Predictive Analytics and Computer Visualization Enhances Patient Safety to Prevent Falls

To decrease falls in the hospital setting, and building on previous nursing fall research, as well as the MFS and the Fall TIPS program, a decision support algorithm was developed to identify changes in clinical factors as they occur to alert nurses to the need to adjust fall prevention interventions. Nurses, through a collaboration with RGI Informatics, then deployed the an algorithm on one clinical general care unit. The RGI software uses the algorithm live streaming EHR data from Epic to identify patients whose risk of falling may have increased and provide clinical decision support to nurses through an alert on their hospital issued cell phones. Preliminary results demonstrated feasibility and a statistically significant reduction (p <0.01) in falls with injury over an 11-month period.

Mutually exclusive preliminary work, on a second inpatient general care unit, involving a computerized patient visualization system also yielded reduction in falls. Combined usage of the two technologies may yield a synergistic effect thereby further reducing the incidence of falls in the acute care setting. To date, there is no evidence derived from evaluation of patient outcomes from simultaneous testing of the two technologies. Thus, the purpose of this study is to determine the impact of three different fall prevention interventions (RGI/MGH Algorithm only, Inspiren only and combined RGI Algorithm and Inspiren) on patients at risk for falls and falls with injury on three adult general care units in a large academic medical center.

The proposed solution is the only known strategy that extracts and synthesizes physiologic and physical data from multiple sources, to create a dimensional view of a patient's safety profile related to fall risk. Timely alerts will inform nurses of patient's fall risk, reason for risk and their clinical decisions regarding fall prevention strategies. This initial proposal focuses on patients at risk for falls and the investigators are confident that this innovative approach is adaptable to address other critical safety issues for example, pressure injuries and catheter associated urinary tract infections. Detailed information about RGI Analytics and Inspiren is provided below.

Methodology: An observational cohort, mixed-methods study design will be conducted to determine the impact and effectiveness of usual care and three different fall prevention strategies that exceed the standard of care on three inpatient units over one year. Unit 1 will employee streaming analytics and the algorithm only, Unit 2 will employee Inspiren's AUGI computer visualization only and Unit 3 will employee the combined streaming analytic/algorithm and Inspiren's AUGI device. Unit 4, the control unit, will serve as an internal comparison group from the same institution. In addition to the study interventions all four units will continue to maintain usual evidence-based practice, standards of care for fall prevention. Patient, unit, and nurse demographic data collected for the study currently can be accessed from or calculated from existing sources. Sources include the ADT, financial, acuity, and quality data stored in a Datawarehouse. Unit patient demographic data in the aggregate will include age, gender, and race. Nurse demographic data will include the number of fulltime equivalents, years of experience as a nurse, years of experience at the academic medical center, and highest level of education. Unit data will include counts of patient admissions, patient days, length of stay, nursing acuity, patient type by gender, age, race, ethnicity, number of unit falls and unit falls with injuries, and nurse staffing indicators. Nurse perceptions of the three interventions units will be measured in association with the intervention using real time feedback from cell phone alerts (helpful/not helpful), nurse feedback, and quarterly surveys. The Fall Prevention Efficiency Scale (Dykes, et al., 2021) is a peer reviewed 13-item tool that focuses on four key areas: saves time, does not waste time, is worth the time and is helpful in preventing falls. The survey questions will be adapted to meet the needs of this study and will be administered via REDCap, a Harvard Catalyst secure, web application for managing on-line survey tools.

Research questions

1. In the acute care, inpatient hospital setting, is there a difference in rate of occurrence of falls and injurious falls, comparing three distinct methods of alerting nurses at the point of care to a change in a patients risk of falling while maintaining all other current standards of care for fall prevention and adding these new standards during the study: (1) use of streaming analytics and a fall risk algorithm that alerts nurses to a change in fall risk, (2) computer visualization and artificial intelligence interpretation of patient movement and (3) a combination of both technologies?
2. What are the perceptions of nurses related to:
3. The impact of three study technologies implemented to assist with the identification of increased fall risk.
4. The reduction of nurse burden on the assessment of fall risk and the recommendation for additional interventions to prevent falls.

Research aims:

1. Compare the impact of the three fall prevention innovations, within and between units and to one control unit (all four units using same usual standard of care) on falls and falls with injury.
2. Determine the perceived effectiveness of fall prevention innovations and alerts on clinical decision support and nurse burden using nurse surveys, responses to alerts and focus groups.