Protecting Healthcare Workers with Wearable Safety Tech w/ Canopy CEO Shan Sinha

Healthcare workers are frequently subjected to verbal and even physical abuse.

So, how do we keep them safe?

In this week’s episode of HealthBiz Briefs, guest Shan Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO of Canopy, discusses the dangers facing healthcare professionals and how duress alert systems can improve safety in hospitals and at-home patient care.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/caretalk and get on your way to being your best self.

As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.

🎙️⚕️ABOUT CARETALK
CareTalk is a weekly podcast that provides an incisive, no B.S. view of the US healthcare industry. Join co-hosts John Driscoll (President U.S. Healthcare and EVP, Walgreens Boots Alliance) and David Williams (President, Health Business Group) as they debate the latest in US healthcare news, business and policy.

🎙️⚕️ABOUT SHAN SINHA
Shan Sinha is the CEO and founder of Canopy, a company specializing in wearable safety technology designed to protect healthcare workers from violence. With over two decades of experience in the tech industry, Sinha launched Canopy in 2019 in response to the growing threat of workplace violence in healthcare. Canopy’s key product is a wearable panic button that allows healthcare staff to quickly alert security and nearby colleagues when in distress. The company’s technology, used by over 30 health systems across 800 facilities, aims to reduce incidents of violence and improve worker safety both in hospitals and for home health workers.

🎙️⚕️ABOUT CANOPY
Canopy is a company dedicated to improving the safety of healthcare workers by developing wearable technology solutions that protect against workplace violence. Their flagship product, a duress alert system, allows healthcare staff to quickly signal for help in threatening situations, offering peace of mind and protection. With over 200,000 healthcare professionals using their technology across 800 locations, Canopy combines innovation and partnership with hospitals to create safer, more supportive environments for healthcare workers, prioritizing care, trust, and responsibility.

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Transcript

0:00

Hospitals are stressful places and not just for patients. Physical and verbal assaults against staff are remarkably common, making a tough job scary as well. Employers want to give their staff peace of mind, but how can... Masks are visible to everyone in October, but many of us have an invisible mask that we wear all year long, at work, in social interactions, basically everywhere. But therapy can help you rediscover your true self so you no longer feel the need to hide behind a mask of any kind. Masks are fun for Halloween, but we really shouldn't have to keep our emotions buried. That's where BetterHelp steps in. BetterHelp provides online therapy tailored to your life, convenient, flexible, and made to fit your individual needs. With just a few questions, you'll be matched with a licensed therapist who aligns with your preferences. And if you ever feel the need for a change, Switching therapists is easy and comes at no extra cost. So whether you're managing stress, dealing with anxiety, or simply seeking personal growth, BetterHelp connects you with a professional who can guide you on your path to self-discovery and healing. Let BetterHelp help you take off that mask. Visit betterhelp.com slash care talk to get 10 % off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash care talk. Welcome to Health Biz Briefs. I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group here with Sean Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Canopy. The company provides a duress alerting system for hospital workers and now for home care too. Welcome, Sean. Great to be here. Thanks a lot for having me, David. Sean, how big of an issue is violence in healthcare really and what's driving it? It's a huge issue, David. You know, I was in a room recently with nearly a dozen senior executives, CEOs, COOs of healthcare systems. representing thousands and thousands of beds of care. Every single leader of a health system highlighted how big of a problem this was. If not a top one issue, number one issue, it was a top three issue. Healthcare workers, I think most healthcare leaders here will know, five times more likely to encounter some sort of patient aggression, patient violence. It's affecting staff retention. It's affecting burnout, both directly and indirectly. Huge issue as we think about the stressors that are facing workforces and healthcare workforces today. And how does Canopy address the problem specifically in hospitals and any other kind of healthcare facility? One of the things that we have found over the last five years that we've been in business and over, you know, dozens of healthcare systems that we've worked with is that the challenges that staff are facing every single day have just been getting worse and worse when it comes to encountering patient aggression, patient violence. Many of the interventions that exist, more security guards, metal detectors, things like that, don't end up translating to having a direct impact on individuals because sadly, they end up finding themselves in a situation where they feel like it's just part of the job. So with Canopy, What we've done over the last five years is we pioneered a category of technology that we call wearable safety. So we've created with Canopy a single comprehensive platform that health systems can use to extend safety to everywhere their workers are delivering care. What makes our product particularly unique is that it is a simple wearable button that individuals can carry with them. for the video viewers on this, it looks just like this, that they can clip onto their badge and they can use that button to signal for help to summon any resources that the hospital might have available that can help intervene whenever a patient starts to get aggressive or violence. Over the last five years, David, we're now protecting 200,000 people around the country. We have seen dramatic impact to organizations ability to not only support their staff, but also help them feel like they have organizations and leadership that care about them. And it's ultimately a positive impact to their everyday well-being at work, along with improving the relationship they have with their organizations. It sounds like an appropriate approach for a hospital where there's a lot of people to come and help out a staff member who may be experiencing some aggression. But a lot of care is occurring outside of the hospital. And it's not going to be practical to have just a bunch of people around for a home care visit, just in case something were were to happen. Now, I could imagine that violence might be a little bit less of an issue in somebody's own home than the hospital. But nonetheless, how do you deal with this? And I could especially imagine, let's say a nurse who's used to working in a facility and having that canopy button available when they go out into somebody else's home. They may feel a little bit exposed if they don't have that. What's your solution there? Yeah, the sad reality is that caregivers are encountering patient aggression, patient violence everywhere they go, everywhere they work. I mean, we hear stories about staff, obviously, the four doors or the four walls, inside the four walls of their facilities. We hear stories about staff in their parking lots and parking garages on their way into work and on their way home from work, for which we also have a solution. But as you and your listeners probably know, home care is growing by 33 % over the next five years as we're looking at home care as a solution to a lot of the overcapacity that we have in our hospitals. And so it turns out incidents happen in homes as frequently as they do outside or in the hospitals themselves. And so we created a solution called Canopy Go, which is part of the single comprehensive wearable safety platform that we make available to hospitals. Solution is very simple. The same button, that wearable button that we provide to individuals can be used when you go into somebody's home to signal for help from local law enforcement, gives you an instant connection to 911. It automatically notifies your hospital security so that they can coordinate. It provides GPS information, provides your name, provides contact information so that help can be summoned to wherever you are so you don't ever actually feel alone whenever you're going in environments that could be very scary. you know, what will be familiar to most of your healthcare workers is when you're going into people's homes, A, it can be very lonely. B, you never know what kind of environment you might be going into. And your job as a healthcare worker is to deliver care. first and foremost, regardless of who you might be delivering care to, which might involve drug dealers and gang members and all sorts of other types of environments. And we've been able to offer a pretty significant intervention and a very impactful intervention for health care systems to provide safety to all their caregivers, no matter where they have to work. Well, that's it for the latest Health Biz Brief. If you like what you hear, check out my Health Biz podcast for a full length interview with Sean about his life and career. Sean Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Canopy, thanks for joining me today on Health Biz Briefs. Thanks a lot for having me, David.