Reduce Liability with Cameras for Your Elderly Care Facility

Written by Ana Boechat

If you own an elderly care facility, you may be wondering how you can reduce liability to set your mind at ease.

An excellent way to do this would be to install cameras around your business. The technology that is readily available for your business can not only provide you a sense of relief, but also peace of mind for the safe operation of your facility.

Managing risks such as slip and fall accidents or medication administration errors can be mitigated by installing cameras to ensure safety in your elderly care facility.

With state-of-the-art options to bring your facility into the 21st century and keep up with the accessibility of technology and media, using cameras as a tool to enhance your elderly care facility is almost a no-brainer. Keep reading to see how installing cameras can help reduce risks and strengthen the trust between the elderly inhabitants, their family members, and your professional caregivers.

How Cameras Reduce Liability in Elderly Care Facilities

Installing cameras in your elderly care facility could potentially aid in eliminating any suspicions related to a situation regarding a caregiver and provide an added level of surveillance to protect the seniors and staff in your facility. When an incident occurs, whether on accident or on purpose, having camera surveillance takes out all of the guesswork to get to the cause without any unnecessary drama.

Additionally, you could also choose to give family members access to view their loved ones at any time which aids in a higher level of trust and a commitment from staff to provide excellent care at all times. For family members who live far away, this also gives them peace of mind and reassurance to know they can check in at any time to see how their loved ones are being treated.

By installing cameras in transportation vehicles, you can protect both the driver and the elderly passengers by reviewing the video to ensure proper treatment and care when they are being transported to and from your facility. This will also provide you the ability to determine what kind of training could be needed to make sure your staff is following all safety protocols and procedures.

Before you make the decision to install cameras, take care to review your state and federal laws for recording audio and video to make sure you and your residents are protected legally. It is important to balance safety, privacy, and dignity when choosing to implement audio and video recording into your facility.

Common Risks for Elderly Care Facilities

To understand the benefits of using cameras in your facility, seeing a few statistics related to the risks associated with running an elderly care facility might put things into perspective.

The Nursing Home Abuse Guide lays out some of the most alarming facts regarding injuries at nursing homes:

25% of nursing homes are cited for causing death or serious injury.
Over 5,000 deaths each year are due to nursing home injuries or negligence
27% of elderly care accidents are caused by physical obstructions or hazards.

Below you will find the facts and figures reported for some of the most common risks associated with elderly care.

Slip and Fall Accidents

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention projects 7 fall deaths per hour by the year 2030 if the rates continue to rise at the pace they have been since 2007.

Here are a few more stats from the CDC related to slip and fall accidents:

Falls are the most prevalent cause of traumatic brain injuries.
1 out of every 5 falls can end in a serious injury.
Over 95% of hip injuries are caused by falling.
Over 800,000 patients a year end up in the hospital because of an injury related to falling.
Every year, 3 million elderly patients are treated for injuries related to falls in the Emergency Room.

According to FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers, in 2015, the medical costs for falls totaled over $50 billion. Though sometimes falls cannot be prevented, by having a camera installed in your facility, you are able to provide evidence and adjust how care is administered to reduce the liability on your end.

Elderly Abuse and Neglect

Elderly abuse and neglect are more common than you might think; however, there can sometimes be a fine line between abuse and care for difficult situations.

According to the National Association of Nursing Home Attorneys, here are some stats for elderly abuse and neglect in elderly care facilities:

Approximately 1 out of 10 Americans over the age of 60 have been a victim of elder abuse.
10% of elderly care staff members have admitted to committing 1 act of physical abuse against their residents.
36% of elderly care residents have witnessed at least 1 physical abuse incident in the previous year.
40% of elderly care staff members have admitted to psychologically abusing their residents.
5 million elders per year are abused in elderly care facilities.

The NANHA also states that only an estimated 1 in 14 cases of abuse are reported. When you choose to install cameras into your facility, you can identify any abuse whether or not it is reported so that the quality of living for the seniors in your care is substantially higher than in facilities that are understaffed and have little accountability.

Medication Administration Errors

Medication administration is highly structured and regulated and the process is not taken lightly.

According to Nurse.com, several studies have been conducted over the past few years to lay out some of the alarming statistics related to medication administration errors:

The average medication pass in elderly care facilities involves 73 different medications and takes about 113 minutes to hand out to the residents.
Out of 25 elderly care facilities in North Carolina, 92% of them reported 631 medication administration errors over 1 year.
51% of the medication administration errors reported by the NC elderly care facilities were serious enough to have required monitoring or intervention.
The most common medication administration errors are dose admission at 32%, wrong patient at 6%, and wrong product at 6%.

Though caregivers should be completing at least 5 hours of higher education courses on the proper administration of medication, sometimes a deficit in staffing provides a missed opportunity. Installing cameras in your facility can help provide an additional source of accountability for your staff to ensure they are administering medication properly.

Transportation Accidents

If your facility offers transportation services for the residents, it is imperative that your staff acknowledges the special needs associated with transporting elderly people.

Below is a list of the most common transportation accidents reported by assisted living facilities:

Loading and unloading injuries: If staff do not know how to properly handle or store equipment, the risk of injury and equipment malfunction will increase.
Improper restraint injuries: If a person is restrained too tightly, unnecessary injuries can occur, such as bruising or broken bones. Likewise, if a person is not restrained tight enough, a bump or hard curve could cause an injury.

Take care to ensure your transportation staff is trained properly and has all of the certifications necessary to transport the elderly in your care. Installing cameras inside of the transportation vehicles will give peace of mind and added surveillance to ensure the proper transport.

Conclusion

Reducing liability with cameras in your elderly care facility is one of the easiest ways to safeguard yourself from any accidents that will occur in the future. Building the trust between your residents, their family members, and your caregivers will help to distinguish your facility as exceptional and state of the art.

Contact Groove Technology Solutions

To find out more information about what options are available for your facility, contact Groove Technology Solutions to request a quote at https://www.getgrooven.com/request-a-quote. Groove Technology Solutions services all 50 states, and provides excellent, friendly customer service that truly sets them apart.