Why should your remote observation system have a view of ten patients? To minimize sitter fatigue while giving each patient meaningfully interaction.
MedSitter is a remote patient observation solution that allows one virtual sitter to watch up to ten patients at one time. Ten is not a random selection. Our developers worked in tandem with our clinical team to design a platform that maximizes patient safety without burdening a virtual sitter with too many patients to manage.
MedSitter was designed for clinicians by a dedicated development team that worked in close proximity with RNs and CCRNs. We wanted to create—and want to continually improve—our system for the patient safety observers.
One of the most prominent question we have been seeing lately is why ten patients? Why did MedSitter decide the remote observation system should have a view of ten patients? The answer is simple: We wanted to minimize sitter fatigue while giving each patient the opportunity to meaningfully interact with their sitter. Too many patients means less individual time per patient, which can negatively impact the patient experience. Let’s take a look at how that works.
How MedSitter Reduces Fatigue
Technology fatigue is a universal experience. Too much time in front of a screen can affect your vision, attention span, and more. Remote sitters facing tech fatigue is a patient safety problem, which is why it is important to minimize fatigue at every opportunity. Every MedSitter observer is interacting with the software on a 32-inch monitor. We specifically use that size to maximize central and peripheral vision. 32-inches falls into a persons’ peripheral viewing area, allowing one sitter to take in the entire screen at once, edge-to-edge. Within the software we have two different patient viewing panels: a larger video window called the interaction zone and ten smaller video windows called the monitoring zone.
The observer gets to select which patient is in the interaction zone at any given time. While a patient is in the interaction zone, the virtual sitter can unmute their microphone to communicate with the patient, signal onsite staff, and even activate the on-cart alarm. While this is happening, the other patients are under peripheral observation in the monitoring zone—which means that no one is ignored. The observer also has the ability to quickly activate the on-cart alarm of any of the monitoring zone patients, when two or more patients are in danger at the same time. Since the virtual sitter can view everyone at once, there is less risk of fatigue while patients’ safety is constantly maintained.
Ten: The Magic Number
With the conversation of fatigue, also comes the conversation of how many patients can a sitter observe without increasing that fatigue? The answer comes in the breakdown: over the course of sixty minutes each of the ten patients has six minutes devoted to monitoring in the interaction zone. Six minutes an hour is enough for the virtual sitter and the patient to have meaningful check ins and start to build a relationship. Anything less than six minutes could put patients at risk and is likely to negatively impact their satisfaction.
When all ten patients are observed at once, using MedSitter’s 32-inch monitor and cutting-edge UX design, virtual sitters are able to stop patient falls before they happen. A smaller screen means less eye movement. This makes the observer experience better by reducing fatigue and giving each patient the individualized attention they deserve.
To learn more about the expertise behind MedSitter’s UX design, and fatigue reduction, download this complimentary white paper by Paul Rouillard, Direct of User Experience at MedSitter, with 20+ years’ of experience with user experience and product design.
In this white paper, you will learn:
- How MedSitter’s design reduces sitter fatigue
- Why 10 patients is the magic number for sitters to watch
- How MedSitter helps alleviate healthcare staffing shortages
.png)