‘Smart’ Beds Upgrading Hospital Stays

Patients at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital may be convalescing in a healthier and safer environment since the hospital joined a growing number of health care facilities nationwide and in New York City that are upgrading to “smart” beds.With price tags ranging between $10,000 and $35,000 each, the beds are outfitted with alarms and other features to maximize safety and to reduce common grievances associated with long-term bed rest, such as skin ailments and pressure ulcers.For $15 million, NewYork-Presbyterian in June replaced nearly all of its beds throughout the hospital, acquiring 1,127 smart beds from Hill-Rom, a hospital supplier.“It was, to some degree, because of concerns about problems with older people who lie in beds for extended periods of time,” the hospital’s president and CEO, Dr. Herbert Pardes, said.The new beds are capable of weighing patients and rotating those who may be immobile and confined to bed for long periods of time. They are equipped with exit alarms to alert staff when patients who may be unsteady are attempting to get out of bed unassisted. Sensors also detect whether a bed’s brakes are set and side rails are up, and whether a health care provider has engaged a therapeutic feature of the mattresses that prevents bed sores.All such information can be transmitted to health care professionals at a central nursing station or even via mobile devices such as cell phones.“There are a variety of different features that these new beds have. We almost call it a ‘smart’ bed in certain circumstances,” NewYork-Presbyterian’s chief operating officer, Dr. Steven Corwin, said. Citing the therapeutic feature of the mattresses, he said, “The surface is more comfortable for the patient. The patient’s skin is less likely to break down.”At NewYork-Presbyterian, the new beds were delivered in June, and another 246 critical-care beds will be upgraded in coming months. Hill-Rom removed and discarded the old beds, hospital officials said. Some of the old beds were up to 30 years old.Within the hospital industry, the shift toward high-tech beds within the past four years has been driven by patient safety concerns. “The one central point to just about anything that goes on in a hospital is the bed the patient is lying in,” Hill-Rom’s general manager for the New York region, Jan Mosholt, said.Hospitals are also catering to increasingly savvy patients, who demand the most sophisticated health care. Meanwhile, some industry insiders said the Food and Drug Administration may soon begin to regulate hospital beds in order to address safety concerns.“There has been a significant movement toward this type of bed replacement,” Mr. Mosholt said, adding that his New York City clients include Mount Sinai Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “It’s safer for patients, and it’s safer for caregivers.”One of the first hospitals in the region to purchase smart beds was North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, which upgraded its beds in 2004. Currently, about 1,800 smart beds are being used in seven of the health care network’s 15 hospitals.“Safety and quality are the no. 1 reasons we chose the beds,” the vice president for the supply chain for the health system, Donna Drummond, said. She said some features, such as the ability to rotate patients, alleviate the burden on nurses. “It allows them to dedicate more time to direct patient care,” she said.Increasingly, other hospitals are following suit. Over the past year, Mount Sinai Medical Center overhauled 90% of its 1,100 beds.Among the features of Mount Sinai’s beds, the mattresses are designed to evenly distribute the patient’s body weight over the entire surface, thereby reducing the likelihood of patients developing bedsores. The bed frame itself can move, and will tilt the mattress 30 degrees to the left of right for several minutes to alleviate pressure on the hip and sacrum areas, where skin ulcers typically form.“It sounds like no big deal, but compared to other beds, it enhances our patient safety a great deal,” a geriatric nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, Donna McCabe, said.Ms. McCabe said that when she was a rookie nurse 12 years ago, hospital beds had metal rails and some still had cranks. “Just having a bed that you can press a button and the patient gets weighed, and press another button and the patient goes into a chair position,” she said, “is phenomenal.”

‘Smart’ Beds Upgrading Hospital Stays

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