The Proof: Does Innovating How We Observe Actually Improve Outcomes?

We have been examining the challenging environment of inpatient mental health: the daily demands placed on patients and staff, PLGL, the hidden cost of managing patient safety, and how observation, though required, can quietly do more harm than good.

Throughout, we keep asking one question: is there a better way? And I appreciate the emails and comments, both supportive and questioning. In this post, grounded in real-world evidence, I want to argue that there is.

Yes, the throughline is that I am biased toward our contactless vital-sign monitoring and ambient alerting platform. But independent evidence has shown, time and again, that there is a better way to reduce patient risk, improve staff safety, create a more dignified environment, and free facilities to invest more in therapeutic care by addressing the hidden cost of PLGL.

The proof isalready out there. Let's dive in…

The independent evidence

Let's start with the independent evidence. Sitters, especially agency staff brought in to run continuous 1:1s, are costly and, surprisingly, not well evidenced as a safety measure in their own right. As we have explored before, 1:1s are hard on both the patient and the staff, and they have never really proven their worth. So, the real question is not whether we are watching hard enough. It is whether there is a better way.

There is. In along-term acute care hospital study at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare in Connecticut, a continuous monitoring program cut falls by 25%, reduced 1:1 sitter staffing from 8.2to 0.8 full-time equivalents, and saved over $3.2 million, all with no increase in harm (American Journal of Nursing, 2025). And it is not a one-off. Across other programs, sitter costs have fallen by close to half and falls by roughly a third, and video monitoring deployed across eight units cut sitter staffing with no rise in falls at all. For context, a single fall with injury adds around $37,000 in cost, so preventing even a handful pays for itself.

A fairchallenge is that most of this independent work relied on camera-based livevideo monitoring, with a technician watching the feed remotely. It proves themodel that continuous technology plus smarter staffing beats constant 1:1 humanwatching. Our contribution is to deliver that same outcome via a contactlessambient solution, removing the need to constantly watch patients over a livevideo stream, which is the dignity distinction I drew last time.

The punchlineis simple. When you replace constant human watching with a layered model:strategic staffing support augmented by ambient monitoring, a unit sees costscome down, and safety holds or even improves. That is not our claim; it is theindependent record.

What we have found

Working with our customers to assess the impact of our platform, we have found very similarresults. Facilities that use the LIO solution see less time lost to night-time observation, fewer one-to-one hours, fewer falls, earlier intervention from continuous vital-sign and activity signals, and staff time returned to therapeutic care.

What I am alsoexcited to say is that our partners value the solution: our NPS sits at 69%.

What we are working on

What's next? We were born at Oxford University and steeped in the traditions of research. It is in our DNA to partner in pursuing independent, controlled studies in behavioral health, specifically, on incidents, observations, and staff outcomes. Right now, several partners are studying our platform, including on sleep, the very thing I argued last time may be quietly raising risk. We will let the data lead and share what we find.

And if you area clinician or researcher who wants to put our platform to the testindependently, I would welcome it. The fastest way to earn trust is to invitescrutiny, not to avoid it.

So, does innovating how we observe lead to better outcomes? On the independent evidence, yes. And our own findings point in the same direction.

But the number that matters most is not on any balance sheet. We are in healthcare to improve lives, for patients, and for the staff who show up every day to do a critically important and very tough job. Which is exactly where this goes next. In my next post, I will tackle the perspective of the caregivers themselves.

‍Author: Todd Haedrich, CEO, LIO