The Situation
The Hamilton, a four-story 55+ condominium community in Palo Alto, California, provides a warm, welcoming and private living experience for over 50 independent residents. Safety has always been a top priority for ownership, so a stand-alone wireless Emergency Call (E-Call) system was installed early on. As time passed, challenges related to location accuracy, and later, the availability of replacement pendants emerged. Realizing their existing system wasn’t meeting their safety standards, the management team began searching for a new solution that would quickly and reliably alert staff when residents needed emergency assistance. Among other criteria, their historic building required a system that was easy to install and would function 100% of the time in a challenging environment filled with steel and concrete.
The Solution
The Hamilton and many senior living communities balance resident independence with safety every day. After reviewing multiple solutions, CenTrak’s TruView™ System with real-time location was selected for its ease of installation, signaling reliability, locating accuracy, and accessibility.
Choosing a reliable system that provides a wide-range view of our campus and quickly lets us know the location of an incident, including who is involved, has been instrumental to delivering high-quality care for our residents.
- Lisa Richofsky, Assistant General Manager
The system was completely deployed and operational within two days, and with no wiring to run, disruptions to residents and staff were minimal. Residents who require assistance simply press the ergonomic button on their TruView pendant (Geo) to summon help. The Geo, which is purpose-built for senior living, provides gentle haptic feedback to assure residents that their message has been successfully received. By providing an unobtrusive wearable (belt clip, lanyard or wristband) that residents could easily adopt into their daily routines, The Hamilton has been able to effectively meet the needs of residents and their families alike.
TruLocation™ of an emergency is available to staff on any community workstation and on the TruView Alert Manager mobile app (for Android and Apple iOS devices). TruLocation pinpoints the exact location of the resident’s Geo in real time, reducing time spent searching the wrong room or, as often happens with other systems, the wrong floor. In the case of an evacuation, management can also view all Geo pendants still inside the community to identify those that have yet to reach safety.
The Hamilton’s management team aspires to provide an exceptional experience while enabling themselves with the latest technology to ensure resident well-being. Unlike other solutions, TruView’s self-healing mesh network ensures no alert is missed, prioritizes duress events, and navigates the fastest path from the alerting device to the system’s head-end. TruView software provides configurable escalation paths, making alert delivery via the mobile Alert Manager app, SMS text
messaging, email, paging systems, and phone integration possible – all completely independent of local internet connection.
When responding to an event via TruView Alert Manager, a simple drop-down list of reason codes captures relevant activity
history that is archived in the system’s reporting engine for future analysis. This allows administration to review resident call
history, proactively manage call patterns, and identify developing trends.
The Benefits
In addition to the value and welcome peace of mind The Hamilton derives from leveraging advanced location technologies to serve its residents, it also increases efficiencies that enable team members to focus on activities that enhance residents’ daily lives.
TruView has been easy to use, the pendants offer enhanced durability, and the location accuracy has been spot-on. Knowing that the system will always deliver a resident’s request for assistance, we are confident that they are able to enjoy all the community has to offer, while maintaining their safety and independence.
The reliability and accuracy with which TruView communicates emergencies and location changes that can occur, creates an environment that is keenly aware and uniquely safe.
Independent Living communities like The Hamilton recognize that wireless emergency call systems have come to be expected by prospective residents who demand specialized amenities. TruView meets the full gamut of Independent Living needs, while simultaneously leading the market towards a new level of indoor and outdoor location awareness, intelligence, and seamless integration. TruView supports a wide variety of senior living use cases, including infection control, contact tracing, wander management, temperature monitoring, staff duress, and others – all on a single, cost-effective, unified platform.
