About 50% of caregivers have experienced or witnessed at least one incident of workplace violence or harassment, according to a recent survey. In response, federal and state authorities now require emergency response plans for most types of home-based care.
In the meantime, Canopy – a manufacturer of wearable safety technology for health care workers – has announced an expansion of its platform to help with those plans and to keep home-based caregivers safe.
Specifically, the company has launched Canopy Go, which is geared toward direct care workers visiting client or patient homes.
Founded in 2019 and based in Palo Alto, California, Canopy designs technology to maintain the safety and security of health care workers.
“For the last five years, we have focused primarily on protecting staff inside the four walls of a hospital,” Canopy Founder and CEO Shan Sinha told Home Health Care News. “Canopy Protect works with a complete package of hardware and software that we deploy as part of an end-to-end service that includes all the work required to roll this program out to all staff.”
According to Sinha, the company is expanding rapidly. In the last four and a half years, it has grown to protect 200,000 people nationwide.
“We’ve learned, in working with our customers, that there is a huge amount of anxiety when caregivers go outside the four walls of an organization,” Sinha said. “People feel disconnected when entering environments where they have little to no control and are out of their organization’s security range.”.
Finding a need to expand outside the confines of the hospital building, the company introduced Canopy Go for home care workers.
“Canopy Go is a set of capabilities built on top of the Canopy Protect platform and deployed at a scale that gives home care workers a way to use a wearable button to gain access to support if they encounter a dangerous situation,” Sinha said.
Pressing the safety button puts caregivers in touch with a network of dispatchers who connect them to local law enforcement and facilitate a coordinated response with organization security.
“With a click of the button, the staff member’s ID and exact GPS location are discretely shared with the security team, enabling timely and effective intervention,” he explained.
Sinha sees an indirect benefit of caregiver retention for those using technology like Canopy Go.
“It becomes a strategic tool for leaders to invest in their workforce and to use in recruiting efforts,” he said. “It’s a symbol of all the ways that health care organizations are protecting and supporting staff and gives them a reason to believe in the organization they work for.”
Further, Sinha sees wearable technology as enhancing patient care by reassuring caregivers that their organization is always in contact and monitoring their safety and security.
“Wearable safety is almost like another level of personal protective equipment (PPE),” Sinha said. “Every health care worker will wear something like this in the future. Individuals will show up to work with much less anxiety that they might encounter an incident, and by reducing this stress, they can focus on caring for their patient.”
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