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Several members of the leadership team at Montgomery Place in Chicago took the unprecedented step of moving into their community in March 2020 when COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect in senior living communities across the nation. Here, CEO Deborah Hart, COO Paul Zappoli, and CRO (Chief Relationship Officer) Stefanie Dziedzic talk about the decision to move in and what they took away from the experience, in their own words.

Making the Decision to Move In

Deborah Hart: When COVID attacked us in 2020—and I use that term very judiciously—nobody knew how to deal with it. We were all learning as we went, basing it on experiences of infection control procedures. But COVID gave the entire senior living industry a new component to deal with. Because we immediately sensed fear, several members of the executive leadership team, myself included, chose to literally move into the building. We had some vacant apartments that we could utilize. Some people were on beds, others were on air mattresses or sleeping bags, but we chose to be here 24 hours a day so that when our staff and residents needed us, we were here.

The residents were fearful of COVID when it first happened, because nobody understood any of this. When we announced that we were going to literally move in, it was accepted very openly.

Deborah Hart

Stefanie Dziedzic: This was not an initiative that was done for show. It was really done from the heart, and I think that’s what made it successful. Residents couldn’t see their families. They couldn’t see their friends. They couldn’t do the things that made their life normal. We were what made their life normal. And so it really was an easy transition to make. Now, a full year later, it’s almost hard to remember how scary it was and how quickly things were changing.

Paul Zappoli: We moved into Montgomery Place because it was the right thing to do. We can’t help a resident or a staff member, if we’re not there. As we all know, emergencies don’t only happen when you’re there. They happen at the most inopportune times. So having someone in the building that is three minutes away from the problem is really important.

Hart: It wasn’t uncommon to get a call at 2:00 am. We were with our staff members, supporting them all through the night. We would do rounds at all hours just to make sure everybody was comfortable. It gave a calm to the overall organization and a comfort to residents and families that I don’t think we could have accomplished in any other fashion.   I was doing daily newsletters to residents and families. We also did a CCTV announcement three times a day, and staff were knocking on doors as many as seven times throughout the day, checking in on individuals, delivering meals, delivering library books, as well as doing wellbeing checks.Deborah Hart 

Communication was Key

Dziedzic: When I look back at the CCTV videos now, I’m like, What were we thinking? The graphics are terrible and the jokes are worse. But the residents appreciated it and they understood the intent and the spirit behind what we were trying to do.

Hart: Just like residents, staff were very scared. They didn’t understand this any more than anyone else. And the media and news reports became very confusing. So we did an Herculean effort in order to help educate, give comfort, and show and demonstrate everything from mask wearing to being able to put on all of the appropriate PPE—and making certain the PPE was present. They gained confidence. They also didn’t have a choice. [They] could not work from home.

Zappoli: It was very hard to actually get the staff’s comfort to a certain level where they’re able to execute their jobs. They came to work with a positive attitude, but the uncertainties created fear. And I saw that across all staff members. I saw this video by Dr. Matthew Bai, an emergency room physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He explained what he was dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and I sent it to the entire staff because I felt like it would be inspiring for them to watch it on their own.

I learned a lot from that video, and I talked to staff and I said maybe you shouldn’t be fearful of being around [COVID-19]. You maybe shouldn’t even be fearful of contracting it. What you should be more fearful of is spreading it.So knowing what you can do to stop the spread—wash your hands, don’t touch your face. You know, the simple things.

Hart: The most important lesson that I have pulled out of COVID, and the response here in senior living, is to understand and be empathic to staff, to residents, to understand their fears and develop a plan of action as a business that can respond, and not create more fear. Without communication fear sets in very fast. And communication is not just a one-time event. It is constantly repeating the same message. It’s consistency, and it’s demonstrating calmness as you go through the process, as well as letting people see your emotions. There were a lot of events that occurred and we had to let people see that we were human too. And that helped.

