The Situation
The Meadows Senior Community, located in Clarion, Iowa, serves residents in both assisted living and independent living care settings. The close-knit, two-story community is connected to Iowa Specialty Hospital, providing seniors with peace of mind that if they were to need advanced medical care, they can quickly receive assistance. Social interaction, comfortable living, transparency, and most importantly, safety, are The Meadows’ top priorities. As such, the community installed a wireless Emergency Call (E-Call) system in 2005. Unfortunately, that technology had become outdated and simply did not offer a roadmap to new enhancements, additional use cases, or real-time resident location awareness that their current executive team sought. The decision was made to update their system to meet their safety standards and to upgrade the overall experience for residents and their families.
The Solution
The Meadows was introduced to CenTrak through Iowa Specialty Hospital. CenTrak’s Infant Protection solution (newbaby™) is installed in the Labor and Delivery Unit, and nurses and patients alike rave about the system. Knowing that a reputable, well-established healthcare IoT organization also created TruView™, an RTLS-based emergency call platform specifically designed for senior living, reassured the community that upgrading their E-Call with CenTrak was the right decision.
Installing a mobile E-Call system that provides real-time resident location updates has enabled us to improve response times and implement additional safety measures for half the cost of other systems with limited functionality.
- Ryan Lobdell, Senior Living Director
Facilitated by CenTrak’s collaborative Customer Experience planning program, TruView’s simple and lightweight installation process provided The Meadows with a system that was quickly deployed and completely operational within one week.
Residents were gifted a mobile help pendant (“Geo”) that can be worn on the wrist, hung conveniently from a breakaway lanyard, or even clipped to the waistband. Feedback from residents has been overwhelmingly positive. Not only do they find the Geo to be sleeker than their previous device, but they appreciate the gentle haptic vibration that occurs when they press the large ergonomic button on the wearable. This feature lets them know that TruView has informed staff of their help request and gives them a level of assurance they’ve never had before.
TruLocation™ (accurate “indoor GPS”) provides The Meadows’ response team with real-time visibility of residents within their apartments and in other locations, including common areas, exits, and corridor transitions throughout the community. Notifications are delivered to community-supplied “Universal Worker” (caregiver) phones via text messaging. When their Universal Workers receive an alert, the resident’s name and their exact current location are provided, enabling an immediate response. This was exemplified soon after TruView was implemented when a resident began to choke during dinner service. When the resident pressed their Geo button, staff was able to locate the individual in distress, and ultimately performed the Heimlich. Thanks to the pinpoint accuracy and communication speed of TruView’s mobile E-Call network, help was quickly dispatched and thankfully resulted in a positive outcome.
Since upgrading to an emergency call vendor that uses a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) as its foundation, The Meadows now has the ability to locate residents anywhere on campus, at any time, and plans to take TruView beyond the boundaries of traditional E-Call, with a new feature called Roaming.
With two easy clicks from a resident’s profile, Roaming notifies staff when that specific resident enters restricted areas, loiters near exits, or even enters other residents’ rooms, during specified hours. Notification to staff happens silently and instantly so caregivers can quickly intervene before unwanted or dangerous events occur. The team at The Meadows values the ability to keep an extra set of eyes on key areas and anyone who may begin to exhibit wandering tendencies without the added cost or complexity of installing a full wander management system.
The Benefits
Residents, their families, and caregivers alike can rest assured that in the case of an emergency, individuals can request help from anywhere on campus. With the Geo pendant, residents don’t need to worry about finding a fixed emergency station if they need assistance; all they have to do is press the button on their wearable device. The peace of mind TruView has provided is invaluable. Residents keep their sense of independence while knowing help is always within arm’s reach.
As technology continues to rapidly evolve, we appreciate that TruView is not a stagnant system. They deploy software enhancements often and our community is excited to take advantage of new features that will continue to increase the quality of life of our residents and improve the efficiency of our staff.
The leadership team of Meadows Senior Living Community recognized the value the TruView IoT platform represents through its ability to offer use cases beyond traditional E-Call and wander management. In addition to being certified to UL 2560 standards (the Standard for Safety of Emergency Call Systems for Assisted Living and Independent Living Facilities), TruView also provides contact tracing, asset tracking, environmental monitoring, staff duress, wired nurse call enhancements, and flexible remote access into the platform. As customer-focused development continues, TruView will remain future-proof and continue to incorporate new features and use cases.
At an economical price point purposely created for Senior Living, TruView is leading the market towards a new level of indoor and outdoor location awareness to create the safest, most efficient, and informed environment for residents, their families, caregivers, and community operators.
