More Help Keeping an Eye on Admitted Patients

Remote monitoring allows physical restraints to be halved for those who need them

Singapore, 29 September 2026 – Can less restraints be used on admitted patients who are at risk of harming themselves or others? This is a question that nurses at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) often ask themselves.

A potential solution, which was set up in December 2025, lies in the Hospital’s Virtual Nursing Unit, to augment busy ward nurses and keep round the clock watch over patients who are disoriented, experiencing acute delirium or under suicide prevention. Next-of-kin are informed when monitoring begins. The service, known as the Virtual Sitter LASSO, allows nurses at a central hub to speak to these patients, offering them a few words of reassurance through a two-way audio link while prompting ward colleagues to the bedside when they try to get out of bed unassisted.

“Before this, keeping one high-risk patient safe could mean stationing a staff member at that bedside for hours at a stretch. It is still important work, but often at the expense of other patients who also require care,” said Ms Teo Kai Yunn, Assistant Director, Nursing Safety & Quality, Virtual Nursing, Singapore General Hospital. “Now, a single nurse from the virtual team can watch over several patients at once with the use of LASSO, which has given us back more than 20,000 hours of bedside observation time, allowing staff in the wards to focus on hands-on patient care.”

In a survey conducted by the team, over 90 per cent of family members said the monitoring had improved their loved one’s safety and care. Of 92 staff surveyed between January and July 2026, over 95 per cent found it helpful to their work.

How it works

LASSO is developed by Singapore company SoundEye. LASSO is an AI-enabled patient monitoring device mounted on a mobile bedside stand. Using depth-imaging technology rather than conventional video cameras, it detects movement, body posture and bed-exit attempts without capturing identifiable facial features. This allows nurses to monitor patients while helping to preserve patient privacy and dignity. To ensure that it meets the Hospital’s needs, Kai Yunn and her team worked with SoundEye to customise LASSO for the wards, from how alerts are set to how they are escalated.

SGH has completed more than 90 monitoring cases since it began as a pilot in December 2025. Two-thirds of those patients were on some form of physical restraint, and 53 per cent of them had their restraint points reduced; the remaining third were watched with no restraint at all. There were also no unwitnessed falls or fall-related injuries recorded as nurses are alerted to respond within seconds.

Why it matters

While restraint can ensure patient safety, it carries costs of its own. A patient held still for long stretches loses muscle strength and joint movement. They also become more prone to pressure injuries and skin tears from struggling. It can also deepen the distress of someone already confused or delirious, and for a family walking into the ward, seeing a relative held down is harder still.

Easing the restraint gives a patient back some movement, which is exactly why the watching is needed. With fewer restraints used, a patient can shift about and slip partway out of bed, and some are able to work the body restraint loose themselves. The device does not replace the restraint. It is what makes removing some of it possible, and for patients who need none, it is the safety net that lets them stay that way.

The Virtual Sitter remains in its pilot phase. SGH plans to extend it to more wards and to broaden the virtual nursing team's work further. With capabilities to monitor patients' vital signs remotely already set in place, the Hospital is aiming to scale this service, alongside a remote medication checking service, which is currently in development.