Intelligent Monitoring Systems for Real-Time Detection and Reporting of Workplace Hazards in Healthcare Facilities

Healthcare facilities present several occupational hazards that affect both healthcare workers, patients, and the facilities themselves. Some of the hazards may include infectious diseases, exposure to chemicals, stress, violence, injuries, and environmental risks. Adequate strategies must be deployed in the detection and management of these hazards to have a safe operating environment. Thus, intelligent monitoring systems have the potential to ensure the prevention of these hazards in the general workplace and in healthcare facilities. The review examined the general applications of the intelligent systems in the detection of hazards and reporting them in real-time, the benefits, and the challenges of intelligent monitoring systems. Findings showed that inadequate safety measures could result in fatalities and financial losses as well as clinical process distortion. Therefore, intelligent systems like the wearable technologies have the potential to detect the sources of accidents or hazard-related issues in real-time to make adequate decisions in preventing them. They have the characteristics of sensing and detecting the likely occurrence of hazards that could result in other catastrophic issues. Thus, the review informed the health professionals on how they can leverage intelligent systems in preventing hazards in the healthcare environment, especially, the facilities. The review also identified improved fall risk prediction and prevention, continuous monitoring, and improved accuracy as part of the benefits of intelligent monitoring systems. However, sensor/data quality and reliability, false positive/negative alarms and alarm fatigue were identified as part of the challenges. The implementation of workplace safety helps in hazard detection as well as improving the efficiency of workers and the reliability of the overall process. Intelligent monitoring systems transform healthcare safety by detecting and reporting workplace hazards in real-time. Therefore, utilising intelligent systems will be adequate to solve the problems associated with hazards in healthcare facilities.