Hostels The ‘Ageing-In-Place' concept means that a Retirement Village will often be co-sited with an associated low care, or assisted care ‘Hostel' facility. For each independent living resident this move to an assisted care environment typically comprises a resident's living/bedroom with an adjoining ensuite adjacent to identical accommodation for other residents. It may alternatively be in the form of a Serviced Apartment.
The main difference is that, unlike a Village situation the residents share the single or multi level building all being under the same roof with carer staff on duty 24 hours per day.
Although there is a fine line between the support needs for Hostel residents and those within the next level of care (being the nursing home) there is occasional need for higher levels of care within the Hostel environment.
The Smart-Caller nurse-call system called SmartCare-1000 has a number of features that places it above others. Firstly the SmartCom-01 computer has ‘rock solid' reliability.. Not only does it include an embedded operating system, it is a solid state unit powered by the nurse-call system's 12v battery backed power supply. It does not require a fan or other moving parts and operates up to 70 C room temperature and is accordingly rated for 50,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time between failures).
The highly developed Smart-Caller ‘Winwatch' nurse-call software program provides a single computer controlled platform to cover the total requirements for all ‘Ageing in Place' applications plus staff duress monitoring and is even suitable for the monitoring of ‘outreach' residents in the public domain.
Twenty of our thirty years in business has been dedicated to aged care nurse-call system development and although most of our systems are hard-wired we often provide a fully wireless system where wiring is not an economic solution, such as occurring when refurbishing and/or adding a new wing to existing buildings.
Smart-Caller is a strong supporter of short-haul wireless technology so we can simply use a plug-in wireless receiver module into each hard-wired call-point to accommodate wireless accessories. We can similarly provide a total site-wide wireless reception umbrella with pinpoint location of fixed sensors and devices and approximate location indication of mobile devices such as may be worn by staff.
The use of wireless also allows a room equipped for a low care resident to be quickly converted to a high care room, perhaps because the resident has just returned from hospital.
Although some clients prefer to continue the use of Independent Living (Village) emergency call techniques within the Hostel/Serviced Apartments, others may have reason to prefer a fully wireless facility whereas others, given a clean start to their planning, would predictably prefer a fully hard-wired solution, preferably with some wireless overlay.
The emergence of IP technology within nurse-call system designs is inevitable once certain matters of power reticulation and reliability are resolved. In this respect we refer you to our ‘new products' section where you can view Smart-Caller's safe approach to the exploitation of IT in relation to its use in life saving applications.
You will find within this web site full descriptive datasheets for each of these options including those combining the best of all of those technologies including the use of IP data and voice communication.
Nursing Homes
Nurse-call system designs for ‘Nursing Home' applications require the most demanding of all possible system attributes. In practice however, to minimize capital cost or due to the age of the existing establishment such installations are typically ‘basic' and lacking the necessary attributes thereby placing extra burden and discomfort on staff, residents and management alike whilst also placing Nursing Home income at risk if good practice is not observed and seen to be observed.
The residents in such high care accommodation collectively suffer a wide range of ailments and overall diminished capacity of the mind and body of which Dementia and Incontinence are two typical examples. Safe perimeter containment along with good medical and continence management practices are therefore all essential requirements within a nursing home along with observance of Staff Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) obligations.
Government controlled accreditation and corresponding adequate levels of income are direct outcomes of good practice. ‘Downgrades' and corresponding reduced income are the direct result of inefficient operating practices.
Well designed and flexible nurse-call systems such as Smart-Caller's ‘SmartCare-1000' hard-wired system or its new ‘SmartCare-IP' system, each with its wireless overlay capabilities, can provide the ability to convert a typical basic nursing home room (or ward) into a highly functional high care environment.
Where a building has been specified, configured and cabled from the outset as a high care facility with dementia specific requirements it is normal to include the hard-wired Dementia infrastructure using Smart-Caller's DEMCON room controller. Alternatively the developer can now extend the site's LAN cabling infrastructure by including a data point in each resident's room. It is important to provide an alternative path to the head-end equipment as Standard AS3811 prohibits nurse-call dependency on the buildings standard LAN communication Bus.
Where a building, room or bed location has been equipped with a basic call-point and nothing else, installing Smart-Caller's fully portable Demrad room controller can transform that location into a ‘High-care' or even an ‘Intensive-care' environment. The IP solution can even provide continuous monitoring of the resident's ‘vital signs' via bluetooth communication with a selection of commercially available ‘vital-sign' sensors.
The Smart-Caller nurse-call system called SmartCare-1000 has a number of features that places it above others. Firstly the SmartCom-01 computer has ‘rock solid' reliability. Not only does it include an embedded operating system, it is a solid state unit powered by the nurse-call system's 12v battery backed power supply. It does not require a fan or other moving parts and operates up to 70 C room temperature and is accordingly rated for 50,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time between failures).
The highly developed Smart-Caller ‘Winwatch' nurse-call software program provides a single computer controlled platform to cover the total requirements for all ‘Ageing in Place' applications. From the high-care point of view, ‘Winwatch' includes optional modules to assist in the reporting of incontinence, and dementia behavioural patterns in order to assist in maintenance of resident ‘Care Plans'.
The emergence of IP technology within nurse-call system designs is inevitable once certain matters of power reticulation and reliability are resolved. In this respect we refer you to our ‘new products' section where you can view Smart-Caller's safe approach to the exploitation of IT in relation to its use in high-care life saving applications.
You will find within this web site full descriptive datasheets for each of these options including those combining the best of all of those technologies which may now include the use of IP data and voice communication.
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