Managing and running a senior living community such as an assisted living facility, senior housing, or skilled nursing facility has its own unique sets of challenges that put a strain on the upper management of these facilities. From maintaining a HIPPA-compliant facility, to ensuring the safety of all staff, residents, patients, and visitors, these facilities need technology to assist them with ensuring their facilities run efficiently. Here are some of the top challenges of managing senior living communities, and how technology can help.

Managing Regulatory Compliance and Avoiding Citations

Many facilities in the healthcare and assisted living sector have a set of regulatory compliance rules and regulations they must follow, or they run the risk of hefty fines. Therefore, assisted living facilities and senior living facilities administrators have a heavy workload of ensuring compliance in all aspects of their facilities. A great example of technology that can assist with this is the HALO Smart Sensor. HALO provides a unique range of sensing, alerting, and reporting capabilities with its multi-function sensors, as well as its integration with HALO Cloud, thus reducing the cost, time, and hassle of regulatory compliance and can reduce insurance premiums.

Response to Falls and Aggression

A top concern for all facilities serving the senior community is how facilities respond to falls or aggression from patients or residents in their care. According to the CDC, about 36 million falls are reported among older adults each year, resulting in more than 32,000 deaths. Further to that, each year, about 3 million older adults are treated in hospital emergency departments for a fall injury, and 1 out of 5 falls causes an injury. Due to this, many facilities are inclined to implement panic button systems for their residents, to ensure a timely response to falls, as well as any aggressive behavior from patients to ensure the safety of staff and visitors. HALO provides several sensor readings for safety, including motion sensing, spoken key word, aggression, occupancy, as well as integration to panic button alerting, making the HALO Smart Sensor an ideal investment for senior living communities.

Access Control

Access control is an aspect of security that is particularly useful in senior living communities to prevent intrusion into certain areas with restricted access. Access control also allows facility personnel to see who enters and exits the facility, as well as determine the occupancy of the building. The security and safety of all visitors, staff and residents of these facilities is top of mind for facility administrators, to ensure there is no unauthorized access to the facility. The HALO Smart Sensor has occupancy detection, to determine the occupancy of the room and if there is unauthorized access, such as a patient entering another patient’s room, medication storage, or other access that would be prohibited. Motion detection is also another sensor of interest and is particularly useful to detect if bed-ridden patients get out of bed to prevent falls or injury.

Reducing Insurance Premiums and Liabilities

Many of these facilities also pose many risks to insurance companies, thus creating higher insurance premiums due to their liabilities. This, tied back with compliance management, can cost a lot of time and money to manage. The HALO Smart Sensor helps cut insurance premiums by identifying fires, aggressive behavior, and excessive noise. HALO detects all of this while still protecting the privacy of the patients and residents.

Peace of Mind of Staff and Families for Safety

A primary concern for family members of facility residents is safety. Relatives of residents want to have confidence that their loved ones are receiving the best care possible and are in good hands. Staff also hold the same concern of safety within their workplace, with specific consideration being put in place for acts of aggression and unauthorized access of facilities. With HALO Smart Sensor implemented into senior living facilities, peace of mind for both parties is possible. Available two-way communication through the HALO Smart Sensor allows for verification of residents’ needs. Staff is able to confirm if urgent assistance is needed, or if simple assistance is needed, such as finding the television remote or adjusting pillows. Staff also benefit from added security with features such as aggression detection and occupancy detection, to ensure all are safe in the facility.

HALO could be the perfect next investment for your senior living facility! Contact us today to learn more about how the HALO Smart Sensor is growing in the healthcare space and get a free quote for your facility.