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An article on the journey of Adam Aronson and Arrowsight

“Using cameras, sensors and remote video software, we started out checking food safety and animal welfare in meat processing plants. In 2004, a beef industry consultant introduced me to Temple Grandin, an expert in the humane treatment of animals. Temple endorsed our operations, which use auditing methods she developed, and she became one of our advisers”

Is the New York Giants bathroom more sanitary than your hospital room? Could be. And that player cleanliness may even have helped send the team to the Super Bowl. Freakonomics co-author and self-confessed germophobe Stephen Dubner, working on a Football Freakonomics segment for the National Football League, noticed that every urinal in the football Giants’ bathroom had a plastic pump bottle of hand sanitizer perched on top – a phenomenon he promptly documented photographically.

aunching a new product or service is not an easy task. Small businesses know in order to be successful, they must provide something unique that fills a void or a service. That service needs to intrigue new customers and bring back existing customers again and again

https://s3.amazonaws.com/arrowsight-media-public/PDFS/Forbes_Article_100_Founders_Share_Their_Top_Aha_Moments_10_15_2012.pdf

Often, those who start a business are looking for a sense of control - mastering their own destiny. They are the ones piling the work onto their plate, taking on added burden where possible. It is sometimes, then, counterintuitive to think about ways to reduce workload and increase efficiencies.

With a new President-elect soon to take office, more emphasis than ever will be placed on the economy. That said, one of the worst stretches ever for American productivity growth is showing signs of improvement with the latest report out of the Labor Department showing U.S. worker productivity rose in the third quarter. It’s important to note that the increase comes after three consecutive quarters of declines and many economists are emphasizing that productivity growth is still almost non-existent on a year-over-year basis.

With 16.2 million emergency room visits resulting in hospital admissions and nearly triple that amount of inpatient surgeries performed, hospitals are taking even more precautions to keep patients safe through implementing video surveillance technology. Much of the technology aims to ensure safety protocols are followed to help save lives. This includes minimizing the occurrence of unintended retention of foreign objects in patients (URFOs) and curbing the incidence of hospital acquired infections (HAIs)

Testimony of Adam B. Aronson, Chief Executive Officer of Arrowsight, Inc., before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Domestic Policy After the Beef Recall: Exploring Greater Transparency in the Meat Industry :

Since the recent meat recall, Arrowsight has been approached by many large and medium size companies to learn more about our animal handling programs. An industry-wide movement to improve practices in this area appears to be under way. In all of our meetings with prospective clients, we have also been requested to profile facilities for process optimization applications that will drive financial savings.

NAMA is committed to the proper handling of livestock and works proactively with the meat industry as well as technology and service providers to support compliance with all animal handling requirements. The Arrowsight RVA system for animal handling applications has been successfully utilized in many slaughter facilities throughout the US and Canada over the last several years. Arrowsight works within the AMI Guidelines and under PAACO training and certification, to implement custom programs for improved coaching through sampled remote video auditing and performance reporting feedback

Company leads with industry’s most extensive video monitoring program, animal well-being specialists, and controlled atmosphere stunning

Recently I was talking to a person who works on livestock handling at packing plants. Plant management had installed a lamp on their restrainer entrance to facilitate animal entry. Adding the lamp made it possible to greatly reduce electric prod use. Using lamps to illuminate dark places is a subject I have talked about many times

Tyson Foods said Wednesday that it will open the video streams of its poultry farms to an outside company to validate that no animal cruelty is taking place.

Cameras are already in action to monitor all 33 of the food giants' poultry facilities around the U.S., but they haven't been available for viewing by outsiders.

Arrowsight’s RVA has been adopted successfully by some of the largest players in the processing industry. Companies like JBS, Cargill and Hormel, just to name a few, all use an Arrowsight program in slaughter facilities. Dr. Temple Grandin, Ph.D., well-known animal welfare expert and MEAT+POULTRY columnist endorses the system and helped Arrowsight with the design. The company is now moving to the next level in RVA.

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario – Maple Leaf Foods is adopting new measures to improve its animal welfare practices, including remote video auditing. The company unveiled its formal Animal Care Commitment, which details the company’s principles, goals and initiatives toward becoming a “leader in animal care.”

The journey and background on Arrowsight’s success with RVA in animal farms

The owners of a piggery in Young say they are considering taking further action against the people who placed hidden cameras in their pig sheds.

“…terrorism experts see agroterrorism, defines as the intentional contamination of the food supply with a goal of terrorizing the population…”

2011

Meat companies are turning to video surveillance cameras in an effort to reduce E. coli and other contamination inside processing plants. The new technique allows remote auditors to watch whether plant workers follow safety protocols aimed at reducing the spread of deadly bacteria.

Mike Siemens, Cargill’s head of animal welfare husbandry, encourages the 19,000 employees working double shifts in the company’s 10 North American beef processing plants to compete against each other. But instead of rewarding workers for the fastest production, Siemens gives pizza parties and gift certificates to those who properly sterilize their butchering knives and treat cattle humanely.

