GE Healthcare's Smart Patient Room Helps Monitor Hand Hygiene Compliance

GE Healthcare announces that the Smart Patient Room pilot at Bassett Medical Center in New York has been approved by the site's Institutional Review Board to begin data collection. The innovative technology solution was installed as part of GE's healthymagination initiative with the goal of helping healthcare providers to reduce patient safety risks and improve patient outcomes.

"GE is developing a unique solution for the healthcare industry that helps hospitals and staff identify and mitigate patient safety risks while offering meaningful solutions to improve patient outcomes," says Jan De Witte, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Performance Solutions. "GE's real-time, adaptable solution will provide actionable data to healthcare providers regarding patient safety and potential medical errors which in turn will affect the necessary behavioral changes to avoid preventable errors."

With the integration of this new technology into existing hospital rooms, the Smart Patient Room solution is designed to provide clinicians with real-time monitoring for patient risk and the ability to intervene via gentle notification. The system is designed to track protocol adherence such as proper hand hygiene compliance before and after interacting with a patient, periodic clinical rounding, and monitor for increased risk of patient fall.

"Patient safety is a concern for hospitals across the U.S., as more patients enter the health system," says William Streck, MD, president and CEO of Bassett Medical Center. "At Bassett we are very excited to be working alongside GE Healthcare and GE Global Research to design and pilot what is meant to be an industry solution for hospitals to identify and mitigate patient safety risks and improve patient outcomes."

The Smart Patient Room solution is being developed at GE's Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y. and currently being piloted at Bassett Medical Center, a 180-bed, acute care inpatient teaching facility in Cooperstown, N.Y. The technology is intended as a flexible solutions platform designed to meet the needs of the specific hospital system.

According to the Institute of Medicine, medical error is the eighth leading cause of death in the U. S., accounting for an estimated 44,000 to 100,000 preventable deaths per year. Falls alone cost the U.S. healthcare system $1 billion annually, according to the American Hospital Association.

The Smart Patient Room can collect real-time information from the system to generate actionable data to manage clinical workflow, and uncover opportunities for influencing process and behavioral changes to create a safer patient environment.

"The partnership between GE Healthcare and GE's Global Research Center provides a unique advantage to develop innovative technologies and solutions that will address the most pressing issues facing healthcare today," says Mike Harsh, vice president and chief technology officer at GE Healthcare. "The Smart Patient Room is a perfect, tangible example of how GE is leveraging that combined research and business expertise to develop some of the most dynamic solutions in healthcare."

The announcement was made during the "Future of Healthcare Technology" event at GE's Global Research Center.