Creating Community

Dziedzic: The days were so long. I don’t recall ever feeling as mentally and physically tired as I did in those days—and yet invigorated at the same time. Some of my favorite memories from that time were dinner with my colleagues and getting to know each other. It really became a family environment. We were literally spending 18 hours a day together. And then as the days went on and we didn’t have any positive cases, we would get these alerts on our phones when somebody had a sore throat and we would panic. And then we would all be like, Okay, sore throats are still going to happen in the middle of a pandemic. Let’s not freak out. And we would talk each other off of our ledges. And I think the bond that came out of that experience is one of my absolute favorite things.

Barbara Dwyer, is a resident who tested positive for COVID-19 and ended up in the hospital for dehydration. After being released from the hospital, she says this of the care she received by staff at Montgomery Place:

“This was a good place to be because someone would bring me food, check my oxygen levels, take my temperature … whereas where I was living before, I don’t think I would have survived. Just having someone around me and watching over me was a good thing.”

Resident, Barbara Dwyer

Leading by Example

Hart: Leadership has to be very person oriented and you have to be able to pivot quickly—and in COVID we had to pivot very fast. You have to make rapid decisions. You have to have confidence in your decisions, even though underneath you’re wondering, Is this the right choice? We gained the confidence of our staff and our residents. We were doing the steps that we expected our staff to do (like delivering meals) so that they understood, we were part of this team that had to work together.

Zappoli: My motto is we need to be better everyday. Better tomorrow than you were today. Work hard and do the best you can.

Hart: I think the most surprising thing that came out of COVID for me is how quickly we were able to adapt. Any time you’re faced with a calamity, you’re always wondering, How am I ever going to make it through? As an organization that serves seniors, we have to go through emergency preparedness. All sorts of emergencies. It’s totally different when you’re living it, but we were able to do it and we were able to create a playbook. So should anything similar happen in the future, we can go back to it and say, this is how it works.

The Effects of Isolation

Zappoli: Every time we were able to see residents, we did our best to have a conversation and make them smile. And that helps all the way around. It was immensely beneficial to staff members because they became very close to all of the residents. So we relied on them to give us feedback so we could stay attuned to our residents.

Hart: When COVID struck, everything shut down, including, outpatient therapy for a period of time. We saw how devastating isolation can be. Our residents declined mentally and physically when we were asking them to isolate in their apartments. When we saw how many people had declined, we were very concerned about it.   Our need as human beings is to be with people. And we saw the decline that can be created by isolation, and I never want to see that again.Deborah Hart    

Dziedzic: Natalie Hackett, our director of rehab services was extremely concerned about physical decline in the residents and she was smart enough to think, You know, if they’re not going to come to me, I’m going to go to them. She took VSTBalance [which uses artificial intelligence to identify mobility deficits in older people] door-to-door so that people could get their assessment in their apartment, and she did inpatient therapy on an outpatient basis, and people started to improve. It really helped illustrate for the residents and their families, what an impact immobility had on people’s gait and balance and stability, and was really able to tell the future story of, Hey, if we don’t get ahead of this, this could really be a big problem. We could have falls, we can have injuries and we don’t want any of that. So by utilizing that technology and really showing people a mirror for where they were, it helped them overcome their fear and come out of their apartments and really start to re-emerge and re-engage and get stronger and healthier.

Coming out of this better than before

It has been the toughest year I’ve ever had to deal with in my career, but it also strengthened our mission and values as an organization. Our staff knows that we will support them at any moment and that will make us stronger.

Paul Zappoli

  Dziedzic : I think where you work matters, and nobody wants to get up and go to work and spend a third of their life or more with people they wouldn’t want to normally hang out with. We are fortunate that we are a small enough team and a small enough organization that we can still maintain those personal connections. There’s no real barrier to anybody on our team coming up with a good idea and walking into our CEO’s office and saying,  Hey, I really think we need to think about this, or we need to consider this. And it will always be considered. And I think having that shared experience of living through what we’ve lived through, has taken us to a different level as a team, as an organization, and as a community.

