“Life safety, security, environmental monitoring and mass notification”

Situational awareness was originally a military term referring to a pilot’s operational status and knowledge of immediate threats. Today, it’s a risk management strategy and technology framework to improve life safety, security, environmental monitoring and mass notification. With situational awareness, there’s time to respond to potential threats to people, property, business and convenience. The situational awareness technologies in our portfolio offer a powerhouse of functionality for communication and access to data about what’s happening within an enterprise for the betterment of that enterprise and the people it serves. Hotels, schools, hospitals, senior living communities, courthouses, and manufacturing facilities – all of these organizations benefit from situational awareness. And so could yours.

CCRCs, Independent Living, Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Facilities

The long-term care (LTC) industry has undergone significant changes in the last few decades. Communities have become less institutional and more “destinational” – places that seniors actually want to call home. But there’s still room to improve the entire aging experience because of the shift from medically-oriented care to more holistic, person-centered care. Occupancy and resident satisfaction will be driven by both quality health care and quality of life. Technology innovation plays a major role in enabling and scaling to the new standards of senior living, with an emphasis on living because that’s the goal. Health, relevance, relationships and joy have no age limits.

Situational awareness and response management, AKA: SARA

Given the liabilities and complexities in senior living, ignorance isn’t an option because a lack of information or disruptions in its flow can endanger lives. But trying to respond to alarms from multiple systems causes confusion, inefficiencies and distractions among staff, leading to alarm fatigue and negative impacts on resident care. However, situational awareness technology can be used to improve emergency alerting and response management. SARA integrates life safety, security and environmental controls, turning alarms from these stand-alone systems into detailed alerts for delivery to virtually any communication device. With the situational awareness SARA provides, the appropriate response can be initiated according to predefined alerting and escalation protocols. And because alerts from any number of sensors can be delivered directly to caregivers, buzzers, strobe lights and other audible alarms can be quieted to ensure a more calm and hospitable environment.

Mobile duress to enhance resident safety with SARA Positioning System – SPS

To speed emergency alerting and response, mobile duress technology in the form of personal alert buttons has been widely adopted bpendanty senior living communities. As the pioneering provider of mobile duress systems for situational awareness, we’ve given thousands of LTC resident’s access to immediate assistance and thus greater independence, mobility and peace of mind for them and their families. Because alerts are processed and delivered by SARA to caregivers in real time, they can take immediate action to find the individual requesting help. We offer both local, premise-based mobile duress for individuals in a single building or multi-building campus, as well as wide-area mobile duress. For example, a senior living provider could opt to equip assisted living and skilled nursing residents with premise-based mobile duress pendants, while giving independent residents wide-area mobile duress pendants for greater freedom and independence off campus. Through the use of area locators the SARA SPS brings locating of the patient to a much greater and more accurate level then other wireless systems currently available.

Better workflow and collaborative care: We’ve developed a complete iOS-based mobile dashboard solution, including phone and network, for use in health-care environments, including senior living. The preprogrammed dashboards trigger the appropriate alerts along with the subsequent acknowledgements to indicate which staff or caregivers “own” those alerts. This feature improves communication and workflow among those on shift because there’s no duplication of efforts or searching for each other because every alert, location and response is shown. Using this solution instead of pagers, one early adopter reduced its average response time by three minutes.

Apple iPad-based CATIE (Communication and Access to Information Everywhere) solution:

A multimedia application for communication and self-service that provides intercom, electronic bulletin board/digital signage, message center and concierge capabilities. The desired business logic is programmed under an endless supply of call-to-action buttons on the user interface, customized so each community can deliver its own content and amenities. Residents then have what they want at their fingertips – no keyboards or training required – from receiving emails and photos from their grandchildren to finding out what’s being served for dinner or making reservations for upcoming activities. Too many seniors still live in digital isolation, and studies show that this demographic is at risk for depression, functional decline and even premature death due to loneliness. This lack of e-enablement led us to develop CATIE as an in-room communication and self-service kiosk for residents of senior living communities. With this solution, residents can stay active, engaged and connected to the world around them for the best quality of life. Relevant content appears at their fingertips along with unlimited self-service options as designed by the community – no keyboards and no training required. CATIE is the amenity to help drive occupancy, efficiency and differentiation while improving the resident experience.

Environmental monitoring: A wide variety of wireless sensors exist, including those for checking the operational status and proper function of HVAC systems, power generators, boilers and water pumps. SARA also can be used for temperature monitoring/logging, which is especially important for medical-grade refrigerators used to store medication not to mention refrigerators and freezers for food storage. If a system fails, a drastic change occurs, or a hazardous substance is detected, SARA automatically will alert the appropriate individuals or personnel groups so they can investigate and remedy the situation.

Situational awareness applications for senior living

Examples of how senior living communities can use SARA include:

• Nurse call integration
• Local mobile duress with approximate location data
• Wide-area mobile duress with GPS tracking, fall detection and hands-free, two-way talk
• Workflow management
• Fire and security panel integration
• Integration with indoor and outdoor security cameras
• Door/window contact alarms and integration with access control/intrusion and motion detection
• Egress/ingress
• Temperature monitoring/logging (e.g., refrigerators for medicine and food)
• Operational status of HVAC systems, generators, boilers, water heaters, etc.
• Presence of water/humidity, smoke, hazardous substances, etc.
• Cigarette busters and water bugs in restrooms
• Asset tracking (pendants, med carts, wheel chairs, etc.)
• Medicine reminders
• Inclement weather warnings
• Evacuation notices
• Lockdown notifications
• General announcements and activity reminders or schedule changes
• Reporting for compliance, training, etc.
• In-room communication and self-service