Mechanized system for remote epilepsy monitoring may improve patient safety
Key takeaways:
- Health care workers said the EHealth ESitter system could improve overall safety in the epilepsy monitoring unit.
- Respondents said the system holds value as “a second set of eyes” on patients with epilepsy.
LOS ANGELES — A novel electronic system may help clinicians remotely track patients in an epilepsy monitoring unit and prevent adverse events, according to a poster from the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting.
“We implemented the ESitter system in our epilepsy monitoring unit so someone is able to watch remotely 24/7 with audio-visual intercom,” Kelly Fisher, a second-year medical student at New York Medical College, told Healio. “They can communicate with patients through a microphone as well as watch them on the video.”
Although a 1:1 staff-to-patient ratio is considered the “gold standard” and most likely to provide a high level of safety and attention to patients with epilepsy, Fisher and colleagues sought to gain insight into clinician attitudes regarding the new remote epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) following its introduction as a method to combat staff shortages.
They conducted a cross-sectional electronic survey regarding the EHealth ESitter audiovisual intercom apparatus in June 2024 at Westchester Medical Center in New York approximately 18 months after an EMU was founded and 9 months after implementation.
A total of 31 health care professionals (11 EHealth members, 10 EEG technicians, five epileptologists and five nurses) responded to the survey, which utilized a Likert scale to measure employee attitudes toward and experiences with the novel system based on prompts relating to patient safety, efficacy of its alert system and subsequent response times.
According to the results, the EHealth team recorded the highest number of positive responses when prompted to provide an opinion on the system improving EMU patient safety (9 out of 10), with epileptologists providing the next highest number of positive reactions (4 out of 5).
Regarding the efficacy of the system’s push-button responsiveness, all nurse respondents believed that an alarm from the system indicated a patient was having a seizure, but only two of five epileptologists and four of 10 technicians affirmed. Only one nurse respondent and one epileptologist believed the system would be more effective when placed at the nurses’ station rather than with EHealth.
Preliminary survey results indicated the system is likely to improve EMU monitoring, leading to lessened financial and staffing burdens, according to the researchers.
“Overall, there was a lot of agreement that [clinicians] felt it improved patient safety,” Fisher told Healio. “Our epileptologists and Ehealth team felt very strongly; nurses reported about half as many push-button activations that they responded to, so we are seeing some lowering in the amount of time nurses are spending clearing those buttons.”