This article was originally published here.

Customer surveys are the best way to gain meaningful insights into your company’s products and services. People who take the time to fill out surveys usually have very strong opinions one way or the other, so making a good impression is paramount. Healthcare is no different. New technologies using artificial intelligence create better care for patients and in turn, improve your hospital patient score. 

When hospitals receive good HCAHPS survey results, it’s the equivalent of earning a golden ticket. The results of the HCAHPS survey—the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems—are publicly reported and provide the patient perspective on the care they received at your hospital. These quality scores are linked to the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program, which directly correlates to hospital incentive payments. In other words, bad patient scores impact the bottom line.  

The HCAHPS survey contains 21 patient perspectives on care and patient rating items that include the following key topics: 

• Communication with doctors & nurses 
• Responsiveness of hospital staff 
• Pain management 
• Communication about medicines 
• Discharge information 
• Cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment 
• Transitions of care 

The survey is administered after discharge to a random sampling of adult patients. More than 4,000 hospitals participate in the HCAHPS with more than three million patients completing the survey each year.  

Value-Based Purchasing Program

The Hospital VBP Program is designed to improve the quality of care and patient experience in the hospital. It encourages hospitals to improve the quality, efficiency, patient experience and safety of care that Medicare beneficiaries receive during acute care inpatient stays by: 

• Eliminating or reducing adverse events (healthcare errors resulting in patient harm). 
• Adopting evidence-based care standards and protocols in order to obtain the best outcomes for Medicare patients. 
• Incentivizing hospitals to improve patient experience. 
• Increasing the transparency of care quality for consumers, clinicians, and others. 
• Recognizing hospitals that provide high-quality care at a lower cost to Medicare. 

Hospitals are rewarded based on the quality of care provided to Medicare patients, not just the quantity of services provided. These ratings are then measured against other hospitals and improvements from previous baseline periods.  

Achieving a good VBP rating is especially challenging due to current and future healthcare staffing shortages, most notably, nurses.  

Providing a Better Patient Experience with AI

VSTOne from VirtuSense connects patients, staff, physicians, and family without requiring clunky monitoring platforms, additional personnel, or complex workflows. The platform integrates with wearable vitals monitors, smartphones, and a central console to provide continuous monitoring and rapid alerting no matter the circumstances.

VSTOne can improve the patient experience and provide support for your staff.  

Communicate with Doctors & Nurses: Connect patients with staff, physicians, remote specialists, and family members with VSTOne’s two-way video and audio communication capabilities. 

Prevent Patient Falls: VSTOne’s AI and LIDAR sensors work together to not just detect, but predict patient bed and chair exits 30-65 seconds before they get up. VSTOne has reduced patient falls by up to 60% compared to E-sitters at 20% for substantially less.  

Pressure Ulcer Alerting (coming soon): VSTOne will recognize when a patient hasn’t moved in their bed and is at risk of developing pressure ulcers, detecting both upper and lower extremities. 

Rapid Response Time: Untethered, real-time monitoring sends alerts to the right people at the right time to prevent adverse health events. Speed and security are priorities. Because VSTOne processes AI on the edge device, no sensitive data is transmitted across your network, just the alert itself. This means that the network requirements are extremely low—up to 125 units can run on a single dial-up modem. 

Fewer Disruptions: VSTOne automates routine vitals checks and non-emergency in-room visits. The wearable vitals patch captures heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature and SpO2 in real-time, so night-time disruptions from rounding can be eliminated. 

VSTOne is a game-changer when it comes to improved efficiencies in care for hospital patients.

If you’d like to learn more about VSTOne, click here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed significant weaknesses in our healthcare system today. Increased patient volumes stressing staffing capacity, increased caregiver exposure, and dwindling supplies of PPE continue to strain our hospital and senior care systems. The people that this affected the most are the patients and frontline healthcare workers who are working with antiquated resources and without adequate support to deal with these challenges. These problems are not new, but the pandemic has highlighted how ill-equipped our existing system is to deal with them. We have seen that a new delivery model is necessary in order to move forward, which is why many healthcare providers are considering AI and RPM platforms. 

