Lake County hospital using cameras in patient rooms to enhance bedside care

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - This will be the first cold and flu season a local hospital is equipped with a vital new tool to enhance patient care and work more efficiently.

University Hospitals Lake West has implemented virtual nursing throughout the entire hospital, and both patients and caregivers are benefitting.

“It helps enhance nursing it doesn’t take away from nursing. Nursing isn’t being replaced,” said Nurse Manager, Monica Leovic.

Every room is now outfitted with a camera, speaker phone, microphone and a television connected to a software program called Vital Chat.

It allows a UH nurse to virtually enter the room to augment bedside care.

That virtual nurse can do anything from admissions, to discharges and many other use cases in between.

Then they move on, virtually and efficiently, to another patient room, leaving bedside staff to spend more time, hands on, with patients.

“One of the main complaints we always get from our patient is nurses are always behind the screen. They’re always working on a computer. You know, giving that time back to sit down and know personal things about the patient. That virtual nurse is just a second set of hands. They come in, they do the admission that would take a nurse 30 minutes, call the pharmacy to get their med rec,” said Leovic.

The cameras have a powerful 20 time zoom, with night vision, that can view monitors, even check on patients at night when it’s completely dark.

“Let’s say we’re double-checking medications such as insulin, or blood. You take the camera, you zoom into the label on the patient. So at the label on the medication, you’re able to see the patient’s name, medical record, number. You are that second nurse in that double-check. Whereas they would have to find a nurse on the floor to double-check that medication in the room and if you’re getting blood, the second nurse has to spend 15 minutes in that room as well,” said Brian Nelson, MHA, RN, BSN, Program Lead, UH Veale Healthcare Transformation Institute.

Nelson is part of the team who used philanthropic dollars to get the cameras in 160 rooms, plus the emergency room and intensive care unit to help address a nurse shortage, and nurse burnout.

“It’s not just support for our staff, it’s support for our patients, and providing better care or quicker care,” Nelson said.

Leovic says this is a game changer for her staff, and their patients.

“Before virtual nursing I do not know how the nurses would even handle that case load anymore to be honest, especially going in to cold and flu season,” she said.

These connected care rooms aren’t just for virtual nurses and other health care providers to use. Family members can use a link to visit with patients remotely and even listen in on a visit with a doctor if they can’t be there in person.

Patient Michael Terrano likes knowing a virtual nurse he’s familiar with can check on him anytime he needs it.

“It seems like they’re able to help multiple people faster, in my opinion. I was able to relax without having more people in the room,” he said.

To maintain privacy, the camera is turned away and off when the virtual nurse is not engaging with the patient.

“They always ask every time. ‘Hey, can I come in the room?’ I give them permission. They come in. They talk to me and then that’s it, and they’re in and out,” said Terrano.

UH is among the first hospital systems in the country to fully implement a whole-hospital virtual nursing program. And this is just the beginning. Their goal is to put a total of 2500 cameras in, and put them to work for patients.