Dalcon Team Attends KIRK Commercial and Technical Partner Event 2011
Every year Kirk invites its partners to the company’s headquarters in Denmark to improve partner relationships and encourage the development of interoperability of solutions. Members of the Dalcon team will be in attendance this year.
Kirk is a manufacturer of DECT wireless handsets and solutions, including the 7020 and 7040 series made specifically for healthcare.
At the event Dalcon will be showing Dalcon Alert, Dalcon’s Patient Care Notification and Alarm Management system. Wireless phones are an important part of the Dalcon Alert solution, and though Dalcon Alert is device agnostic, Dalcon advocates the use of Kirk healthcare specific wireless handsets.
Dalcon Featured in Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare Magazine
Dalcon was featured in the March/April issue of Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare, a clinical leader magazine.
The featured topic of the March/April issue was Alarm Notification systems, which is a perfect fit for the Dalcon Alert Patient Care Notification System. The cover article discussed the strengths of alarm notification systems in increasing patient safety and the quality of patient care, as well as overcoming the challenges presented by alarm fatigue via alarm management.
Read more at Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare’s website:
PSQH: Alarm Management Showcase
Dalcon at the 2011 TONE Annual Conference
Dalcon will be exhibiting the Dalcon Alert Patient Care Notification solution March 4th at the 2011 TONE annual conference in Dallas, Texas.
Dalcon Alert is Dalcon’s award winning notification solution that integrates with in-room medical devices, such as IV-pumps, ventilators, and beds. Dalcon Alert sends notifications to multiple endpoints including wireless phones when these in-room devices go into alarm status.
The 2011 annual conference, Charting the Future, provides learning, networking and collaboration opportunities for Texas nurse leaders. Educational topics are focused on current issues facing the healthcare industry.
For more information about Dalcon Alert call 877-WE-UNIFY (938-6439) or click here to send us a message.
The ECRI Institute Releases Annual Top Ten Health Technology Hazards for 2011
The ECRI has released its annual list of Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2011. “Radiation therapy overdose” was ranked at No. 1, and “alarm hazards” ranked in at No. 2.
The Complete Health Technology Hazards list:
- Radiation overdose and other dose errors during radiation therapy
- Alarm hazards
- Cross-contamination from flexible endoscopes
- The high radiation dose of CT scans
- Data loss, system incompatibilities and other health I.T. complications
- Tubing and catheter misconnections
- Over-sedation during use of PCA infusion pumps
- Needlesticks and other sharps injuries
- Surgical fires
- Defibrillator failures in emergency resuscitation attempts
“If a hospital or health system needs help prioritizing its technology-related patient safety efforts, our top 10 list is a good place to start,” says James P Keller Jr, Vice President, Health Technology and Safety, ECRI Institute.
“Radiation Therapy Errors” Top the List for 2011
“Radiation therapy errors” is new to the top of the list for 2011. Radiation therapy is used in about 50% of all cancer treatment cases. Due to the complexity of treatment coupled with high radiation dosages, the therapy has a high potential for serious errors.
The complexity of radiation therapy treatment leads to a relatively high probability of human error. As a result, 60% of radiation therapy errors are suspected to be caused by human error. Additionally, software errors can lead to radiation overdose, and death.
“Alarm Hazards” Remains at Top of List for 2011
“Alarm hazards” has remained number two on the list from 2010. Alarm hazards and fatigue have been growing in awareness since an unfortunate patient death at Massachusetts General Hospital in January 2010. Multiple nurses at MGH reported being unable to hear the patient’s cardiac monitor alarm as his heart slowly stopped beating over the course of 20 minutes. An investigation showed that someone had apparently turned off the cardiac alarm. Investigators cited “alarm fatigue,” which is a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer number of alarms until they seem unmanageable.
The desensitization to alarms caregivers experience when experiencing alarm fatigue can result in increased errors in care. As more monitors and alarms are added to modern hospital environment, alarm hazards will continue to pose a serious risk to patient care.
Alarm management technology, such as Dalcon Alert, has been developed to help combat alarm fatigue. Alarm management technology organizes and presents alarms to staff in a manageable format.
How Androscoggin Valley Hospital Used New Technology to Reduce Patient Falls
Androscoggin Valley Hospital (AVH) is a 25 bed critical access hospital located in the white mountains of New Hampshire. AVH may be small, but the hospital is home to a wide variety of services and technologies that place it on the level of much larger facilities.
The staff at Androscoggin is serious about fall prevention. Patients are assessed for fall risk factors upon admission and at each shift. Patients determined to be at risk of falling are placed in a special program called the “ruby slippers” program. The ruby slippers program is designed to make staff aware of a patient’s fall status and put additional preventative measures in place, such as ambulation assistance. Ruby slipper patients and their families are educated on the seriousness and importance of the program.
