Nurses are a busy bunch of people. They have to undertake numerous calls from patients and doctors and make sure that they give the best possible assistance that they can. Situations can get worse when they miss a call light. A call light is a signal sent from the bedside button that patients press when they are in need of help.
Call lights are critical as they notify nurses of any emergency that the patience is facing. In order to respond to this call light, nurses have to be alert at all times. Sometimes they are not alert and this leads to a chain of consequences that include the fall of a patient.
Most hospitals have looked ahead in preventing these fall situations and that is where a health technology startup called Qventus has developed a smart program, which will prevent patient falls by taking records of their medical history and their current medical condition and use these records to predict the next time of the fall.
This program pulls in all relevant information such as the patient’s age, medication the patient is currently on, the last time the medication was administered, and so on. A computer algorithm then predicts the next time a possible fall of the patient is likely to happen.
The program also takes into the account the time of the day that fall is more likely to occur. Many falls do occur at midday when temperatures are on the highest. Patients who had changed rooms also seemed more vulnerable to falls.
The system works in the easiest possible way. The nurse will wear a “nudge” which is a special badge worn by nurses which remind the nurses to check on the patients after a significant amount of time.
The program has undergone tests in El-Camino hospital and has proved to reduce the number of falls due to lack of attention from nurses. With this success, the program will surely be adapted to more hospitals worldwide in the coming time.