COVID-19 Changed Everything

Dr. Tom Hale, Chief Medical Officer at VirtuSense Technologies says, “We’ve been aware of the possibility of a pandemic, but since the last true global pandemic was over 100 years ago—the Spanish Flu in 1918— healthcare delivery has not changed significantly in preparation of pandemic extremes. COVID-19 has unmasked the inadequacies in our healthcare delivery model. Healthcare will be forever changed and it is evident that to not change the model is a recipe for disaster.” 

For decades healthcare has operated based on a reactive model of care delivery, with patients acting as the sentinel alerting event. You feel sick, you call a doctor, they give you medicine or send you to a specialist, you get better. Rinse and repeat. “Most care models in the healthcare industry have spent billions on infrastructure to support this model. By definition this causes providers to enter the disease cycle in the middle to the end—never the beginning,” Hale explains.

Research by the American Journal of Medicine suggests early interventions are the key to better outcomes, COVID-19 being no exception.

“Many patients who arrive at the hospital by emergency medical services with COVID-19 do not initially require forms of advanced medical care. Once hospitalized, approximately 25% require mechanical ventilation, advanced circulatory support, or renal replacement therapy. Hence, it is conceivable that some, if not a majority, of hospitalizations could be avoided with a treat-at-home first approach with appropriate telemedicine monitoring and access to oxygen and therapeutics.”

Predictive Analysis

VirtuSense Technologies’ mission is to change this delivery model. Through years of work around AI and sensor technology the team at VirtuSense developed VSTOne. This breakthrough technology has enabled a proactive model for care delivery. VSTOne is a continuous remote monitoring and telehealth device using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to aid providers in acute and post-acute settings to more effectively care for chronically ill and COVID-19 patients. The platform uses an array of machine vision and IoT sensors to monitor patient vitals (movement, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, O2, etc.); artificial intelligence to recognize anomalies; and mobile applications to alert healthcare workers before a patient’s condition declines. 

VSTOne receives a constant stream of health data from chronically and critically ill patients and leverages AI to interpret it, resulting in actionable alerts and decision support. Instead of waiting for a patient to report their symptoms, VSTOne recognizes early warning signs before the symptoms themselves manifest. Early warning enables early intervention, which means that patients will be able to avoid many serious health issues all together.

Telehealth is the Way Forward

Because of VSTOne’s telehealth capabilities and vital sign data acquisition, caregivers can manage more patients with fewer resources and lower exposure to infectious agents such as COVID-19. Traditionally, a nurse or tech will check patient vitals every few hours to monitor their condition. During the pandemic, every visit means new PPE. Remote monitoring reduces the need for them to enter the patient’s room. With VSTOne, a patient’s vitals are continuously monitored and are available as data points in time or as trends to the nurse’s phone as well as to a central monitoring station. Rather than 3-4 snapshots of the patient’s condition, VSTOne creates a movie of real time trending information. When relevant changes occur alerts are sent immediately so that interventions can begin as quickly as possible. Because of the use of the AI and ML the specificity is remarkable with little to no false alerts.

During pandemic surges, this is crucial for maintaining open rooms and resources for critically ill patients. “VSTOne gathers patient information in the hospital room in real-time. It has telemedicine capabilities with a camera and microphone, so when a nurse receives an alert she can see the patient and communicate with them from her smartphone,” Hale explains.

“There’s nothing more inefficient than going back and forth to patient rooms, taking vitals, etc. This technology will streamline workflows and potentially allow nurses to care for 30–40% more patients with greater accuracy and less work.”

