EarlySense Launches Innovative Safety Solution Offering Advanced Capabilities in an Effort to Reduce Patient Falls and Ulcers

The Safety Solution by EarlySense enables a caregiver to tailor a specific bed exit sensitivity level based on a fall risk assessment, obtained at the beginning of the patient’s hospital stay. Immediate alerts based on a patient’s status can be transmitted to handheld devices and remote displays, in an effort to bring actionable information to the caregivers, who can respond in a manner that has shown to reduce adverse events, such as falls. The flexible setting with additional analysis capabilities given by EarlySense allow the caregiver to know that a patient is likely to leave bed well before that has taken place, empowering the nurse to effectively prevent and not just report a patient fall.

The EarlySense System has enhanced quality assessment tools which measure individual and team response times that may be useful in establishing clinical response time benchmarks, and then measuring how well staff is performing. This level of insight has allowed hospitals to reduce their fall rates substantially.

“As we look ahead to the challenges facing caregivers today as well as in the near future, healthcare systems and their caregivers need ways to reduce costs while improving the safety and well-being of patients, thus providing higher levels of quality around the care being provided,” said Tim O’Malley, President of EarlySense. “Instead of purchasing one technology to address a patient’s risk for pressure ulcers and another for falls, and yet another that alerts the staff that a patient may be deteriorating, healthcare systems can turn to EarlySense Systems for a more customized solution, thus tailoring the technical solution to their immediate need, while simultaneously allowing healthcare systems to reduce their cost significantly.

The new safety solution enhances the flexibility of a hospital by giving staff a way to care for patients based on the specific quality measurements in place, even if staff is limited. This establishes a situation for a strong return on investment while allowing flexible financial pricing models like pay-per-use or pay-per-patient pricing, allowing healthcare systems to acquire EarlySense Systems without having to spend money from precious Capital Equipment budgets.

“Many of our customers have requested the ability to choose which of the extensive set of tools EarlySense provides they would actually implement, based on their individual challenges,” said O’Malley. “We are now giving customers that flexibility, which is vital as hospitals are being pushed to optimize their efficiency in implementing new equipment. The modular solution brought by EarlySense provides that capability allowing for modular product configuration, allowing for proactive care capabilities in order to provide optimized, cost conscious care.”

As part of its new safety product line, EarlySense is also introducing a Continuous Patient Monitoring Solution that allows opportunities for early detection and possible intervention when patients are deteriorating. The product line is being rolled out in the U.S. early in 2014, and is coming to Asia and Europe soon after.

EarlySense has brought to market an innovative technology designed to advance proactive patient care and empower clinicians to achieve better patient outcomes. Through early detection, the EarlySense system assists clinicians in identifying and preventing potential adverse events. It does so by providing motion rates and bed exit alarms, to help reduce falls and pressure ulcers, as well as surveillance of heart and respiratory rates to potentially detect patient deterioration. The company’s flagship product, the EarlySense System, is a continuous, contact-free, patient safety monitoring solution that monitors and documents a patient’s vital signs and movement using a sensor that is placed underneath a bed mattress. There are no leads or cuffs to connect to the patient who has complete freedom of movement and is not burdened by any cumbersome attachments. The system was designed to monitor patients on medical surgical floors who are usually monitored by nursing staff approximately once every four hours. The system is currently installed at hospitals and rehabilitation centers in the USA and Europe. It is also commercially available in Canada. Hospital administrators report that patients, their families and staff feel more comfortable knowing the system is in place. EarlySense Inc. is headquartered in Waltham, MA.