Valley View rolls out tech to reduce pressure injuries

In a world first, west Australian aged care provider Valley View Residence is rolling out a pressure injury solution to residents in need.

The pressure injury and resident monitoring platform LenexaCARE has been developed in Australia by Lenexa Medical. It aims to reduce at-risk time to improve quality of life for residents, deliver efficiencies for aged care providers and save pressure injury-related costs for all stakeholders.

Valley View Residence – a 64-bed facility in Collie in the south-west of WA – is the first aged care organisation to roll out the platform. Following a successful pilot of two devices since July, the home has another eight units on the way based on the needs of residents.

The technology will support residents and staff with around-the-clock monitoring and provide care workers resident specific insights and increased visibility of those at risk at any given time, said Valley View Residence chief executive officer Mark Sheldon-Stemm.

“The devices are good because they give a real-time picture of the positioning of the resident,” Mr Sheldon-Stemm told Australian Ageing Agenda.

The technology provides two key benefits for staff and the many residents at the home who experience immobility due to disability or age-related issues, he said.

“Firstly it indicates if the resident has moved themselves and therefore doesn’t need to be moved. The second thing is it allows monitoring of where someone has not moved or been moved and it directs staff to go and make that movement so they aren’t in that position for a extended period of time.”

For the organisation, the technology offers two important outcomes, said Mr Sheldon-Stemm. “One is to effectively eliminate pressure injures. And the second is to have a staff monitoring system to ensure that residents are being moved appropriately.”

Results from pilots have shown residents using LenexaCARE are spending up to 67 per cent less time in an at-risk position, he said.

The device consists of a high-tech fabric-based sensor that can be fitted into any mattress. It can provide real-time monitoring of a person’s position as well as help staff reposition residents and plan turning schedules.

When required, the platform will alert nearby care workers or a remote station to enable staff to step in at the right time.

The medical device is already approved for sale in Australia and New Zealand. And it has just been cleared for the same in the United States, a spokesperson for Lenexa Medical told AAA.

Lenexa Medical co-founder and CEO Ajit Ravindran said the technology aided in the avoidance of painful pressure injuries and took the weight off carers bearing the load in an overburdened health system.

“The Lenexa system also provides carers with patient-specific information to assist with individualised care and seamlessly integrates into existing nurse call systems.”

Main image: Lenexa Medical’s pressure injury care clinical trial

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