Investing in New Fall Prevention Technology
Kirk 4040 with Bed Fall Alert
AVH uses Stryker bed alarm systems for ruby slipper patients who are disoriented or unable to follow directions or call for assistance. When a patient on bed alarm begins to sit up to get out of bed, the Stryker bed sets off an audible alarm. Additionally, this bed alarm is captured by AVH’s Dalcon Alert Remote Patient Monitoring system. Dalcon Alert forwards the bed alarm directly to Kirk phones carried by hospital staff. The wireless phones receive a text message that communicates the location and type of alarm. As a result, clinicians know exactly which room to respond to decreasing the time of response.
When responding to a fall alarm, time is of the utmost importance. A few seconds can be the difference between finding a patient still trying to get out of bed, and finding a patient on the floor. As an added measure to buy clinicians more time to respond, Dalcon Alert relays audible announcements in the patient room telling the patient to “please get back into bed, your nurse is on the way” when a bed alarm is tripped.
Measuring Results
The emphasis Androscoggin has placed on fall prevention has been successful. Since implementing Dalcon Alert and incorporating the system’s fall prevention technology into their fall policy, AVH’s fall rate has dropped significantly.
The average fall rate, measured in percentage of patients who fall for the three quarters Dalcon Alert has been installed at AVH is 0.43%. The average fall rate for the three quarters before the Dalcon Alert installation was 0.67%. Thus the average for the three quarters after installing Dalcon Alert resulted in 36% fewer falls than the average for the three quarters prior to Dalcon Alert being installed.
Developing Alarm Fatigue Solutions
While the patient death at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is terribly unfortunate, the same incident could have happened at almost any other hospital in the nation. The ECRI ranked “alarm hazards” at No. 2 in its 2010 Top 10 Technology Hazards.
MGH’s senior vice president for quality and patient safety, Dr. Gregg Meyer, says, “People expect when a loved one comes to the hospital that they will be closely observed and monitored appropriately…[and that] any signals from those monitors will be responded to. I think that’s a very reasonable request on one hand. But on the other hand, when you put that into the context of a busy inpatient unit, it gets complicated very, very quickly.”
Overuse of Alarms Leads to Fatigue
Meyer admits that after reviewing monitoring guidelines, “we found that maybe we were overmonitoring people.” This is a common occurrence that contributes to alarm fatigue in many hospitals. While MGH searches for new ways to reduce alarm fatigue, Meyers asserts, “The reality of it is that no matter how attentive you are, all of us will experience some level of fatigue. And that device alarms can be a lifesaver, but not if they’re ignored.”
Maria Cvach, MSN, RN at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore has coauthored a study on alarm fatigue. She found that many alarms have great sensitivity but poor fidelity or specificity. She says this contributes to the vast amount of alarms in hospital wards (sometimes over 500 alarms per patient per day). Cvach says, “Even if you have the best technology out there, you’re going to get a lot of false alarms.”
Cvach says the key is making the alarms “actionable.” “You’ve got to set parameters to a point where people will act… We want to customize the alarm for [each] patient and make it a reasonable level that will prompt action,” Cvach says. This means hospitals must be willing to set alarms to lower sensitivity, so that when an alarm does go off, caregivers understand the urgency of the crisis.
Managing Patient Care Alarms
In addition to lowering the amount of alarms directed at caregivers, technology can be put in place to help track and manage alarms. Alarm management systems break down the “overwhelming barrage” of alarms into organized and reasonable bits of information that caregivers can easily digest.
Dalcon Alert includes an alarm management system that maintains a real-time alert queue at the nurses station. This “alarm master list” gives caregivers immediate knowledge of all active alarms, including information on alarm type and location.
Dalcon at Nursing Management Congress 2010
Thursday the 23rd of September, the Dalcon team traveled to Dallas, Texas to attend the Nursing Management Congress 2010 expo.
At Nursing Management Congress, attendees are able to network with colleagues, have discussions with faculty and industry experts, and visit numerous exhibits that provide alternatives and strategies for improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of care delivery and nursing practice in various healthcare settings.
Dalcon exhibited and demonstrated Dalcon Alert in booth 113. Dalcon Alert is Dalcon’s award-winning patient care communications solution. The system integrates with patient monitoring devices such as bed exit pads, IV pumps, and more. Then Dalcon Alert pushes the alerts created by these devices to multiple endpoints including wireless phones carried by staff and the nursing station console.
