Bruyère Introduces New Patient Wandering Solution
02/22/2023
Patient safety is of the highest importance to Bruyère, and one of the greatest ongoing challenges for clinical teams comes in the form of wandering. Patients may become disoriented or confused during their stay, especially for those living with dementia, which may lead to the patient wandering or becoming lost. While this behaviour is common, it poses a risk to their health and safety, especially when there is a risk of falling.
Keeping wandering patients and those around them safe in a hospital environment requires active risk management that draws on clinical and security resources. To address this risk more effectively, Bruyère partnered with Tenera Care, piloting a system of beacons and wearables to support real-time patient monitoring in two clinical units thanks to support from CAN Health.
The system leverages geofencing, a virtual perimeter set by strategically placed beacons, that identify when a wearable sensor approaches. Alerts are sent to a dashboard, alerting security to the location of the patient, giving staff enough response time to help direct a patient back to their room.
Over the course of the pilot, Tenera Care was demonstrated to pinpoint a wearable on the dashboard map within 100cm of its physical location and achieved a 100% alert accuracy with zero false alarms.
The bracelets come with a 9 to 12 month battery life, ensuring devices do not have to be taken off for frequent recharging, leaving a window of risk if the patient wandered. Ultimately, the new system brings peace of mind for clinical staff as well as the people we care for and their loved ones.
In addition to serving as a patient wandering system, Tenera Care was evaluated at Bruyère for its potential use in several other areas from a nursing call bell, to research and quality improvement, asset management, and support for staff in times of duress. While it was decided that further exploration would be required for the technology’s use for these systems and processes, the advances in wearable technologies within hospitals are extremely promising.
The technology is now being rolled out across Bruyère’s Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital, Residence Élisabeth Bruyère, and Saint-Vincent hospital campuses as a patient wandering system to monitor all accessible external exits.