Trinity Health Of New England Launches Virtual Monitor Programs

Press release from Saint Francis Hospital:

Dec. 12, 2020

At Trinity Health Of New England, safety is a top priority. To further the ongoing work to make patient care as safe as possible, the regional health care system has implemented the AvaSure Virtual Monitoring Program to help monitor patients at risk for falls or safety concerns.

Virtual monitoring will not replace 1:1 monitoring for patients with high risk safety concerns such as suicidal tendencies. AvaSure Virtual Monitoring is in place at Saint Francis Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, Johnson Memorial Hospital and Saint Mary’s Hospital.

Trinity Health Of New England Regional Chief Nursing Officer, Lisa Zapatka, MSN, RN, NEA-BC says, “Within the short period of time that we have been utilizing AvaSure, the technology has had a noticeable positive impact on patient outcomes. Our colleagues have found the program to be a very effective solution to promote patient safety and a valuable resource to the patient care team.”

This non-recording virtual monitoring system, called the AvaSure TeleSitter, uses hardware and software to transmit a continuous video feed to a central monitoring location. There, a virtual monitoring attendant can conduct interventions through a two-way audio conversation or notify the patient’s care team if in-person care is needed.

Patient privacy is protected with the AvaSure Telesitter. In addition to the video and audio streams never being recorded, the virtual monitoring attendant is able to activate a privacy screen in the software, turning off video at the request of the care team. Trinity Health has two monitoring hubs nationally. These hubs are located at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Illinois and at Trinity Health Of New England in Hartford.

The video monitoring system allows registered nurses to focus on providing clinical care where best needed helping to optimize facility resources related to 1:1 sitter use. Most importantly, AvaSure is intended to help reduce patients falls and increase the safety of the patient.

This press release was produced by Saint Francis Hospital. The views expressed here are the author's own.