AI is Everywhere

AI is proving to be a valuable tool during this pandemic to detect and prevent the spread of COVID-19. For example, AI technology has been deployed in public places like Beijing’s Qinghe railway station and at hospitals like Tampa General to detect people with COVID-19 symptoms and prevent them from spreading the virus. 2

We developed VSTOne to be the first step toward a better, more connected healthcare system. Many different organizations are addressing isolated parts of the issue, but these solutions are still triggered by patients’ self reporting symptoms consistent with the traditional reactive healthcare delivery model. What VirtuSense has done with VSTOne is create a comprehensive ecosystem that addresses multiple angles of the care delivery problem with greater sensitivity and specificity. 

Technology will change how healthcare is delivered both during the pandemic and after. Continuous monitoring combined with AI gives providers the full picture of a patient’s health without burying them in data. The insights and alerts will enable healthcare providers to care for their patients irrespective of time, place and situation making high-quality care accessible to everyone. VSTOne is the first step.

This article first published here.

The case for value-based care (VBC) has been evident for decades, but why has it taken so long for healthcare providers to embrace it? “It’s a mindset. ‘This is what we’ve always done,’ is the excuse,” says Bill Wynn, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, VirtuSense Technologies. “COVID-19 has been the catalyst to start shifting providers toward a mode of value-based thinking and has highlighted the need to diversify revenue streams by augmenting fee-for-service (FFS) income with VBC.” 

Various legislation and programs have been approved over the past decade, but a universal implementation of value-based healthcare still alludes most care providers. The biggest barriers for initiating VBC, according to the 2019 survey by Definitive Healthcare, are lack of resources like staff shortages and integrated health IT systems; access to healthcare data; and unpredictable revenue streams—i.e. determining the financial risk involved in population health management. 

“The way we’re delivering care is becoming financially prohibitive,” Wynn notes. “When looking at the months where the COVID-19 impact was biggest, providers that operated on the VBC model were still making money, but other providers that make most of their money from elective procedures and are FFS-based didn’t, because they didn’t have patients coming in.” 

In September 2020, CMS issued guidance to healthcare providers to accelerate the adoption of VBC. “Many states have made progress in moving toward value-based payments in healthcare, yet there are still growth opportunities for more states to improve health outcomes and efficiency across payers including Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, by ensuring healthcare systems are financially incentivized to deliver the best quality, best value care. Aligning value-based care programs across payers could reduce the burden on providers who participate with multiple payers and improve the healthcare experience for patients.”  

Resetting the Healthcare Trajectory 

“The reason the healthcare industry is so slow in adopting a VBC model, is because providers are trained to fix things. The mindset of VBC is to never get to a point where you have to fix anything because you’re keeping your population healthy,” explains Dr. Tom Hale, Chief Medical Officer, VirtuSense Technologies. “Our current healthcare system is not preventative or patient-centric. It’s very much reactive.”

Here’s a typical scenario Hale gives to illustrate the inefficiencies of FFS. “Howard is having mild chest pain, so he calls his doctor, but the doctor either doesn’t get back to him right away or he can’t get in, so he calls his neighbor who advises him to to go to the emergency room. Howard goes to the emergency room—mind you, the ER is disconnected from the primary care physician. The ER doctor says, ‘Since you have chest pain, I’m going to admit you.’ They run a series tests, do a CT scan of the heart, and seek the advice of several specialists. At the end of the day the doctor determines Howard has chest wall pain, and that it’s not a problem. Now there’s a $30,000 medical bill, all because Howard couldn’t get timely access to his physician.” 

Lack of access and increased variation contribute to an environment that encourages higher and unnecessary utilization. “We have created the perfect model and infrastructure to get the results that we are getting—i.e. a model of care delivery that is inaccessible to patients, inefficient for providers, and wasteful and expensive,” Hale notes. 

