North Shore-LIJ Expands Remote Video Auditing to ORs, EDs, ICUs, Endoscopy and Maternity Units

Citing prior success in dramatically increasing hand hygiene compliance in intensive care units (ICUs), as well as improving patient safety and efficiency in operating rooms (ORs), the North Shore-LIJ Health System is expanding its use of remote video auditing (RVA) to over 140 patient care rooms in surgery suites, intensive care units (ICUs), endoscopy suites, labor and delivery rooms and emergency departments (ED) in multiple hospitals and surgery centers.
  
RVA services already are in place at North Shore-LIJ Health System's Forest Hills Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJ) in New Hyde Park and North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) in Manhasset and other applications of video monitoring will be added to those facilities. In addition, RVA is being implemented at NSUH's Schwartz Ambulatory Surgery Center in Manhasset and the North Shore-LIJ Center for Advanced Medicine's Ambulatory Surgery Center in Lake Success, which collectively perform nearly 15,000 outpatient surgeries annually.
  
"Beginning in 2008, North Shore-LIJ became the nation's first health care provider to use video monitoring as part of our efforts to strengthen patient safety," says Michael Dowling, president and chief executive officer at North Shore-LIJ. "Given our success in improving hand-washing compliance in our ICUs and surgical safety in our ORs, we are excited to pioneer the use of video auditing in other important patient care areas."
  
North Shore-LIJ is expanding RVA for the following new uses throughout the health system:
• Endoscope cleaning applications that ensure proper disinfecting processes, including the highly publicized duodenoscopes that examine the first section of the small intestine. 
• ICU patient flow applications designed to significantly reduce the amount of time to transfer patients into and out of the ICU. 
• Labor and Delivery and Cesarean-section room applications to improve patient safety and efficiencies.
• ED applications that ensure continuous Ebola preparedness training with barrier protection for all ED staff.
  
NSUH became the nation's first hospital to use RVA in 2008, installing cameras in its medical and surgical ICUs as part of an effort to improve hand hygiene. In a 2011 study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the hospital demonstrated that the use of Arrowsight's third-party RVA system rapidly improved and sustained hand hygiene rates to nearly 90 percent in less than four weeks. In 2013, there was a prominent recognition of this ground breaking study in a JAMA editorial entitled The Power of Video Recording Taking Quality to the Next Level.
  
The RVA program was expanded to ORs in March 2013 at Forest Hills Hospital. The system was designed and implemented by North Shore-LIJ's anesthesiology provider, North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA), in partnership with Mount Kisco, NY-based Arrowsight, Inc. By video auditing each OR every two minutes, RVA delivers near real-time performance feedback and text alerts to staff and managers to improve patient safety and OR efficiencies. 
  
John DiCapua, MD, chair of anesthesiology at North Shore-LIJ and CEO of NAPA, says it was in the best interests of patients to expand its use." Expanding this new technology will provide our hospitals with strong, sustainable tools that will continue to improve patient safety and perioperative efficiencies," he says.
  
In June 2015, Forest Hills Hospital published a study in The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing on emergency room staff training, titled "Use of Remote Video Auditing to Validate Ebola Level II Personal Protective Equipment Competency".
  
"The widespread expansion of RVA with the North Shore LIJ Health System is a true testament to the efficacy of this technology and service in enhancing patient safety and efficiencies," says Adam Aronson, Arrowsight's CEO.
  
Source: North Shore-LIJ Health System