by bu on Feb 26, 2012
Assisted living communities and nursing home residents are extremely vulnerable to accidental and negligent death. When a person is sleeping, they are the most susceptible to negligence, medical error, and sudden death due to age and compounding diseases. Two major preventable errors that frequently occur are delayed emergency response and failure to turn a patient in the night. These are both errors that occur out of ignorance. Typically, no one realizes that a patient is in need of emergency services or that they have not been turned in hours. Therefore, we can successfully address these problems by implementing a system that records a patients vital signs and movement and alerts a health care provider when assistance is required.
Using this technology in the form of a bed sheet instead of clothing allows for a true one-size-fits-all product. Nursing homes and assisted living would only need to buy enough sheets for the number of beds they owned; they would not need to worry about having the right size shirt for the resident. Additionally, it provides the resident freedom in what they wear to bed. It is a much less restrictive, but potentially equally effective, use of an up-and-coming technology.
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