In effort to further enhance safety measures, particularly within the home, Innovive Health has teamed up with POM Safe to give its clinicians access to the latter’s mobile platform.
“The device will help our clinicians in the field to either deter or de-escalate a situation and, if needed, even connect them with 24/7 emergency help,” Kristen Palumbo, chief operating officer and chief compliance officer of Innovive, told Home Health Care News. “The goal of the partnership is to take all of the existing safety protocols that we have here and to really enhance them by giving them support through this mobile device. It gives them much more functionality than a cell phone device alone. Depending on the situation you’re in, it may not always be conceivable to take out your phone and call 911.”
Based in Medford, Massachusetts, Innovive is a home-based care provider that serves complex behavioral health patients. The company utilizes nurses, as well as other specialities, in order to serve patients. It also utilizes a cloud-based infrastructure and a fully integrated EMR.
On its end, POM Safe is a company that provides technology-driven personal safety solutions.
The company’s platform includes communication tools, crime data integration, mobile app connectivity and real-time analytics.
“It has some really cool features that will allow for notifying somebody that they’re checking in, or out of a location, locking in their location for emergency dispatch, initiating dispatch or even just initiating a fake call or a fake text,” Palumbo said. “The range of services that this particular platform offers is really innovative, and really will support the work that our clinicians are doing in the field.”
Workplace violence is a serious risk for home-based care workers.
“Home-based care organizations encounter unique challenges in safeguarding their staff due to their limited control over the environments they enter and the individuals they engage with,” Nicole McCann-Davis, Transcend Strategy Group’s senior client advisor and research director, previously told HHCN.
Over 50% of caregivers have seen or personally experienced at least one instance of workplace violence or harassment, according to data from Transcend.
Transcend also found that 25% of those surveyed either didn’t feel comfortable reporting workplace violence or harassment, or didn’t feel supported by their organization when they had.
At Innovive, keeping workers safe has alway been a major area of focus.
“We had traditional measures in place, as far as education and orientation and operational safeguards,” Palumbo said. “However, we wanted to make sure that we were also giving them a technology platform that would allow them to bring safety right into the field with them. We are always looking for ways to improve that, and to bring in new technology.”
Ultimately, the partnership is the result of Innovive responding to direct feedback from its staff.
“This collaboration with POM Safe was really driven off of the feedback of our own clinical team, what they want to see and what they want to be able to utilize in the field,” Palumbo said. “We met with them, we spoke with them, we offered them many solutions, and this is really designed by them. It does feel good to know that not only are we bringing them a solution, but that we’re bringing them something that they themselves voiced that they’d like to see.”