Five Expectations for your Senior Community’s E-Call System
Senior living communities must demand more from their emergency call (E-call) system. Technology continues to advance, and these advancements should be accessible, non-cost prohibitive, and focused on the needs of senior living communities. Sophisticated emergency call and nurse call systems are no longer acute care only technologies. Here are five non-negotiables communities should demand from their e-call vendor to ensure high-quality care, peace of mind, and resident safety.
1. TruLocation ™
Providing emergency response must be an immediate, and error-free process. Advanced e-call systems provide accurate real-time map and list views of people within the community – helping to increase resident safety and enhance caregiver efficiencies. A smart location-enabled sensor can be worn by residents and staff as a watch attachment, belt attachment, or pendant. Residents who take advantage of this technology can call for assistance with a press of a button. Once the emergency button has been pushed, staff members receive an alert with the resident’s current location ensuring assistance can be delivered as quickly as possible. The wearables can also send alerts to staff if a resident is nearing a restricted area. This allows staff to stop a potentially dangerous situation before it occurs. Estimated locating is not enough. Systems should offer definitive location information within the community to provide the certainty that is required for emergency situations. TruLocation™ is not only a benefit for residents, but for staff as well. Caregivers who wear the smart sensor can call for assistance without ever having to leave their location. This technology improves efficiencies, safety, and the quality of resident care. With TruLocation™, communities improve workflow and provide the ability to accurately locate people, especially residents or even staff members in duress, anywhere on campus with immediacy.
2. A focus on the customer experience
The e-call solution provider should have a dedicated resource specific to the senior living community. The person in this role will be responsible for helping the community employees understand wireless technology and its tendencies, limitations, and impacts. The success of the system relies upon sound design principles and knowledge of “best practices” that can only be learned through experience, which the dedicated resource possesses. While this is historically uncommon, it is extremely important to have someone whose sole focus is ensuring the success of the system. This person will know the ins and outs of the system and can guarantee the community is taking full advantage of all of the benefits offered. The dedicated resource should be the point of contact for the community and assist with system implementation, technical questions or issues, and provide strategies to help with staff and resident adoption. Adoption of the system is a large factor in system success and perceived system value. The dedicated resource can provide education and insight on the security benefits of the system and what the community does with the data collected.
3. Relationship with the manufacturer
With global supply chain issues impacting every industry, choosing a vendor who has a strong relationship with the manufacturer, contractors, and others responsible for implementing the system helps to provide communities with realistic installation timelines and deliverables. It also holds the e-call provider more accountable in terms of ensuring supply is available to meet customer demand.
Your community shouldn’t have to manage multiple manufacturers and systems to get e-call, wander management, and/or other necessary systems to work together. Choosing a single source manufacturer to ensure a “turnkey” experience empowers your staff to focus on providing the best care to residents, rather than managing multiple vendors for everyday functionalities.
4. Longevity
Your community creates reliability and stability for residents, so selecting a vendor who provides the same is essential. The senior living ecosystem has seen quite a few new consumer-grade vendors over the last few years, but the businesses often dissipate as quickly as they have emerged. Many of these new players are opportunistic and lack experience in the specialized world of senior living. Your community should entrust the safety of its residents to a reliable, credible vendor who can provide proof of their financial stability, the ability to support your needs with the proper internal business infrastructure, as well as a product that has been tried and true in complex, enterprise environments.
5. “All-in-one” System
The fifth item your community should look for is the ability to “IoT your nurse call”. Disparate systems from multiple vendors were once commonplace. These often lack cost efficiencies, robust product features, and streamlined system management and communication. With the evolution of IoT in the senior care industry, communities should look to bring disparate systems together, like e-call, and wander management. With this infrastructure in place, communities can now further expand their life safety systems to also include asset management, contact tracing, and more. Seamless integration with EMR and various Building Systems maximizes ROI by converting the community’s emergency call budget from simple help buttons to a resident safety system with accurate and meaningful location data. Access your system from anywhere and gain total visibility into community operations.
Ensuring your selected vendor can meet the expectations listed above enables you to make certain crucial technology programs are properly invested in, successful and scalable.
See firsthand how a community in California was able to effectively enhance their resident’s experience and safety by implementing TruView™, an IoT e-call system designed specifically for senior living. View the Case Study here.
