Recipient Organization
NG HEALTH VENTURES, LLC
151 N 8TH ST SUITE 300
LINCOLN,NE 68508
Performing Department
dba Ocuvera, LLC
Non Technical Summary
The development of a cost-effective fall prevention system for rural Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) represents a significant opportunity. Patient falls are a common, costly, and serious problem in hospitals and care facilities. CAHs have greater pressures on them over typical urban hospitals due to their typically smaller number of beds and occupancy, older population demographics, smaller operating margins, shorter patient stays, and intermixing of patients of various demographics and with various diagnoses. These challenges present barriers to implementing a cost-effective fall prevention system. The proposed project aims to overcome these challenges faced by CAHs by introducing a mobile intervention system that is effective and flexible, allowing ease of use and integration. The goal of the proposed project is to implement and demonstrate the feasibility of a mobile Automated Video Monitoring (mAVM) system to reduce the risk of injurious falls among adults age 65 and over in CAH settings by detecting unassisted bed exits before they occur. To create the mAVM system, we propose to take a video monitoring system, mount it on a mobile cart unit made for use in hospital settings, and deploy it to CAH rooms to monitor and gather data from patients at a higher risk for falls and fall-related injuries. The data obtained in this step, in the form of 3D video footage of real patients in rooms during their stays at CAHs, will be analyzed in order to gain a better understanding of the specific behaviors that precede and indicate dangerous fall situations. This knowledge will be tremendously valuable to the public good in helping develop this and other technologies that prevent dangerous fall situations, decrease injury, increase overall quality of life, and decrease the overall cost of hospital care. Then, we will use this data to customize an automated video monitoring component and test feasibility of this approach by deploying the prototype mAVM intervention in CAH rooms, using the data collected previously as a comparative baseline to demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention. Critical Access Hospitals provide rural communities with access to healthcare. In addition, these hospitals provide economic benefit in the form of skilled jobs to rural communities across the United States. Hospitals everywhere are experiencing pressures due to increasing healthcare costs, an aging population, and a shortage of healthcare workers. These problems are often intensified for rural CAHs due to the demographics of the smaller, older communities that they serve. The proposed project will enable the business, Ocuvera, to modify its existing, promising solution to meet specific needs of CAHs. As a result, CAHs will be able to reduce specific healthcare costs related to falls and provide the same level of patient monitoring found at larger facilities elsewhere. These benefits will assist CAHs and their rural communities in continuing to exist, prosper, and become more self-sustaining.
Animal Health Component
33%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
34%
Applied
33%
Developmental
33%
Goals / Objectives
The major goal of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of a mobile Automated Video Monitoring (mAVM) system to reduce the risk of injurious falls among adults age 65 and over in Critical Access Hospital (CAH) settings. An mAVM system is intended to detect risky patient behavior that could lead to an unattended bed exit and alert hospital staff before an unattended bed exit occurs. Project objectives include: (1) Development of a prototype mAVM using a mobile cart and the Ocuvera Automated Video Monitoring system. (2) Design and implementation of an efficacy study to track statistics on unattended bed exits with and without an mAVM system in CAHs. (3) Statistical analysis of the resulting data on unattended bed exits with and without an mAVM system.
Project Methods
Efforts include:(1) Develop a prototype mAVM system. Milestones for this effort include: develop optimal algorithm parameters for computer vision algorithms when mounted on a mobile cart in varying room configurations to best balance false positive and false negative alarms for older adults; determine all hardware components for testing; integrate preliminary computer vision algorithms and hardware with a mobile cart for an end-to-end system capable of consistently alerting hospital personnel to indications of unattended patient bed exits.(2) Conduct a study to compare the prototype mAVM intervention to baseline rates of unattended bed exits, falls, and fall-related injuries among adults at high risk for falls and fall-related injury. Milestones for this effort include: establish a baseline rate of unattended bed exits using 3D camera recording systems deployed to 2-4 hospital units; deploy the prototype mAVM to the units; run the prototype mAVM intervention continuously for at least 1200 cumulative patient days with at most 1% downtime; enroll at least 100 patients and at least 50 older adults identified as high risk for falls. Statistics about system performance, including the number of bed exits and falls predicted, detected, and prevented, with patient demographic and diagnostic information, will be collected from the system and reports by nursing staff.(3) Conduct a statistical analysis of the results produced by the study. These analyses will include: a longitudinal analysis comparing rates from baseline to post intervention; an efficacy analysis determining sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of system performance as judged by an independent panel of experts, including nurse response behavior and rates of injurious falls; and a comparison of these validity indices across our two populations of interest (younger adults less than 65 years and older adults). Milestones for this effort include: completion of these analyses and reduction of unattended bed exits by at least 25% among younger adults and 50% among older adults.Evaluation: Success of this project will be the development of a prototype mAVM system and the completion of the efficacy study and from it obtaining significant and meaningful results that demonstrate the degree of effectiveness of the prototype system.