“The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, with costs approaching 18% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Prior studies estimated that approximately 30% of health care spending may be considered waste. Despite efforts to reduce over-treatment, improve care, and address overpayment, it is likely that substantial waste in US health care spending remains.”   – Waste in the US HealthCare System

If You Build it They Will Come 

Healthcare has built an infrastructure that creates $3 trillion in spending per year.  It is an infrastructure centered around hospitals and specialists that requires a high degree of utilization in order to financially survive. “It is what I like to call ‘Feeding the Beast’ — the healthcare beast. VBC changes the dynamic. The economic driver is based on keeping people well and out of hospitals and, by necessity, can only work if there is increased access to caregivers and providers and a decrease in the variation of care delivery and a navigated pathway for the patient’s healthcare journey,” Hale explains.

“Virtual care is the engine that will drive the success of a value-based healthcare model utilizing the technologic tools, data analytics, and AI and maintenance of the relationship between the caregivers and providers. The first two are occurring rapidly in all other industries, and the third is the ‘art of medicine’ applied through a different medium.” 

According to Hale, VBC needs to be a healthcare community endeavor. “Build the infrastructure around the doctors so they are able to do the right thing. The FFS economic model causes physicians to be bricklayers rather than being able to use their talents to be a general contractor. The physician/bricklayer, sees a patient and treats them, then moves on to the next one. The physician as a contractor, manages a population, which requires a more proactive approach to care.” 

Hale points out that VBC thrives on access, decreased variation in care (through centralization of the data) with intelligent distribution of the knowledge and support generated by that data—a 360-degree view of a patient’s health history, versus snapshots. Access is created through a multimodal approach which includes synchronous and asynchronous communication, telehealth communication tools, and a team care approach based in patient-centricity.

Bridging the Technology Gap 

“The difficulty in creating models which utilize virtual tools and data acquisition technologies is not the availability of the tools, but rather the transition in the infrastructure models. The economics have to work in the transition phase—the best of the past needs to be carried forward to the future and the pace of transformation needs to be certain that patients, providers and caregivers are not left behind,” he says. “This is evolution not revolution.” 

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) technologies and telehealth options are a big part of the solution for VBC because it decreases in-person visits and hospitalizations and keeps people healthier, especially during a pandemic. It also increases access to healthcare providers so you avoid costly scenarios like the one above with Howard. 

In the 2021 Physician Fee Schedule CMS is expanding its reimbursements for RPM and telemedicine and has commissioned a study of its telehealth flexibilities provided during the COVID-19 public health emergency. “The study will explore new opportunities for services where telehealth and virtual care supervision, and remote monitoring can be used to more efficiently bring care to patients and to enhance program integrity, whether they are being treated in the hospital or at home.”

“The inherent core to value based care is to keep people healthy. The tools, like remote patient monitoring, asynchronous communication, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning create the ability to be the patient’s ‘general contractor’ as well as their personal physician and friend,” Hale explains. “Healthcare costs go down, profits go up, and patients have better outcomes from the proactive care that is created.  

“Everybody wins.”

This article originally published here.

According to the American Nurses Association, there will be significantly more registered nursing positions available by 2022 than any other profession—more than 100,000 per year. This isn’t even factoring in the more than 500,000 RNs that are planning on retiring. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the need for 1.1 million new RNs in 2022 to avoid a nursing shortage. 

There are four driving factors impacting these numbers: 

1. Nurses are retiring earlier

The ANA estimates that 1 million nurses will retire between now and 2030. Not only is the profession expected to lose a large number of nurses, but when experienced nurses leave, healthcare organizations are left to mitigate the threat of lost knowledge. Nurses will leave with the critical nursing experience and knowledge they have accumulated

2. The Aging Population is increasing

The U.S. has the largest number of Americans over the age of 65.  As the population ages, the number of health conditions, chronic illnesses, and co-morbidities requiring healthcare services grow. These increasing healthcare needs require healthcare organizations to increase nursing staff to provide quality care safely.  

3. Shortage of nurse educators

According to AACN, U.S. nursing schools turned away more than 80,000 qualified nursing applicants in 2019 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, and clinical preceptors, as well as budget constraints. 

