Objective: Psychiatric intensive care units provide care to patients with severe mental health disorders, often associated with violence and aggression which may result in the administration of rapid tranquillisation (RT). Novel technologies may support staff in monitoring patient safety and intervening proactively to prevent assaults and RT. The objective of this single-centre pragmatic study was to assess the effect of clinical teams augmenting their existing clinical practices with a contact-free vision-based patient monitoring system on the number of assaults and RT events.Method: The number of incidents of assaults, and the associated use of RT, was examined before and after the introduction of a contact-free vision-based patient monitoring system in a male psychiatric intensive care unit. Staff surveys and interviews were undertaken to assess usability and acceptability of the system.Results: There was a 37% reduction in assaults across the wards with 26% reduction in bedroom assaults. There was a 40% reduction in RT episodes related to assaults. Staff reported that they felt confident in monitoring the physicalsigns and health of patients remotely with the contact-free vision-based patient monitoring system to support them.Conclusion: The results suggest that the contact-free vision-based patient monitoring system helped staff to reduce incidents of assaults and associated RT administration. Staff surveys and interviews showed the ways in which their use of this technology had supported them in physical health monitoring.
ObjectivesFalls have a significant negative impact on the health and well-being of people with dementia and increase service costs related to staff time, paramedic visits, and accident and emergency (A&E) admissions. We examined whether a remote digital vision-based monitoring and management system had an impact on the prevention of falls.MethodsOur study was conducted within the Manor dementia inpatient wards at the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust. Data were retrieved from incident reports before and 22 months after installation of the system. We examined number of night time falls, severity of fall, number of paramedic visits and A&E admissions, and the number of enhanced observations during both time periods.ResultsThere was a significant 48% reduction in the number of nighttime falls (P < 0.01), a 49% reduction in visits from paramedics (P < 0.2), and a 68% reduction in A&E admissions (P < 0.02). In addition, the data indicated an 82% reduction in the number of moderate severity falls and that enhanced one-to-one observation hours were reduced by 71%.ConclusionsThe study demonstrated that a contact-free, remote digital vision-based monitoring and management system reduced falls, fall-related injuries, emergency services time, clinician time, and disruptive night time observations. This benefits the clinicians by allowing them to undertake other clinical duties and promotes the health and safety of patients who might normally experience injury-related stress and disruption to sleep.
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