Decreasing the Costs of Constant Observation

A performance improvement project employed a bachelor's-prepared psychiatric liaison nurse (PLN) to reduce one-to-one (1:1) constant observation (CO) on all medical patient-care areas of a large, metropolitan hospital. The project succeeded in cutting the costs of CO in half. It showed that PLNs can safely facilitate large reductions in CO without associated increases in falls or restraint prevalence, yielding significant cost savings for hospitals.