4. Nurse burnout

Nurses are overworked and mentally and physically exhausted, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Although hospital administrators are facing a huge dilemma in the coming years, there are technologies available now that can augment their current and future nursing workforce to keep patients healthy and safe. 

Artificial Intelligence Assists Nurse

VSTOne has enabled a proactive model for care delivery in the hospital. VSTOne is a continuous remote monitoring and telehealth device using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to aid providers in acute settings to more effectively care for more patients with fewer resources. The platform uses an array of machine vision and IoT sensors to monitor patient vitals (movement, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, O2, etc.); artificial intelligence to recognize anomalies; and mobile applications to alert healthcare workers before a patient’s condition declines. 

VSTOne receives a constant stream of health data from chronically and critically ill patients and leverages AI to interpret it, resulting in actionable alerts and decision support. Instead of waiting for a patient to report their symptoms, VSTOne recognizes early warning signs before the symptoms themselves manifest. Early warning enables early intervention, which means that patients will be able to avoid many serious health issues all together.

Less Rounding & Fewer False Alarms

Because of VSTOne’s telehealth capabilities and vital sign data acquisition, more patients can be managed with fewer resources, thus reducing the workload for nurses. Traditionally, a nurse or tech will check patient vitals every few hours to monitor their condition. With VSTOne, a patient’s vitals are continuously monitored and are available as data points in time or as trends to the nurse’s phone as well as to a central monitoring station. Rather than 3-4 snapshots of the patient’s condition, VSTOne creates a movie of real time trending information. When relevant changes occur alerts are sent immediately so that interventions can begin as quickly as possible. Because of the use of the AI and ML, the specificity is remarkable with little to no false alerts.

Floor Management

The VSTOne Console allows you to manage your entire floor from a single screen. You can assign rooms to nurses and staff, track shifts, onboard patients, and view the status of each room in real-time. VSTOne automates routine vitals checks, non-emergency in-room visits, and gives patients the means to talk with family, specialists, or their doctor remotely.

A New Way Forward

We developed VSTOne to be the first step toward a better, more connected healthcare system. Many different organizations are addressing isolated parts of the issue, but these solutions are still triggered by patients’ self reporting symptoms consistent with the traditional reactive healthcare delivery model. What VirtuSense has done with VSTOne is create a comprehensive ecosystem that addresses multiple angles of the care delivery problem with greater sensitivity and specificity. 

For more information on VSTOne, please click here. 

This article originally published here.

Many fall “prevention” companies aren’t actually preventing falls at all, but rather notifying caregivers after a resident is already on the floor. There’s a big difference between detecting falls and preventing falls, depending on the technology you use. 

Most “solutions” in the marketplace are reactive, and thus ineffective: 

• In-room sitters are expensive and not scalable
• Telesitters require additional IT infrastructure while still requiring costly sitters to monitor video feeds
• Bed and floor pads often send false alerts causing alarm fatigue. When real alerts are sent, it’s usually too late–the resident is already on the floor. 

These tactics serve as Band-Aids that cause more disruptions for residents without making a real impact on falls. 

Not All AI is the Same

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a game changer in fall prevention in long-term care for older adults, but not all systems utilizing AI are the same. In fact, there are major discrepancies between fall reduction providers when it comes to their AI capabilities. 

Real-Time AI Detects Falls

Some products on the market use AI-enabled video surveillance that notify staff after a resident is already on the floor. These systems tout their ability to get to a resident within 10 to 20 minutes after a fall, but is that really effective, especially if the resident is injured? A fall is a fall.  

Predictive AI Prevents Falls

At VirtuSense, we believe the best approach to stopping a fall is to prevent it altogether. Using AI and a remote monitoring platform, VSTAlert can identify and alert staff of bed and chair exits 30 to 65 seconds before a resident gets up. One community saw an 82% decrease in falls after implementing VSTAlert. 

