a major concern to most healthcare bodies especially the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A number of falls in hospitalized patients occur in patient rooms. A patient may fall from a bed, toilet, or chair especially when the patient is weak and lacks adequate assistance (Shorr, Chandler, and Miller, 2012). The following paper concentrates on falls from beds. Implementation of bed-alarm technology would help reduce these cases and overall cost of healthcare.
Context for the problem
Accidental falls in hospitals not only affect patients but also health care providers and hospitals. The problem is faced as ignorance from hospital healthcare providers who care less about the well-being of patients. Centres for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) received many cases of patient falls in hospitals and claimed that the mistake would be prevented if more care is taken. Since October 1, 2008 CMS eliminated additional costs related to eight preventable hospital-related injuries. The new payment rule aimed at improving quality of care and provides nurses with a better tool for altering their economic relationships with healthcare centres. In addition, beginning October 2008, the US-government came up with social insurance programme that covered health expenses for people aged 65 and over (Kurtzman & Buerhaus, 2008). In addition, hospitals never received money meant for errors associated with accidental falls. Medical errors account for more than 90, 000 deaths a year in US. The issue made Medicaid blame hospital management for reluctances.
The hospital administration filed a complaint claiming that many accidents occur without their knowledge. In addition, most health care centres are understaffed leading to one nurse caring for more than 30 patients. Most nurses argue that they always conduct frequent checkups on patients, but sometimes a patient may develop a bad bedsore and fall in an attempt to leave the bed before the nurse arrives. Holding salaries for nurses who fall victims of this problem leads to more problems than solutions. A nurse risks $5, 000 when a patient falls while on duty. For instance, failing to pat nurses for non-preventable problems reduces access to patients in need and causes poor productivity. Bed-ridden patients, especially obese patients, also suffer the risks of being turned away an instance that may cause ulcers (World Health Organization, 2009). Presence of a bed-alarm system capable of notifying nurses whenever a patient wants to leave the bed would help minimize these problems.
Introduction to the proposed technology-300
Background of the technology
Clinical alarms are of many natures, and their main function is to alert caregivers and hospital staff of any medical information, emergency, or any other help a patient needs. The electronic bed alarm technology is a system that helps in alerting healthcare providers, like nurses, whenever a patient wants to leave the hospital bed. The system was proposed in order to minimize the number of accidental bed falls in hospitals.
The alarm consists of two weight-sensitive sensor pads that are applied the bed of the patient. The alarm functions through electric contacts. When a patient lifts his upper body part in an attempt to leave the bed, the contact is broken with the alarm sensor pad. Each bed alarm is connected to a computer at the nurses’ station. The alarm sounds at the same time indicating the bed number of the patient at the computer screen. The pad is placed in the area between the bottoms and the shoulder blades of the victim lies. When placed at the higher side of the bed, which is in the shoulder blades, the alarm alert gives a caretaker more response time to get to the patient before exiting the bed. Moreover, sensing intervals could be increased from 5 to 10 seconds on bed pressure pad in order to reduce unwanted alarms, for example, when the patient turns.
Figure 1 shows a bed alarm system when a patient occupying bed no. 2 wants to exit the bed. The red button on the computer screen notifies the nurse on duty the specific bed.
Figure 1: A representation of an electronic bed-alarm technology
Context of the technology
The electronic bed-alarm technology would be the most appropriate in minimizing accidental falls among patients in hospitals. The technology may also have some challenges in its operation. The previously installed bed alarms were not very effective because some could not sense when the patient wants to exit the bed. In addition, before the introduction of the computer technology caregivers used to move into the room and locate the exact bed where the alarm originates. In a case when two or more patients raise an alarm, caregivers had hard moments figuring out the exact bed. Excessive alarms cause disturbance to caregivers and affect the patient safety by distracting nurses from conducting other medical tasks. In addition, false alarms create a negative attitude towards nurses. Caregivers reach a situation where they assume even true alarms (ECRI Institute, 2008).
The proposed technology takes care of some of these problems. Firstly, each bed is given a delayed sensitivity of about 5 seconds to take care of false alarms. Secondly, the new system consists of effective electrocardiogram electrode system that helps prevent false alarms. Secondly, the new system is computerized. The alarm has no potential of affecting patients in their rooms because the alarm makes a notifying sound in the nurses’ station. In addition, computers help nurses identify the exact bed.
