NG HEALTH VENTURES, LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.6

Description

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.