“We installed 16 cameras, split between animal handling areas and key food safety-related positions along the hide removal line on the dressing floor.”

"The operating room involves nurses, doctors, patients, a cleaning crew, people bringing out sterile equipment. It's a tremendous dance, the most complex environment in any hospital," says John Di Capua, M.D., vice president of anesthesiology services for the 16-hospital system. "So it's many orders of magnitude or more difficult to monitor and to improve any activity."

Commonplace in other industries, but new for healthcare, is the latest installment of third-party remote video auditing (RVA) technology. For instance, North Shore-LIJ Health System has pioneered the use of real-time RVA since 2008 for a wide range of patient safety solutions in healthcare ranging from 90%+ hand hygiene performance in ICUs to 95%+ surgical safety checklist performance in surgical suites.

Remote video auditing (RVA) with feedback is a promising new technology shown to dramatically improve compliance among healthcare workers (HCWs). Emerging research suggests that the proven efficacy of these systems is associated with the real-time performance evaluation and reminders they provide to HCWs, which encourages staff to improve or modify aspects of their behavior

Hospitals are adopting remote video auditing in their endoscopy suites to encourage higher reprocessing compliance rates.

October 26, 2015 – GREAT NECK, NY– Citing prior success in dramatically increasing hand hygiene compliance in intensive care units (ICUs), as well as improving patient safety and efficiency in operating rooms (ORs), the North Shore-LIJ Health System is expanding its use of remote video auditing (RVA) to over 140 patient care rooms in surgery suites, intensive care units (ICUs), endoscopy suites, labor and delivery rooms and emergency departments (ED) in multiple hospitals and surgery centers.

FOREST HILLS, NY, May 21, 2013 – The North Shore-LIJ Health System is expanding a first-of-its-kind video monitoring system used to measure hand-washing compliance at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, NY, by introducing cameras in operating rooms at Forest Hills (NY) Hospital.

Hospital operating rooms often have opportunities for patient safety and efficiency improvements, and the ORs at UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pa., were no exception — while the hospital had comparatively strong metrics for surgical site infections, OR never events, and OR turnover times, its leaders believed all three areas could be improved

The use of video monitoring — covert or disclosed, of patients or providers — has proliferated as high quality, inexpensive technology has become increasingly accessible. The possibilities range from watching elderly patients at risk of falling in their rooms to recording doctors and nurses at sinks to make sure they’re washing their hands.

Just as sports teams watch game film to analyze performance and identify opportunities for improvement, remote video auditing in the healthcare setting gives clinicians the opportunity to receive near real-time performance feedback to help them improve care and reduce the possibility of adverse events.

Doctors, nurses and other staff face endless demands and a long list of things that can go wrong. That means mistakes can (and often do) happen, especially in recent decades, as most hospitals have been forced to provide the same care on far more patients with far fewer resources.

But one hospital in New York has found, what many call, a good solution. Since 2013, all 24 operating rooms at Long Island Jewish Medical Center (LIJ) have been wired with a remote video monitoring system created by a company called Arrowsight.

Last week, I reported on the problem of preventable harm in hospitals. It has been estimated that each year between 98,000 and 440,000 people die as a result of preventable errors in hospital. Many readers wrote in with comments about family members who were victims of flawed care. They revealed a sense of betrayal and hurt. How could hospitals — institutions we turn to for comfort when we are most vulnerable — so often increase pain and suffering?

Arrowsight employs remote video auditing technology to monitor and improve safety and performance in both the meat industry as well as the healthcare industry. I had the idea over 20 years ago when I thought to myself, why isn’t there game film for business, similar to what sports teams use to improve their performance? So I took some of my own money together with some investors and started ParentWatch which was a web based video system that child care centers could install so parents could keep connected with their kids during the day.

We have engaged Arrowsight, a company that has been instrumental in improving food safety in the meat and poultry industry to install cameras in our scope processing areas where technicians will be monitored for accuracy and completeness of the cleaning process based on OEM and FDA recommendations

Monitoring physicians' and staff's adherence to infection control guidelines is crucial for preventing infections and ensuring patient safety. Surveillance also helps leaders identify barriers to noncompliance. Donna Armellino, vice president of infection prevention at Great Neck, N.Y.-based North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, says when monitors identify failures to adhere to infection control policies, it is crucial to have discussions with the individuals involved. 

At North Shore University Hospital on Long Island, motion sensors, like those used for burglar alarms, go off every time someone enters an intensive care room. The sensor triggers a video camera, which transmits its images halfway around the world to India, where workers are checking to see if doctors and nurses are performing a critical procedure:washing their hands

Did you go into the hospital recently for a routine operation or problem and come out with a nasty hospital-acquired infection unrelated to your illness? If you have, you are not alone. If you haven't, you are one of the lucky ones.

Medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week. A surgeon with five simple ways to make health care safer.

There is a simple and effective way of getting hospital workers to wash their hands consistently: Watch them wash, and then congratulate them for having done so