How Do You Take Your QAPI?

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QAPI

Qapi program for nursing homesIf you’re in skilled nursing, you’re probably in the process of figuring that out right now. Because, as you know, QAPI is the new CMS law of the land.

According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), “QAPI is a data-driven, proactive approach to improving the quality of life, care, and services in nursing homes.” It starts with quality assurance (QA), the steps facilities take to meet quality standards and regulations. Then it adds performance improvement (PI). QAPI (QA and PI together) is meant to help facilities meet minimum regulatory quality standards, and then to make the quality of services even better.

Does Your Nurse Call System Matter for QAPI?

ABSOLUTELY!

Central to QAPI is the satisfaction of residents and their families, and call response time is a great place to start. Do your residents trust that when they request help it will come quickly and will address their needs? Or do they wait, frustrated or afraid, wondering how long before help will arrive?

Built into every RCare system is the RMetrix reporting and analytics package that lets you track call response times, so that you can assess your current status, and set target goals.

  • What is an acceptable amount of time for a client to wait for help and what isn’t?
  • How well are you doing at staying inside that acceptable range?
  • Are your staffing levels right for each place and time?

With RCare, you can track call response time for the organization, or filter it by:

  • Group – facility, wing, hallway, or whatever grouping makes sense for your community.
  • Time – to see how things are going by shift.
  • Enterprise – For large organizations, Enterprise RMetrix lets you evaluate response times across your entire organization at as broad or fine-grained a level of detail as you need.

Frequent caller reports let you see:

  • Who is calling?
  • Are the calls primarily from just a few residents?
  • Are call numbers higher on one shift or in one part of your facility?

RPhone and The Resident’s Experience

Best describes qapi program

  • RCare’s integrated HIPAA-compliant mobile handset, the RPhone, has the unique “I got it” feature that helps both residents and staff. It lets a staff member claim a call that comes through, preventing unclaimed calls, and preventing duplication of effort, which helps make the best use of your staff’s time.
  • It provides personalized information about the resident, so that staff can offer greater personalization and comfort, even if the caregiver or the resident is new. It allows staff members to phone the resident directly to let them know help is on the way, and allows them to find out more information about what is needed.
  • With the RPhone, care staff check in when they arrive at the room, and check out when they leave. They can record the services performed during the call. This is powerful information for your quality teams, as they try to understand more deeply the processes they’re working to improve.
  • The powerful RMetrix reporting helps you identify specific calls that fall outside the norms, to help you investigate potential problems and get to their root cause.

Your Organization’s Other Services:

Your QAPI program must address all services provided by your facility and thus extends to all departments.That’s another reason RCare’s call system is so powerful. Staff across the facility benefit from the system, and residents never need to pull a cord.

  • Passive sensors integrated directly into the system can monitor temperatures of every room and send alerts if temps stray out of the normal range.
  • Integrated water sensors report flooding or overflows.
  • Universal contact sensors report doors that are open when they should be closed, or closed when they should be open.
  • Refrigerator temperature sensors continuously check and record temps, and send alerts for temperatures out of the safe range.
  • Smoke detectors, integrated right into the nurse call system, so everyone is alerted if there’s a problem in a room.

By now, you should have your written QAPI plan in place, and implementation should have begun. As you plan your performance improvement projects, it’s critical to have objective performance measurements of where you started, where you want to go, as well as the ability to monitor the effects of your changes. You need data to evaluate where you have opportunities for improvement, and where you’re exceeding expectations. You need to measure progress, and to provide insight to investigations of where problems persist. Root Cause Analysis provides the most insight when it’s evidence-based and drawn from reliable data.

RCare is more than a nurse call system. Add RCare to your QAPI! Contact us today.

Is Your Refrigerator Running? The Importance of Refrigerator Temperature for Senior Communities

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Importance of Refrigerator Temperature

Hey….Is Your Refrigerator Running?

Unlike the old prank call joke, refrigerator temperature in long term care is no laughing matter. When health inspectors check out your senior community’s kitchen, one of the first places they’ll look is at your refrigerators. Are they keeping food at the proper temperature? This is important because food-borne illnesses are surprisingly common and can be very serious, especially among the more vulnerable populations. According to Federal government estimates, “Each year these illnesses result in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.”

Good refrigeration is easy to get right by using RCare’s advanced temperature sensors to monitor temperatures inside refrigerators.

It’s a critical responsibility to ensure that all dining facility refrigerators are within the proper cooling range. However, many times residents have refrigerators in private apartments too, which need to be consistently monitored as well.

But food safety isn’t the only reason refrigerator temps needs to be monitored. Perhaps equally important are the medications and vaccines which require refrigeration, including insulin for controlling diabetes, some rheumatoid arthritis medications, some common antibiotics, and many more. For these medications, temperature stability is critical, and even small temperature fluctuations can render them ineffective, or even dangerous.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines, refrigerator temperatures that drop even 5 degrees can freeze medications and vaccines, rendering them totally ineffective. The CDC also warns that temperatures varying the other direction, and are too warm, can melt some meds, and can cause others to become useless. While medications can cause harm by being made ineffective, what’s potentially even worse is that they can cause an adverse event in the resident.

The solution is to make sure that you know the temperature in your refrigerator at all times, and that you get alerted if the temperature spikes or falls. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends using a thermometer to check the refrigerator temperature frequently, but in a facility with dozens or hundreds of refrigerators, this is a process that clearly needs to be automated. What’s more, according to CDC guidelines, it’s important to test at different times of day, at different times during the refrigerator cooling cycle, during different seasons and weather conditions, and during different user activity patterns, to ensure that the refrigerators are always maintaining a safe, stable temperature. And it’s important to be able to refer back to a log, to verify that over time the temperature has remained at a safe level.

