Palarum Smart Socks Study Begins at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Research to enroll 2,500 patients over nine months
COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) has launched an Institutional Review Board-approved evaluation of Palarum's PUP®new "smart" patient sock. The study will be conducted with "high fall-risk" in-patients on three floors of the Ohio State University Wexner Center Brain and Spine Hospital.
"Falls can have widespread and significant impact on health; they can be serious and often result in high costs and additional days in the hospital," said Tammy Moore, nursing administrator and principal investigator of this study at Ohio State's Neurological Institute. "The best way to reduce falls is to prevent them."
The Palarum PUP® (Patient is UP) smart socks use revolutionary, patented wearable technology to help prevent patient falls and enhance rehabilitation therapy. Using eTextile and IoT technologies, PUP® socks issue real-time alarms to immediately notify nearby nurses that a fall-risk patient is out of bed, standing, and/or attempting to walk unassisted.
The Palarum PUP® study will enroll 2,500 inpatients over a nine-month period. The results will be compared to benchmark data for each of the three patient floors to determine the overall value of the sock in patient care. Nurses will be educated on enrolling patients who meet high-fall risk criteria. Once enrolled, the patient will be fitted with a pair of PUP® socks and will be continually monitored for possible movement out of bed during his or her hospitalization. If the PUP® sock detects a patient attempting to get out of bed, an alert will be sent to the three closest nurses wearing a specially designed PUP® smart badge. An alert will also be sent to the nurses' station and to a PUP® smart tablet in the patient's room.
"We hope to demonstrate that the fall rate among this patient population will decrease with the use of Palarum's PUP® sock," said Patrick Baker, president and CEO of Palarum. "We are excited to be working with one of the premier healthcare organizations in Ohio to validate this new wearable technology. We expect the results of this study to mirror those of previous studies conducted that showed a significant reduction in patient falls when the PUP sock is used. We are also actively engaged with healthcare organizations around the country to evaluate the PUP system with their patients."
In addition to reducing patient falls, the study has three secondary objectives:
- Reduce the incidence of false alerts to less than five percent
- Provide positive alert reliability of 95%, reducing alarm fatigue among nurses
- Gather compliance data and response times from alert to caregiver response
About Palarum:
Founded in 2016 by Patrick Baker, a former chief nursing officer at a large acute care hospital and inventor of the PUP® smart patient sock, Palarum created the revolutionary PUP™ smart sock that incorporates patented technologies woven into conductive fabric. The technology enables real-time monitoring to prevent patient falls and enhance physical therapy and rehabilitation. PUP® is the most technologically advanced, nurse-centric, patient mobility system in healthcare. It improves patient safety by greatly reducing injuries from falls and significantly reduces costs related to falls. It also decreases alarm fatigue through a smart notification system and generates critical new data to enhance facility operations. PUP® is designed for acute care hospitals, as well as facilities for rehabilitation, long-term care, and physical therapy. www.palarum.com
About Ohio State University Hospital:
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
One of the nation's leading academic medical centers, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center offers healthcare services in virtually every specialty and subspecialty in medicine. Thousands of patients come to us each month for treatments and services they cannot find anywhere else. Providing access to healthcare information is core to our research, education and patient care mission. At Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, we're dedicated to improving health in Ohio and across the world through innovation in research, education and patient care.
Contact:
Palarum: Chris Baker, 617.513.7003
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center: Eileen Scahill, 614.293.3737
SOURCE Palarum, LLC
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