Quality impacts of the new technology
Technology plays a vital part in ensuring the safety of patients today. Nursing informatics addresses thousands of patient safety issues experienced in healthcare centres across the world. A patient safety survey conducted by Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) indicated that nurses with information technology knowledge helps in improving the quality if health care in their organizations. In addition, introduction of new technologies in the health care sector help in improving the quality of care and patient well-being (Birz, 2014). The electronic bed alarm technology would create many impacts to the health care industry if correctly implemented. Injuries from accidental falls contribute to more than 30 percent of patient hospitalization in United States. The problem poses a great challenge to patients, health care providers and the government because of the high costs of care associated with fall injuries. A system that senses when a patient wants to exit the bed would drastically minimize these incidences in hospital rooms.
The new technology also improves the quality of care and patient outcome because nurses will engage in other important activities. The system will notify nurses in the nurses’ station of any attempted movement in the patient’s room. One or two nurses can take care of the patient’s movements while others engage in other healthcare practices.
Stakeholders
The implementation of the new technology requires contribution from a number of stakeholders.
Hospital management (primary stakeholders)
The hospital management that consists of managing director, senior doctors, human resources manager, and other departmental managers help in the daily operation of the hospital. These individuals must be notified of the new technology in order to approve its implementation. In order to prove the suitability of the project, a pilot project will be done that implements the new technology. The results from the pilot project will help in proving the reliability of the new technology.
The government (primary stakeholders)
The government represented by healthcare officers from the ministry of health should take part in the project implementation. Government officials help in testing the suitability of the new technology to the healthcare system and its potential harms. The implementation process kicks off after the government approves the project.
Technical department (secondary stakeholders)
The technical department should be involved in the new technology proposal in order to contribute on the modifications that help the system function to its full capacity. In addition, the technical department team will play a significant role in educating the staff on how the new technology works and its benefits over the other systems.
Nurse assistants
Nursing assistants are the people involved in day-to-day assistance of patients in various duties such as feeding, washing, changing clothes, and answering calls of nature. Nurse assistants should be part of this new technology in order to educate them on how to respond to alarms.
Evaluation plan for the technology
The evaluation process will test the relationship between the real project impacts and the proposed outcomes. A formative evaluation process will be conducted on this project in order to improve areas that present challenges during the implementation process. The evaluation process involves data collection and analysis. The project team will employ five research assistants who will collect relevant data from hospitals where the project will be implemented. The new technology will be evaluated on the basis of effectiveness and impact to the health care sector.
Effectiveness evaluation measures the extent to which the proposed project achieves the expected goals. The research will be conducted on patients whose beds are fitted with alarms and others whose beds do not have alarms. Patients should be diagnosed with a similar problem. The number of accidental falls recorded on both cases will be determined and evaluated to determine the percentage decrease. The impact of the project will be analysed through interviews and questionnaires directed to clinical assistants, hospital management and government health officials. The stakeholders will be asked to comment on the impact of the new technology to the quality of health care services.
Conclusion
Technology continues to be the backbone of all developments in the world. Organizations should embrace the modern technology in order to promote growth and get a chance to compete in a diverse business environment. Professionals in the area of nursing and technology should work together in applying technology and management tools that support safe processes of care building (Daniel and Oyetunde, 2013). The bed alarm technology takes many by surprise because of its contribution towards improving the quality of health and patient well-being. Implementation of this new technology in hospitals will minimize fall injuries by more than 50 percent and make nurses more productive in their operations.
References
Batalden, P. B., & Kerrigan, C. L. (2010). Lesson learned in changing healthcare: –and how
We learned from. Toronto: Longwoods Pub.
Birz, S. (2014). Nursing Informatics: Improving patient safety with technology. Retrieved
October 12, 2014 from
http://nursezone.com/nursing-news-events/devices-and-technology/Nursing-Informatics-Improving-Patient-Safety-with-Technology_24504.aspx
Daniel, O. G. & Oyetunde, M. O. (2013). Nursing informatics: A key to improving practice
In Nigeria. International Journal of Nursing and Midwifery, 5(5), 90-98.
ECRI Institute. (2008). Health risk control. Risk analysis critical care 5, 4, 1-19. Available at
https://www.ecri.org/Forms/Documents/Clinical_Alarms.pdf
Kurtzman, E. T., & Buerhaus, P. I. (2008). New Medicare payment rules: Danger or
Opportunity for nursing. AJN, American Journal of Nursing, 108(6), 30-35.
World Health Organization. (2009). When the patient falls out of bed, who pays? Bulletin of
The World Health Organization, 87(3), 169-170.
Shorr, I. R., Chandler, M. A., and Miller, S. T. (2012). Effects of an Intervention to Increase
Bed Alarm Use to Prevent Falls in Hospitalized Patients: A randomized trial. Ann
Intern Med 157(10), 692-699
