IDSolutions – Taking Patient Observation to Brand New Heights
The role of patient sitters in healthcare is indispensable. They offer round-the-clock monitoring for patients that require critical care, improve a patient’s safety and hospital stay, and free up medical staff to focus on clinical tasks. But opting for a one-to-one patient engagement program is easier said than done. It can financially strain healthcare institutions and cost them millions of dollars annually.
For hospitals that want to harness the benefits of patient sitters without affecting their bottom line, MedSitter, a virtual observation platform is the perfect solution. The idea for MedSitter came to Tracy Mills, the founder and president of IDSolutions – a provider of custom video solutions – quite naturally. While consulting with multiple IDSolutions’ telehealth customers, he learned that skilled healthcare employees were often placed into patient rooms to monitor patients who were antagonistic, distressed, at risk of falling. They provide one-on-one care in a manner that soothes patients, observes changes in their condition, and summon nursing staff when necessary. Identifying this as a trending need, he realized that there had to be a better way to do this. With extensive experience in telehealth and software development, as well as providing integrated technology solutions to businesses in enterprise, education, and governments nationwide, it only made sense for IDSolutions to expand their healthcare ambitions to include virtual patient observation.
Our infrastructure is load tested to ensure we have the scalability and resilience to meet the needs of our growing customer base. In fact, we have been able to scale customers at a rate I never thought probable.
Tracy Mills, Founder & President
“I brought the idea of our own virtual observation solution to the team, and we began to build MedSitter with a focus on patient and staff safety right away,” recalls Mills. After substantial research, learning from current customers, and continued market analysis, Mills and his team came up with MedSitter, a one-of-a-kind patient observation system, which leverages video collaboration in a whole new way.
MedSitter uses a SaaS-based and real-time approach to provide interactive patient engagement. With MedSitter, patient sitters can each monitor up to 10 patient rooms from a central location. As opposed to the traditional patient observation method, this is not only more convenient for patient sitters but also more cost-effective for hospitals. The solution gives users access to two-way audio and two-way video as well as far-end camera controls. It is also powered by proprietary visual intelligence, facial detection, and real-time motion detection that quickly alert an observer of any movement or expression of distress. MedSitter can be used to verbally redirect a patient, while simultaneously contacting the right staff for clinical intervention. The solution is designed to be scalable and is easy-to-use. It comes with single-click communications and also allows patient sitters to take valuable notes that help providers with a proactive approach to safety and improve patient outcomes.
For the maximum benefit of clients, all of IDSolutions’ products are tested and secure at multiple levels. Above all, their entire customer care, development, account management, clinical, sales, and leadership teams are HIPAA trained and certified. Keeping in mind that time and funds are the main barriers for most providers when it comes to implementing a virtual observation program, MedSitter has flexible purchasing options, ensures immediate ROI, and includes best practices. For customers that qualify, IDSolutions also offers grant-writing services.
At the Leading Edge of Telehealth
From the very beginning, the idea behind MedSitter was to push telehealth solutions that make healthcare more accessible and efficient. While telehealth is not a new concept in healthcare, widespread adoption among providers and patients beyond simple telephone correspondence has been relatively slow. However, with a pandemic in our hands, today telehealth has shifted from a ‘nice to have’ to an absolute necessity. Moreover, with recent policy changes during the pandemic, the common barriers to telehealth access have been reduced and have promoted the use of telehealth as a way to deliver acute, chronic, primary, and specialty care at a distance. “Telehealth is the only way in current times to provide quality care while reducing staff exposure to infectious disease, preserve personal protective equipment (PPE), and minimize the impact of patient surges on facilities. By increasing access to healthcare providers, telehealth helps ensure patients receive the right care, at the right place, at the right time,” states Mills.
MedSitter, however, takes telehealth to whole new heights. It combines best-in-class technologies with IDSolutions’ expert engineering and integration capabilities allowing hospitals to connect their patients to vital health care services like remote monitoring and virtual visits through video conferencing. With MedSitter hospitals, long-term care facilities, and behavioral centers can stay ahead of the curve and practice better, safer care while managing costs and minimizing risks. “The primary focus of a telehealth solution is to provide functionally equivalent access to healthcare and health services as they would otherwise be provided in-person. Our job is to make telehealth as convenient as possible for our customers and end-users. Ultimately, we get to utilize our resources in technology and integration to help people across the nation get the care they deserve,” says Mills. With a strong technical approach, team, and corresponding partnerships, IDSolutions is also positioned to easily live up to the sudden massive increase in demand for telehealth solutions. “Our infrastructure is load tested to ensure we have the scalability and resilience to meet the needs of our growing customer base. In fact, we have been able to scale customers at a rate I never thought probable,” informs Mills.
A People-First Culture
Mills credits a large part of MedSitter’s success to the people that make up IDSolutions. He states, “One of the main reasons I developed IDSolutions 20 years ago is because as a business owner, I get to choose the people and vendors I work with. My team, the vendors we partner with, and the customers we serve, are what is most important to me.” An employee-first ideal also helps them achieve a customer-centric approach. It comes as a little surprise that IDSolutions has been proudly named a Best Places to Work in Indiana organization year after year. The entire team at IDSolutions brings tremendous value to the market and not only contributes to the community but sets goals for employment and services nationwide.
The company believes in empowering its employees and encourages them to take ownership. Over the years, the team at IDSolutions has developed a keen ability to identify problems that clients face, and the development team has an uncanny ability to find elegant and effective solutions to those problems. “This, along with our customer support team and their proactive management, as well as attention to detail and tireless advocating of our customers, is how we continue to maintain customer satisfaction,” adds Mills.
On the whole, the company treats its customers as partners and the team at IDSolutions becomes an extension of a client’s care, technical, and support teams. Mills points out, “The best ideas we have often result from our discussions with our clients. Those dialogues generally result in discoveries of new pain points our clients are dealing with, and ultimately fuel the next phase of innovation.”
Ahead of the Curve
In the days to come, IDSolutions will continue to be a game-changer in the SaaS and Vaas industries. With a disruptive nurse intervention technology in the pipeline, the future roadmap looks exciting for IDSolutions. Aside from that, IDSolutions is regularly watching the healthcare space and the regulatory environment that frames it. “We are ahead of the curve because we pay attention to where the industry is moving. It’s all about keeping our finger on the pulse of the market, so we can pre-empt the needs of current and future customers,” says Mills signing off.
