PLEASANTON, Calif., Dec. 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to the growing use of early patient mobility protocols to improve outcomes, reduce costs and encourage early hospital discharges, Leaf Healthcare is developing new technology that will enable clinicians to consistently assess the progress their patients are making.
Each year, billions of unreimbursed healthcare dollars are spent treating complications related to patient immobility. While hospitals have broadly adopted policies to get patients moving as soon as possible during their hospitalization, the major impediment to such efforts is that historically there has been no way to reliably, objectively, and automatically monitor patient mobility.
Leaf, maker of the award-winning Leaf Wireless Patient Monitoring System, is currently piloting enhancements to its wearable sensor-based system that will accurately monitor patient movement and the progress of patient mobility. This will give healthcare providers the analytical tools they need to assess each patient's progress.
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"Not long ago, bed rest was considered therapeutic. Today we're much more sensitive to the potential complications associated with bed rest and the medical community is quickly stepping away from this outdated practice," said Leaf co-founder and CEO, Dr. Barrett Larson.
"In order to provide a clinical benefit, patient mobility programs need to be effectively managed. Without a mechanism to reliably monitor mobility programs, it is difficult to realize the full benefit that these programs can provide."
"Our customers need a way to automatically and consistently monitor patient mobility. We are responding to this need by introducing enhancements to our Patient Monitoring System, to provide a tool to automatically monitor and document patient mobility progress," he said. "We are currently piloting the enhancements in a live hospital setting and will soon offer a robust, breakthrough solution."
Earlier this year, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety surveyed attendees at the International Conference on Opioids in Boston and found that almost 80 percent of nurses are in favor of wireless and wearable patient monitors to provide information vital to their treatment plan.
"Nurses would like patient monitoring technology that is wearable and wireless," said Sandra K. Hanneman, PhD, RN, one of the survey's authors. "Having such technology means patients are not tethered to machines and foster greater patient mobility."
