What are some use cases for technology at institutes?

Residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are vulnerable to accidents such as falling without any staff around to assist them or wandering off-site due to dementia.
 
With some institutes also understaffed, many are turning to technology to automate various processes, improving monitoring of residents, as well as the quality of care. “At a minimum, senior living communities need to have systems in place to ensure residents have easy and seamless connections with the staff, healthcare providers and each other,” said Alden Warr, VP of Finance and Strategic Partnerships at VoCo.
 
Amit Shamiss, Business Development Manager at Essence Smart Care, said “the needs of a person living in his own home or in a care home are pretty much the same. In both cases, seniors need to feel safe and secure in their homes, as independent as possible and able to access help if needed. However, traditional solutions were able to address very little of this need,” adding that “therefore the market is ripe for new technology to offer better value.”
 

Below are some illustrations of how the internet of things (IoT) and connected devices can help institute operators deliver better care.
 

Fall detection

 
One of the biggest dangers facing elderly citizens are falls. As a result, providing the quickest response and assistance possible after a fall has become a key focus for institutes.
 
In this sense, facilities can be helped with panic buttons worn by seniors, who can, should they fall, press the button, which then sends a signal to a nearby hub or gateway. The staff or nurses can then be notified of the fall as well as its approximate location, and respond immediately.
 
Fall sensors and detectors can also come in handy. ““Older people might fall or may fall ill without anyone noticing. There are solutions such as early warning systems that can detect falls or unusual activity and enable faster intervention and better outcomes,” Shamiss said, adding “these systems can save lives for the person who falls and can’t get up or is unable to sound the alarm by himself.”
 

Access control via face recognition

 
To maintain an institute’s security, knowing who comes in and out is critical. “Developed security systems are needed to monitor both those entering and leaving the facilities, particularly at more acute levels of care, like assisted living or memory care,” Warr said.
 
Beyond security, access control is used to maintain the safety and well-being of residents, a lot of who may suffer from dementia. As a result they may wander away from their beds and forget how to go back. “For people who have a tendency to wander, security alarms alert help if a door has been left opened,” Shamiss said.
 
In particular, one technology that can come in handy in protecting dementia patients is facial recognition. In the past, nursing homes or elderly care facilities resorted to hiring guards or locking up doors to prevent patients from wandering out. But this is dangerous, especially in the event of an emergency. With facial recognition, only those on the whitelist – for example staff or nurses – can walk in and out. The doors will remain open and unobstructed during a fire, earthquake or other disasters.
 
Facial recognition can also be used for other applications in institutes, such as “to detect patterns that entail overall statistics around visitors and patients based on gender and age. This system can help the facility track patients without using physical tracking devices. This can come in handy to locate patients within a nursing home or in outpatient assisted living facilities,” according to a recent Sightcorp blog post.