Key Considerations for Selecting a Tele-sitting System

There are many patient populations that warrant supervision and monitoring—such as those at risk for falls, dementia, delirium, wandering, or suicide—and the costs and logistics of placing a sitter in the room with every at-risk patient can be significant. Facilities are increasingly interested in systems that permit trained observation technicians or certified nursing assistants to monitor patients from a central monitoring station in a remote location, reducing sitter labor costs and preventing falls and other adverse events that occur in healthcare facilities.

Such systems, known as tele-sitting systems, are intended to improve patient safety, along with potentially decreasing both the costs associated with fall-related injuries and the costs of hiring patient observers (also referred to as patient sitters or companions) or using licensed nursing staff as patient sitters. Observation technicians at the monitoring station continuously monitor patients and can quickly alert nursing or other hospital staff if a patient attempts to get out of bed or engages in other potentially harmful behavior.

These systems...