“Nursing Management Congress was a great opportunity to connect with a wide variety of nurse leaders in person,” said John Menees, Director of Business Development at Dalcon. “We continue to be delighted at the positive responses we get from hospital leaders regarding Dalcon Alert, and Nursing Management Congress was no exception.”
Androscoggin Valley Hospital Places Patient Emergencies in Nurses’ Hands with Polycom® KIRK® DECT Handsets and Dalcon Alert! System
Overview
Like small hospitals throughout North America, Androscoggin Valley Hospital (AVH) balances growing workloads against ever-tighter budgets and limited resources. The 25-bed facility is located in Berlin, N.H., a city of 10,000 at the edge of the White Mountains.
But in many ways, AVH isn’t at all like most small hospitals. Its impressive range of care—from primary healthcare and pediatric services to specialty practices and advanced surgery—places AVH on par with larger facilities. Then there is its strategic approach to communications. In 2010, AVH implemented a new Polycom® KIRK® Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone (DECT) infrastructure that efficiently alerts the hospital’s nursing staff when a patient needs help. Integrated with the Dalcon Alert system from Dalcon Communications, Inc., the wireless KIRK handsets signal nurses whenever alarms within patient rooms are triggered, advising them where they’re needed and why. The cost-effective solution even reminds them to reposition immobile patients every two hours.
Not only does the system help simplify the job of caring for patients, but it supplies nurses with their own telephones to consult with physicians, respond to pages, or interact with staff in other departments. The KIRK handsets also have streamlined communications throughout the facility by replacing pagers for AVH administrative staff and technicians. As a result, it’s easier than ever for AVH to enhance care by responding quickly to patient needs.
Replacing an Outdated System
The legacy communications system at AVH was long overdue for replacement. “We’d been working with outdated systems that couldn’t be repaired,” recalls Clare Vallee, vice president of nursing at AVH. “Parts of it were over 30 years old.”
The communication infrastructure—a patchwork of nurse call and alarm systems linked to a Mitel PBX—worked, though far from perfectly. “We had huge issues with bed alarms,” says Vallee, referring to the systems integrated with patient beds that emit an audible signal when a weak or infirm patient leaves his bed—or worse, falls from it. “We could hear the alarm from down the hall, but we wouldn’t know which room it was coming from.”
“With the Polycom KIRK and Dalcon Alert system, we now know immediately what problem the patient is having and where the patient is. Responding to alarms is easier now.”
-Brenda Aubin, Director, Medical-Surgical Unit, Androscoggin Valley Hospital
Alarms for chairs and IV pumps had similar problems. “We knew each alarm’s sound, so we knew what the problem was; it just took a while to find the room,” says Brenda Aubin, AVH’s Medical- Surgical Unit director. “Our culture has always been that if you hear an alarm, you just go. So several nurses would respond—not just the nurse assigned to that room. It probably wasn’t the most efficient process.”
Nurses also must reposition some patients at least once every two hours to prevent pressure sores that can lead to infection. But staying on schedule proved a persistent challenge. “Bed turns were self-policed,” says Aubin. “The expectation was for each nurse to keep that responsibility straight. But across multiple shifts and changing routines, it wasn’t easy.”
Putting Alerts in Nurses’ Hands
AVH turned to Dalcon, a Polycom VOIP Field Verified partner. Dalcon proposed a solution that integrates Dalcon Alert, a new solution designed especially for hospitals, with Polycom KIRK handsets. When an alarm is triggered or a patient presses his bedside call button, Dalcon Alert automatically sends nurses a brief text message describing the nature of the alert and the patient’s room number. The system interfaces with AVH’s Mitel PBX via the Dalcon Communications Manager (DCM) server, which generates the messages and distributes them via the KIRK Wireless Server 6000. An overhead monitor located at the nurse’s station also displays alerts and their status. “With the Polycom KIRK and Dalcon Alert system, we now know immediately what problem the patient is having, and where the patient is,” says Aubin. “Responding to alarms is easier now.”
Kirk 4040 with Bed Fall Alert
The budget-friendly solution also keeps track of bed turn schedules by alerting nurses when the bed turn cycle reaches 90 minutes, and again at the two-hour mark. “It’s one less thing nurses have to worry about,” says Vallee.
Nurses use KIRK 4040 handsets. Designed to withstand heavy use without requiring recharges during long hospital shifts, the programmable handsets assign unique rings to each alert, an audible cue that saves nurses time and trouble. By functioning as a wireless telephone, the KIRK handsets also offer nurses some freedom. “Before, if a nurse called a physician, she either had to wait for him to call back, or we’d have to hunt her down when the call came,” says Aubin. “Now she can get the call directly.”
