TENERA CARE
Keeping wandering patients safe with wearable technology
Patient safety is of the highest importance to Bruyère Health, and one of the greatest ongoing challenges for clinical teams comes in the form of wandering.
Patients may become disoriented or confused during their stay, especially for those living with dementia, which may lead to the patient wandering or becoming lost.
Keeping wandering patients and those around them safe in a hospital environment requires active risk management that draws on clinical and security resources.
To address this risk more effectively, Bruyère Health partnered with Tenera Care, piloting a system of beacons and wearables to support real-time patient monitoring in two clinical units.
The system leverages geofencing, a virtual perimeter set by strategically placed beacons, that identify when a wearable sensor approaches. Alerts are sent to a dashboard, alerting security to the location of the patient, giving staff enough response time to help direct a patient back to their room.
Over the course of the pilot, Tenera Care was demonstrated to pinpoint a wearable on the dashboard map within 100cm of its physical location and achieved a 100% alert accuracy with zero false alarms.
The bracelets come with a 9 to 12 month battery life, ensuring devices do not have to be taken off for frequent recharging, leaving a window of risk if the patient wandered.
Ultimately, the new system brings peace of mind for clinical staff as well as the people we care for and their loved ones.
The technology is now used across Bruyère Health’s Élisabeth-Bruyère Hospital, Bruyère Health Élisabeth-Bruyère Long-Term Care, and Bruyère Health Saint-Vincent Hospital sites as a patient wandering system to monitor all accessible external exits.
During our onsite pilot, we saw:
73cm
PINPOINT ACCURACY
100%
ALERT ACCURACY
9-12
MONTH BATTERY LIFE
38
EXITS SECURELY MONITORED