GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lisbeth Votruba, MSN, RN, PCCN, has become director of clinical education and quality for AvaSure, the maker of the AvaSys® TeleSitter® Solution, a unique audiovisual technology for preventing patient falls and other injurious behavior. She joins a rapidly expanding team of clinicians helping hospitals implement AvaSys successfully while ensuring positive outcomes for patients.
Votruba comes to AvaSure from Mercy Health Saint Mary’s Campus, a 356-bed hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., that is part of the CHE Trinity Health System. There, she led the successful effort to win Magnet program designation in 2013 and oversaw the first healthcare installment of AvaSys in 2009. After her team demonstrated positive outcomes, Saint Mary’s further invested in this technology, with 32 additional units installed in 2012.
She received her undergraduate nursing degree at San Francisco State University in California, and then moved to the opposite coast, obtaining a master's degree in nursing from Columbia University in New York. She relocated to Michigan in 2000, joining Saint Mary's first as an ICU bedside nurse then as a clinical nurse specialist, becoming Magnet program director in 2009.
Votruba has a particular passion and interest in nursing research and has completed five Institutional Review Board-approved nursing research projects as the principal investigator. She serves on the state board of directors for the American Nurses Association in Michigan. In 2013, she won the Saint Mary’s Nursing Vision Award, the highest honor in nursing at the hospital.
“I'm very excited to join the AvaSure team because I believe my unique professional experiences have led me right here,” Votruba said. “When we adopted AvaSys at Saint Mary’s there was very little published on this revolutionary concept. I was so intrigued that I wrote a white paper for our hospital system. Later, we carried out original research that showed a statistically significant reduction in falls with video monitoring. We featured AvaSys in our Magnet document as an innovation with empirical outcomes.”
AvaSys is a remote patient observation and communications platform that enables both visual and audio monitoring of patients at risk of self-harm, including falls, removal of life-saving devices and other injuries. It allows a single caregiver to keep track of as many as 15 patients at once from a central monitoring station. These trained observers can vocally intervene with patients – while simultaneously summoning a nurse – long enough to avert harm.
“AvaSys is the type of technology we need for the future,” Votruba added. “It marries human factors with technology in a way that doesn't create more alarm fatigue, but keeps patients safe in a peaceful environment. Those who are implementing this system now are at a huge advantage because they have access to educators with a wealth of experience and knowledge from so many organizations that have successfully deployed this technology.”
About AvaSure
AvaSure is a division of AvaSure Holdings, Inc., that develops, markets and deploys technology and educational tools that support the nursing profession in improving its practice environment. It builds, installs, distributes and supports the AvaSys® TeleSitter® Solution. For more information, visit www.avasure.com.
