'Our way forward': HSC using new technology to monitor patients

The Halo tele-monitoring equipment. (Source: Shared Health)

The Health Sciences Centre (HSC) Winnipeg is trying out a new way to safely watch more patients around the clock, but with fewer staff.

Using bedside cameras, the province’s largest hospital is expected to reduce falls and other adverse events -- things that may only take a second to happen but could affect a person's recovery.

Dr. Shawn Young, HSC Winnipeg’s chief operating officer, told CTV News Winnipeg the hospital has to get creative.

“It is our way forward through this,” Young said.

“We have a tremendous backlog of patients that we have got to be able to serve and we just can't do it with the staff we currently have. We are going to be short for many years. This staff shortage isn’t something that is going to be solved immediately, it’s going to be very slow incremental work.”

The pilot project is called the HALO Monitoring Program and it is similar to a two-way video baby monitor, with the units having a camera and audio unit mounted on what looks like an IV pole.

The program is a partnership with Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN), who will be remotely monitoring the live streams.

HSC Winnipeg will have seven HALO units. They are being used, with patient and family permission, in one surgical ward and one medical ward for nine months. Patients are chosen based on medical appropriateness.

The pilot project started at the end of January.

HSC Winnipeg is the first hospital in Manitoba to use this tele-monitoring technology, but the program has been successfully adopted in hospitals across Canada, including all inpatient units at UHN facilities in Toronto.