That need inspired Dennis Fontaine to create LifePod, an application built with Amazon Alexa Voice Service and designed to ease staff workloads and promote independence among older adults.
“What this will do in senior living is give the nurses and workers there the opportunity to better use their time,” says Fontaine, of Transcendent Technologies, in a CDW white paper. “It will inform them that Mr. Jones needs help, but Mrs. Smith doesn’t, rather than trying to guess who needs help when.”
Videoconferencing tools are another way to help care teams coordinate care and disseminate information among staff across various locations. The virtual communication format also enables care teams to meet face to face with a patient’s loved ones — a solution that’s proving to be particularly beneficial during the current public health crisis.
Upon the coronavirus’ outbreak in the United States, Catholic Health immediately adopted 20 iPads as a means to enabling virtual nursing home visits and keeping residents’ family members and friends informed of their health and well-being.
“We’re working hard to ease the concerns of family members by providing them with regular updates and giving them the opportunity to stay engaged with their loved ones during this unprecedented situation,” said Tom Gleason, senior vice president for home and community-based care at Catholic Health, in a statement.
Utilizing Tools for Remote Patient Monitoring
Advanced technologies that use intelligent, passive sensors, smart wearables and AI-powered analytics can be used to monitor the safety, security, health and wellness of individual residents, helping to relieve the workflow burden for busy caregivers.
Take, for example, proactive resident health and safety monitoring and engagement solutions like the VitalCare platform from VitalTech. The solution can detect falls, enable residents to activate an alarm using their voices, automate the collection of vitals to generate health alerts based on individual chronic conditions and care plans, and passively track the activities of daily living for each individual resident. These technologies combine to recognize when a resident’s normal pattern of behavior and activity changes in a way that could indicate the onset of illness and other health issues, as well as identify an increased risk of falls or potential hospitalizations.