A New York hospital has invested in a video surveillance system to monitor clinical staff members as they treat patients.
The Long Island Jewish Medical Center adopted Arrowsight’s camera system in 2013 to help improve staff performance, according to Newsweek.
Arrowsight employees check the videos, which are low resolution to protect patient privacy, every two minutes to check for errors made by clinical staff members as they rush to treat patients.
The information is then sent to staff supervisors in real-time so they can improve the hospital’s performance. The information is also on large monitors in the main hub of the hospital’s surgery department.
“What it’s doing is telling staff exactly what’s going on in every room all throughout the day,” says Adam Aronson, the founder and chief executive officer of Arrowsight. “So a cleaning team can look up at this board and say okay, we have a room where the drape is down in OR 22. I know that room the patient is going to leave soon and we can come clean the room.”
The hospital spent just over $11,000 to install the system and pays $40 a day per operating room for Arrowsight’s auditing and data collection.
So far, officials say the system has improved efficiency and safety in the hospital.
“We’re trying to be efficient,” says Dr. John DiCapua, the hospital’s chairman of anesthesia. “Society’s asking us to be cost-effective. All of those production pressures get in the way or compete with safety behavior.”