Nurses also use the phones to communicate with other AVH staffers, many of whom carry KIRK 5020 Handsets to replace pagers that lacked KIRK features like speed dialing. “Staff in radiology, our sleep center, and dietary department, along with our house coordinators, all use them,” says Vallee, “and they love them.”
The AVH solution also involved some crucial customization by Polycom. “Polycom’s KIRK team worked closely with us to optimize the handsets for use with the Dalcon Alert platform,” notes Dalcon CEO David Condra. “Those efforts substantially streamlined integration and deployment at AVH.”
Future plans may call for replacing AVH’s end-of-life PBX. Fortunately, the new Dalcon DCM and KIRK handsets would work seamlessly with a Polycom IP-based solution—offering AVH another chance to show just how far even a small hospital’s budget can go.
“Never Events” Represent 1/6th of All Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
According to AON, a leading provider of risk management services, insurance, and consulting, “Hospital-acquired infections, hospital-acquired injuries, objects left in surgery and pressure ulcers account for one out of every six [medical malpractice] claims.”
These four patient safety errors make up a portion of the larger list of “never events,” which are events flagged by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) as “serious adverse events during inpatient stays that should never occur,” and “are reasonably preventable through adherence to evidence-based guidelines.”
Hospital expenses incurred due to never events are not reimbursed by CMS. In addition, hospitals are prohibited from passing the costs onto patients. Consequently, never events prove quite costly for hospitals even before the threat of litigation. In 2007, the last year CMS reimbursed hospitals for never events, pressure ulcers cost CMS $43,180 per incident. Falls with injury weighed in at $33,894 per occurrence.
“The increased awareness surrounding these non-reimbursable conditions may cause a rise in the frequency of related hospital professional liability claims,” said Greg Larcher, director and actuary of Aon Global Risk Consulting.
Preventing Never Events with New Technology
As the cost of never events continues to rise, new technologies such as Dalcon Alert have been developed to help hospitals prevent never event incidents. Dalcon Alert is a new solution from Dalcon Communication Systems, designed to help caregivers prevent patient falls and pressure ulcers.
Nurse Communication Technology Improves Patient Care and Efficiency
Communicating in the modern nursing work environment is difficult. In order to provide the best level of patient care, nurses need to be constantly accessible by several sources. At any given time nurses need to be aware of patient and family requests, while maintaining ongoing communication with physicians. In addition, nurses must also keep track of patient conditions that are communicated through mechanical devices such as patient monitors.
Juggling information from these sources is already complex, yet the majority of US hospitals add to the problem by lacking effective communication technology. A study by Forrester Research showed that the inefficient communication methods most nurses are forced to rely on cause major drains on productivity.
A few examples from the study:
“The majority of nurses stated they would save somewhere between 30 minutes to one hour per day with instant access to experts.”
“A sizable percentage of nurses — 65% — said they spent from 20 minutes to more than one hour per day trying to reach other medical staff. This includes 26% that spend more than one hour per day and another 39% that spend from 20 minutes to one hour.”
Regarding elimination of physician-nurse missed communications and phone tag, “estimates of up to one hour per day would be saved by 54% of nurses, and another 26% indicated it would save them from 16 to 30 minutes per day.”
It is no secret that the largest item on the average hospitals expense sheet is employee compensation. Accordingly, this collective drain on nurse productivity adds a big cost for hospitals. What isn’t as obvious is the negative impact poor nurse communications has on patient care.
Aside from time wasted on poor communications that could be spent with patients, inferior communication platforms also lead to more troubling outcomes. Take for example, the fall risk patient who needs to use the restroom and caregivers are too slow to respond to their nurse call request—and arrive only in time to see the patient has fallen while trying to use the restroom by themselves.
Wireless Nurse Communication as a Solution
Current nurse communication problems stem from the fact that most nurses, 78% according to the Forrester Research study, use telephones as their main communication vehicle. Yet the majority of US hospitals rely on wired telephones, even though nurses are highly mobile. As a result, communication breakdown is inevitable.
New nurse communication technology such as Dalcon Alert provide a wireless solution for the modern hospital. Dalcon Alert, in tandem with wireless phones, allows nurses to stay in constant contact with patients, staff, and physicians while staying on the move. The Forrester Research study showed that 74% of nurse respondents could save a significant amount of time each day with wireless phones.
In addition to improved productivity, Dalcon Alert improves patient care by allowing nurses to receive patient care alerts directly on their wireless device. For example, caregivers receive nurse calls, iv-pump alerts, fall alerts and more on their phones.
