Studies confirm potential of EarlySense system as risk assessment tool for preventing pressure ulcers

EarlySense, a market leader in proactive patient care solutions, announced today post regulatory approval clinical and interventional study results further confirming the EarlySense contact-free patient monitoring system's high value as a risk assessment tool for preventing pressure ulcers. The clinical study data is published in the December 2011 issue of the Journal of Patient Safety. It can also be accessed on line at: http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Abstract/2011/12000/Using_Continuous_Motion_Monitoring_Technology_to.3.aspx. An overview of the pressure ulcer study data was presented in a poster abstract at the 2011 ISQua conference in Hong Kong. The EarlySense system is FDA cleared and has a CE mark for hospital, home and clinic use.

“We found that the pressure ulcer risk score correlated highly with the EarlySense measured motion rate. Based on this, we have concluded that the EarlySense system has potential to serve as a risk assessment tool to be used to prevent pressure ulcers”

The EarlySense contact-free patient monitoring system automatically and continuously records and documents a patient's cardiac, respiratory and motion parameters using a compact sensor placed under the patient's mattress. The system alerts the nursing staff when there are significant changes in a patient's condition, if a patient has left or is in the process of exiting the bed, or if a patient needs turning in order to avoid pressure ulcers.

Nurses are informed of patient status changes, bed entries and exits as well as turn requirements, via a wired or wireless communication system, on the patient's bed side monitor, at the nurse's station, on their handheld devices and on a large screen display mounted in a prominent spot on the wall in the department.

The quoted clinical study was a non-interventional study performed in two medical departments at two separate medical centers. The movement of 116 patients enrolled in the study was recorded and retrospectively analyzed.

"We found that the pressure ulcer risk score correlated highly with the EarlySense measured motion rate. Based on this, we have concluded that the EarlySense system has potential to serve as a risk assessment tool to be used to prevent pressure ulcers," said Eyal Zimlichman, M.D., a lead researcher from the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

The interventional study, conducted at a US hospital, evaluated the implementation of the EarlySense contact-free patient monitoring system in a 33-bed medical-surgical unit. Here, data from 666 patients in the pre-implementation period were compared with data generated from the 993 patients in the post implementation period. The researchers found a reduction of about 65% in incidence of pressure ulcers attributed to the use of the technology. Of the 41 staff nurses who routinely worked on the floor with the technology, 88% agreed that the turn alerts provided by the EarlySense system helped nurses to reduce risk of pressure ulcers.

"Pressure ulcers are among the most frequent and costly adverse events for hospitalized patients - costing the US health system more than four billion dollars a year, but it's been hard to identify good strategies for preventing them. In this study, the EarlySense system was effective for continuously monitoring and alerting the nurse when a patient is at risk to develop pressure ulcers, which should help reduce their incidence. This is all good news as hospitals continue their quest to improve the quality of care and reduce costs," said Dr. David Bates, Chief Quality Officer and Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Executive Director of the Center of Patient Safety Research and Practice.

"EarlySense continues to set the standard for technologies that help clinicians provide proactive care on hospital floors by monitoring, communicating and facilitating the management of timely clinical interventions - all without ever touching the patients. Our system has been repeatedly reported by medical professionals to assist in their effort to save lives and secure better clinical outcomes. Today's data pertaining to pressure ulcers is another example of how the EarlySense system can make a valuable contribution to patient safety and the hospital's bottom line," said Avner Halperin, CEO of EarlySense.