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Nurses in Virginia use 'smart glasses' to improve efficiency and quality of wound care

November 19, 2015
Health IT Population Health Primary Care
The Vuzix M100
Courtesy: Vuzix
By Jennifer Rioux, Contributing Reporter

Can “smart glasses” help nurses improve the efficiency and quality of wound care? In April 2015, Commonwealth Care of Roanoke, Inc. (CCR) began a pilot study with six nurses in three facilities to try and answer that question. Fifty patients have participated to date.

Using Vuzix M100 smart glasses, nurses live-stream audio and video during their patient care visits to a wound care nurse supervisor or physician. The technology allows a supervising nurse to be remotely present to assess wounds and ratify diagnoses, as well as provide instant feedback to the attending nurse on quality of care, procedural issues or adjustments to treatment protocol.



Lora Epperly, RN, director of business development and care innovation for CCR, told HBC News that she has observed three major advantages to on-site, just-in-time consultation with the corporate wound nurse.

• “It has prevented trips back to the hospital for procedures or visits to the wound clinic. It saves patients the inconvenience of being transported to a hospital, and saves on the costs of ambulance service.”

• “It means they can see what the onsite wound nurse sees in real time, allowing them to manage more complicated wounds, effect healing faster and get the patient out of the hospital sooner, reducing the amount of time the patient is cared for.”

• “Since using the smart glasses we have had no turnover in wound nurses. If they have a question and they can request a call to help them troubleshoot, it results in a huge increase in job satisfaction.” Epperly emphasized that care in a skilled nursing facility is cheaper than hospital care and that smart glasses aid in “utilizing the most appropriate care setting and the most appropriate health care professionals.”

CCR is collecting data on length of stays, rehospitalizations, and turnover of wound nurses, as preliminary measures of program effectiveness. They will expand the program to all 12 facilities in 2016 and expand use of the technology to virtual admission assessments, making it possible to determine the patient’s need for Emergency Department referral or follow-up care.

CCR also has plans to begin using Bluetooth-enabled stethoscopes that will transmit, heart, lung and bowel sounds to physicians at remote location to assist with diagnosis.

Epperly feels that the program has demonstrated evidence of numerous cost savings. She mentioned that the cost of an ambulance ride can be up to $800 per patient. That expense removed makes the cost of the glasses and software a no-brainer.

“We know that with the cost of the glasses monthly versus the cost of one visit prevented, our investment is covered.” Epperly said that they are not currently billing for use of the glasses but that “eventually physicians will be able to bill for the office visit via use of the glasses” and that “depending on the payer source for the patient, the care facility will be able to charge a fee as an originating site.”

She hopes that CCR’s pilot study helps draw attention to what the technology can do to address quality of care versus cost. She cited the need to use resources most effectively: “the number of patients a physician can see in an office setting versus consults with nurses via the glasses is no comparison, especially in rural or underserved areas, where there are not a lot of a specific types of physician.”

She believes that a glasses-facilitated consult may take only 5-10 minutes and result in a much shorter time to deliver care, thus addressing issues related to quality, resource utilization, and cost.

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