Editor’s note: McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Home Care are publishing focused articles on the 2023 winners of the McKnight’s Excellence in Technology awards Nov. 29 through Dec. 5. Look for the nomination period for the 2024 awards program to open in May.
Patient safety is a top priority when it comes to skilled nursing. With falls being a significant hazard for seniors, Wesley Enhanced Living Main Line turned to VirtuSense Technologies for help with prevention. This led to Wesley Enhanced Living Main Line being named the Gold winner in the Quality category of the Skilled Nursing track at the 2023 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology awards.
VSTAlert is a monitoring platform for fall prevention that utilizes LIDAR sensors, artificial intelligence computing and machine learning. This technology allows care teams to be more present and ready to help residents who need assistance by covering time-consuming and limiting monitoring tasks.
VSTAlert detects the intent to exit a bed and alerts staff members to assist the resident 30 to 65 seconds before they get up. This allows staff time to arrive at the resident’s room to assist just when they are needed. Wesley Enhanced Living Main Line currently has 13 VSTAlert sensors in use on site.
“This award validates the hard work we have put into training and initiating the use of the VST to promote the safety of our residents. It also highlights the great care our staff is providing to our residents,” said Director of Nursing Kim Ratliff.
“The implementation of the VST allowed the staff more flexibility especially at night. Before the VST, the staff would be stationed outside of the room of a resident who would frequently fall out of bed, but now they are able to go from room to room more frequently because they have the assurance that they will be alerted if the resident attempts to get out of bed.”
Other award winners in the Skilled Nursing track’s Quality category:
Silver: RiverSpring Living for its use of AccuVein technology, which is near-infrared (NIR) vein visualization technology that projects a vivid map on the skin of underlying superficial veins often invisible to the naked eye.
Bronze: Provectus LTC for Hucu.ia, a tool that promotes better communication among staff members and contributed to doubling staff size and more than tripling the number of patients supported.
Read about other 2023 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology award winners in the Skilled Nursing track on the McKnight’s Long-Term Care News website, in the Senior Living track on McKnight’s Senior Living website and in the Home Care track on the McKnight’s Home Care website.
Sponsors of the 2023 McKnight’s Tech Awards + Summit include LifeLoop, IntelyCare, MatrixCare, PointClickCare and ShiftKey + OnShift.
To view the virtual awards presentation and recordings of the Summit webinars, visit mcknightstechawards.com (free registration required).