It’s 98% accurate which means fewer false alarms and fewer falls so your staff can care for those who need it most when they need it. 

Detecting falls after the fact, doesn’t inspire confidence. Predicting and preventing falls offers the best protection for residents and peace of mind for their families. 

This article originally published here.

McKnight’s recently released its 2021 Mood of the Market survey results, which polled 627 long-term care administrators and nurse managers on the state of their profession. Not surprisingly, the survey results were pretty dismal compared to the same responses in 2020.  

When asked, “Has the pandemic made you more likely to leave the profession?” 29.4% said “yes, definitely,” compared to 17% in 2020, while the diehards who responded, “No way,” dropped nine points from 33% to 24%.  

Pandemic Burnout

Given the extreme circumstances they’ve been under the past 20 months with no clear light out of the tunnel now that the Delta variant has reared its ugly head, administrators and DONs are exhausted. Many are working extended hours and picking up floor shifts, because they’re understaffed.  

Staffing shortages are the biggest challenge in healthcare and even more so in long-term care, but there are ways to remedy this. AI technologies can assist your staff and help them care for more residents with fewer resources and better outcomes, especially for residents who are considered a high fall risk.  

AI to the Rescue

High-risk residents usually require extra staff, which isn’t feasible in current times. VSTAlert uses AI technology to monitor residents in real time and notify staff 30-65 seconds before they get up. Alerts are immediately sent to staff so they can get to them before they are out of bed. VSTAlert is 98% effective and it only sends. 5 false alarms per day, so staff aren’t wasting their time running room-to-room.  

The one bright spot in the McKnight’s survey is that 98% of respondents find their work meaningful, which isn’t something that can be said if you work as a fry cook at a fast food restaurant. Investing in an AI-enabled technology like VSTAlert, empowers your staff to focus on the meaningful work—i.e. resident care—and not the busy work created by false alarms and the lengthy documentation required after a fall.

This article originally published here.

Most adults 65 and older take at least one prescription drug, as well as over-the-counter medications. It’s no surprise, given that 85% of older adults have chronic conditions. 

According to a recent study by PDS, an estimated 94 percent of older adults received a prescription for a drug in 2017 that increased their risk of falling, a startling increase from 57 percent in 1999. The study also found that the rate of death caused by falls in older adults more than doubled during the same time period.

In fact, between 1999 and 2017, more than 7.8 billion fall-risk-increasing drug orders were filled by older adults in the United States, the majority for antihypertensives, which treat high blood pressure. The use of antidepressants also rose sharply, from 12 million prescriptions in 1999 to more than 52 million in 2017, according to the study.

Medication Side Effects

Experts acknowledge that while these medications are necessary, they can be problematic because the side effects are often drowsiness and dizziness, which contributes to falls. The Washington Post reports, “Some drugs also can impair cognition and judgment, affect mood, and produce lightheadedness, loss of balance, blurry vision, slower reaction time, and wooziness. To try to address this, the CDC has launched a campaign to improve collaboration between health providers and pharmacists to assess patients’ medications and screen them for their risk of falls.”

Every year, millions of Americans 65 and older — 1 out of 4 — suffer falls, which are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries in this age group, according to the CDC. Even a nonfatal fall can be serious, especially if it results in a fracture or head injury. Three million older Americans are treated in emergency rooms annually after falling, and 800,000 are hospitalized.

Fall-Risk Assessments

Experts aren’t advising that doctors stop prescribing or recommending drugs to older patients, but they are suggesting that patients be more vigilant in questioning the side effects and making sure their doctors know all the drugs they are currently taking. Having regular fall risk assessments are also recommended. 

VSTBalance uses artificial intelligence and machine vision to identify mobility deficits in older adults and compare against normative data to determine their risk of falling. The system automatically generates reports after each assessment, helping therapists and physicians create more effective care plans and route patients to personalized home exercises, wellness, and/or therapy. These assessments may also quantify if their medications are impacting their mobility. 

This article originally published here.