Nightingale Awards Best Of Competition Q+A

Recognizing the need in behavioral health settings to both de-escalate potential crises and give a sense of control back to patients, Recornect, a technology equipment and services provider, sought to provide a versatile technology solution to reduce anxiety and serve as a communication tool.

The company’s CoWin Digital Media Wall features a ligature-proof frame and a highly shatter-resistant touch screen that’s designed to be a “communication window” for both behavioral health patients and staff. Installed into patient rooms, the unit provides a customizable interface with relaxing applications, collaborative games, ambient lighting and temperature controls, and video calls and conferencing capabilities with the nurses’ station or family off-site.

The digital media wall earned the Best of Competition Award in the 2024 Nightingale Awards at the 2024 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo. It also took home a Gold Award in the Anti-Ligature & Reduced-Ligature Furnishings category.

Jurors praised the concept, execution, and ability to tailor the system to patient’s specific needs. “Clearly fills a need in inpatient behavioral health units and de-escalation rooms,” one juror noted.

“The product has a great aesthetic and good solution for behavioral settings for monitors that typically will get installed in custom millwork installations,” added another juror.

Recornect Managing Partner Dhiraj Pisal CoWin Digital Media Wall

Dhiraj Pisal (Headshot: Courtesy of Recornect)

Healthcare Design spoke with Recornect Managing Partner Dhiraj Pisal about CoWin Digital Media Wall’s design features and how they benefit patients and staff.

Healthcare Design: Where did the idea for a “communication window” for behavioral health patients and caregivers originate?

Dhiraj Pisal: The idea was originated from one of the founding members of Recornect who was a nurse. He had worked for many years in high-acuity mental health settings, which allowed him to understand the challenges and unmet needs this industry was facing: lack of resources dedicated to Behavioral Health, high stress work environments, and sometimes-counterproductive action plans for patients.

He was able to apply his own experiences to build a product that solved the issues he, his colleagues, and his patients faced on a regular basis. This solution manifested itself as CoWin, or “communication window,” reintroducing control to behavioral health patients and caregivers alike.

The original product concept was followed by a partnership with Philips, which was seeking to design a more effective behavioral health room and experience for pediatric patients in the U.S. The company utilized CoWin as a cornerstone of its design. Since then, CoWin has been further commercialized, expanding its use cases to emergency departments and crisis/isolation rooms.

What clinical and/or operational problem were you trying to solve with this product? 

In traditional inpatient behavioral health rooms, everything is taken away from the patient when they are admitted. This is done for safety reasons, but it has a compounding adverse effect on the well-being of the patient; someone who is already in distress has all control of their environment stripped from them.

At the same time, caregivers were faced with distressing protocols for de-escalating their patients: the best and recommended course of action would be to physically restrain or medicate their patient. Without the tools accessible to prevent escalating situations, they often resort to these measures. The stress of having to perform these actions against a person they are caring for can be detrimental to the staff.

CoWin Digital Media Wall, Recornect

(Image: Courtesy of Recornect)

What product features deliver a new approach to de-escalation and patient care?

CoWin was designed to empower the patient and caregivers, safely reintroducing elements of control into the environment through a library of collaborative and calming applications in order to create more efficient healing pathways.

These features and capabilities include environmental controls such as lighting, temperature, windows, and blinds. When granted by the caregiver, the controls allow the patients to adjust their environment to better suit their needs.

Additionally, collaborative games create outlets for stress, drawing applications allow for artistic and creative outlets, and the relax application creates a calming environment with soothing images and soundscapes.

How does this set-up benefit patients and staff?

These applications and controls have proven to not only de-escalate patients without the need for restraints and medications, but they also create the opportunity to prevent escalation in the first place.

With the customization and personalization offered through CoWin, caregivers are able to design the care pathway for each patient to meet their specific needs. Patients and caregivers alike experience higher levels of satisfaction with the care that is being provided, which in turn creates operational efficiencies and better clinical outcomes.

CoWin Digital Media Wall, Recornect

(Image: Courtesy of Recornect)

How is the media wall designed to serve a wide range of patients’ sensory needs?  

Access to environmental controls can all be tailored to each patient. The system also features a manager application, which is controlled by someone outside the patient room.

Through this manager, the system can be customized to give allowances, change the interface, or even control the media wall.

With the ability to create patient profiles for different levels of patients and to assign each room to a specific patient, CoWin is able to intuitively accommodate a wide range of sensory needs with ease.

Do you have plans to expand CoWin to other healthcare environments?

Our product is constantly evolving to improve patient and caregiver experiences. We seek to establish rapport with our customers so that we can regularly receive feedback.

Through this input, we have begun to explore new use cases like neurodegenerative diseases, autism spectrum, developmental disability, and other settings outside inpatient rooms.

For more on the 2024 Nightingale Awards, read here.

Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].