NL Health Services Launches Tele-Monitoring Technology to Enhance Patient Safety
Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Health Services is launching tele-monitoring technology in four acute care hospitals and health-care centres within the Eastern-Rural Zone, starting today, October 21, 2024.
This innovative technology, Halo, is designed to remotely monitor eligible patients and alert care providers to potential health risks. A portable camera, with audiovisual communication, is placed at the patient’s bedside. Halo was developed by University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, Ontario.
“Remote tele-monitoring brings a new level of safe, innovative health care, which provides peace of mind for patients and their loved ones,” said Debbie Walsh, vice president and chief operating officer of the Eastern-Rural Zone of NL Health Services. “NL Health Services is pleased to partner with UHN to bring this service to our communities. This technology helps patients feel supported and closely monitored throughout their health journey, while enabling health-care professionals to provide more personalized, more attentive care.”
Tele-monitoring technology is used in hospitals across Canada. It can support teams in hospital units to quickly identify any changes in patients’ conditions and intervene as needed. This technology has been used reliably in many provinces to reduce falls and adverse events, while also providing patients and their families with the choice of declining this type of supplementary care at any time, if preferred.
“Halo is a tele-monitoring solution that provides a safe, non-intrusive, and efficient method of remotely monitoring patients,” said Justin Young, senior director, Business and Partnership development at UHN. “We’ve been using it for over eight years across UHN sites in Toronto, and it has proven to be a very efficient platform to enhance patient safety and improve the much-needed health human resource capacity. We are very excited to partner with NL Health Services to make this innovative health technology available in their care settings.”
Tele-monitoring will be used at the following NL Health Services’ sites, supporting staff members to provide optimal care to patients:
- Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre, Burin
- Carbonear General Hospital, Carbonear
- G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital, Clarenville
- Placentia Health Centre, Placentia
“This technology will have a positive impact on our ability to provide care for patients,” said Tonya Lane, Director of Medicine Program (Interim) in the Eastern-Urban Zone, NL Health Services. “It will help us offer timely and personalized support to our patients who need closer monitoring. It will streamline our day-to-day workflow, giving us more time to focus on delivering quality and safe care for all patients.”
NL Health Services plans to gradually expand this technology to other sites across the province in the future, starting with the Eastern-Urban Zone. The roll-out will follow in the coming months.
-30-
About Halo
With the addition of NL Health Services, UHN’s Halo is now being used at 13 partner hospitals in four provinces with more than 5,500 patients monitored spanning over 750,000 hours of remote patient monitoring.
Halo uses propriety technology to provide secure livestream of images and sound. Trained tele-monitoring technicians remotely monitor patients and send alerts to care teams in hospital units. This alert system allows for quick identification of changes in a patient’s condition and for care teams to act as appropriate. It serves as a valuable health human resources tool, optimizing the allocation of nursing and other staff where they are needed the most.
As the technology operates on a live stream basis and does not record, it ensures patient privacy and data security. Patients also have control over the monitoring process. They are aware of its operation and can decline the monitoring service at any time, ensuring integrity of the consent process and customizing to patient comfort levels.
Visual assets for media
Please see description in each file. Credit: University Health Network.
About NL Health Services
Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Health Services is responsible for delivering quality health-care to approximately 541,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The provincial health authority is supported by over 23,000 employees and physicians who together work to improve the health and well-being of every person, in every community. Guided by the vision of Health Accord NL, NL Health Services offers a comprehensive range of health-care programs and services through a wide network of facilities, clinics, and community services across five zones: Central, Eastern-Rural, Eastern-Urban, Labrador-Grenfell, and Western.
Learn more
Visit our website: NLHealthServices.ca
Follow us: Facebook | X | LinkedIn | YouTube
About University Health Network (UHN)
UHN is Canada’s No. 1 hospital and the world’s No. 1 publicly funded hospital. With 10 sites and more than 20,000 members of TeamUHN, UHN consists of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, The Michener Institute of Education and West Park Healthcare Centre. As Canada’s top research hospital, the scope of research and complexity of cases at UHN have made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. It has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. University Health Network is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. www.uhn.ca