When you take a look at medical errors in the United States, the numbers are astounding. According to the Journal of Patient Safety, medical errors result in approximately 400,000 deaths each year. So, what to do? How can hospitals and the medical professionals who work within them prevent these errors and their devastating results? One hospital in New York is leveraging technology, specifically video surveillance, to monitor and improve patient care in an effort to cut down on the incidence of hospital negligence.
New York’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJ) has been recording and monitoring video footage in all of its operating rooms since 2013. This groundbreaking practice hinges upon a remote video monitoring system called Arrowsight, which provides video recording and off-site monitoring from three separate locations. Arrowsight’s creator, Adam Aronson, developed the technology after both his mother and his sister suffered infections during hospital visits.
Now, at LIJ in New York, 24 operating rooms stream video footage to Arrowsight’s employees, who review the videos once every two minutes. They then use a checklist to identify errors that may threaten patient safety and stream the live data back to the operating room where the medical staff can review it on their smartphones. If a safety protocol has been missed, the immediate knowledge of this oversight allows for correction.
The data gathered through Arrowsight is also streamed to large monitors in the central hub of LIJ’s surgery department. The checklist is used by each medical team before and after each surgery, and is also used to rate their overall performance. According to hospital administrators, the improvements in patient care and safety have been significant.
In fact, Dr. John DiCapua, chairman of anesthesia at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Northshore University Hospital, conducted a study involving the Arrowsight system at LIJ between 2014 and 2015, the results of which illustrated an increase in compliance with safety guidelines. Specifically, hospital staff compliance with safety guidelines increased from 24 percent to over 90 percent during the study period.
Since the implementation of Arrowsight, LIJ has extended remote video monitoring to other important practice areas, including labor and delivery, endoscopy, and the emergency room. Notably, all of the video is recorded in low resolution to ensure patient privacy, obscuring faces but allowing viewers to observe general behavior such as hand washing or sterilization of tools.
But herein lies the rub: all of the videos are deleted after 24 hours to prevent them from being used as evidence in medical malpractice cases against the hospital. Considering the catastrophic, life-altering, and sometimes fatal results of medical negligence, hospitals, physicians, and their staffs should be held accountable when their mistakes lead to the pain and suffering of innocent patients. Obviously, preventing exposure to lawsuits serves the hospital’s best interests. It does not, however, serve the interests of the patients whom they are tasked with providing the best standard of care.
At Fronzuto Law Group, our skilled medical malpractice attorneys conduct exhaustive investigations to uncover evidence of medical negligence, whether it involves a surgical error, birth injury, medical misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, or another error that results in injuries. Serving New Jersey and New York, we aggressively advocate for the interests of our clients, purposely limiting the number of cases we take on to provide unparalleled representation. With this commitment, we have achieved millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements, bringing individuals and their families the justice they deserve. If you suspect medical malpractice may have contributed to your injuries, contact us toll-free at 888-973-3045 for a cost-free consultation.
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