RCare Refrigerator Temperature Sensor in Senior CommunitiesRCare offers the ideal solution, a digital refrigerator thermometer that is integrated right into the facility’s nurse call system. Temperatures are monitored continuously, and logged, so you can check the history of any refrigerator. Should the temperature veer outside of the safe range, caregivers receive a discreet alert, letting them know immediately when there is a problem. This means that food and medications can be moved to safer storage right away.

Whether it’s food or medicine, you can’t count on knowing whether they’re safe just by how they look. “Some medications may visibly show a compromised medication through cloudiness and/or clumping. However, other medications may not show any signs of alteration, thereby leaving the impression the medications are fine.”

With RCare monitoring your refrigerator temperatures, you can be confident that your refrigerators are running exactly as they should be. And if they’re not, RCare will let you know. Your residents count on you for their health and safety. RCare can help.

New eCall Program for Affordable Housing

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RCare eCall Program for Affordable Housing

RCare, maker of advanced wireless nurse call systems, recently announced the addition of a new low-cost eCall Program designed for providers of affordable housing for low-income seniors. This eCall Program is a testament to the company’s mission of improving the quality of care for all seniors, regardless of financial status.

The new RCare eCall Program for Affordable Housing offers the critical capabilities of RCare’s flagship wireless nurse call technologies, for a fraction of the cost. The RCare eCall system will offer savings to affordable housing providers in several ways, including an extremely low cost of entry, minimal hardware to maintain, lowered on-going fees, and requiring only one internet connection for the entire eCall system.

“If you run an affordable senior housing community, you need to talk to us. We can save you money.”

The purpose of RCare’s affordable eCall Program is to provide the very best of nurse call capabilities to America’s lower income seniors, according to RCare CEO, Myron Kowal. “RCare is always looking for ways to offer our comprehensive features at a more competitive price point, especially to those who can’t afford all the bells and whistles,” said Kowal. “If you run an affordable senior housing community, you need to talk to us. We can save you money.”

The RCare eCall Program is simple to install, with one small wall-based touchscreen server and one pendant for each resident. If the building has an existing internet connection, that will be sufficient for the entire RCare eCall Program. No landlines are required. When a resident presses the pendant, the RCare panel will notify the call center, who will assess the situation directly and determine further actions.

RCare has had a busy year of progress and innovations including the announcement of an Amazon Alexa skill, their iOS app launch for RCare Mobile, and RCare’s integration with PointClickCare. RCare was recently nominated for two mobile caregiving awards for “Best of 2018” Mobile Star Awards.

Find out more about RCare. www.rcareinc.com or 585-671-4144.

How Senior Housing Campuses Can Save Lives During Heat Waves & Other Disasters

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Heat Waves and Senior Housing

When the outside temperature rises, it’s not only an inconvenient situation. Heat waves can be deadly to older and more vulnerable residents.

This lesson was driven home starkly in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Florida, where nine residents died after losing power in their nursing community.

It doesn’t take a catastrophic hurricane to make heat a deadly problem for seniors. Nearly 400 Americans die from heat waves each year. “Most of them are elderly people who often don’t realize when they are overheating and in danger.” (agingcare.com)

This is an awesome responsibility that falls on senior communities, to prevent and respond to a potential temperature increase, even if the resident doesn’t realize the danger or severity of the situation.

RCare Temperature Sensors (TS9 and TS9E) to mitigate the danger of heat waves to seniors

RCare’s temperature sensors

Nurse Call Systems have come a long way in the past few decades. Caregiving staff are expected to do far more than simply respond to button and pull cord alerts. They need to be aware if a resident is in a dangerous environment, without the resident having to do anything. The technology needs to enable better, faster, and more predictive care.

That’s why RCare’s nurse call systems have gone above and beyond, to integrate passive environmental sensors, such as temperature and flood detecting sensors. RCare’s temperature devices will detect when temperatures are rising and start sending out alerts to designated caregiving team members. RCare allows for a quick intervention, before the situation becomes a crisis.

Passive sensors are an important part of a complete nurse call system. RCare is the provider of advanced wireless nurse call systems for senior communities across the senior care continuum. With the integration of temperature sensors, water sensors, and other environmental sensors, RCare provides care staff with the extra tools they need to keep seniors safe, even if the resident never pressed a button.

Disaster Planning and Your Nurse Call Systems – 5 Tips for Success

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Disaster planning for nurse call systems

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that anything can happen – wildfires, hurricanes, and even global pandemics. And the year is only half over. “Be prepared” is not just a motto for scouting. Knock on wood, your community or healthcare facility won’t need to evacuate suddenly, or to expand quickly to handle a surge in patients. But it never hurts to be prepared, to be ready to protect your residents and to make sure operations and care can return to normal as quickly as possible. In fact, Federal law requires that Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities have written plans and procedures to meet all potential emergencies.

If you haven’t been thinking about your community’s emergency preparation plan, let the events of this year be the nudge you needed to get started. And as you’re creating your plan, here are five helpful tips to make your plan more effective.

Disaster Planning Tips

  1. Data Backup: Start by assuming that every technology system in use in your facility is built on a database that stores important data, such as patient information and incident information. If you were to lose your system to a disaster, would you lose all your data history? Your answer should be no. All data for all your systems should be backed up regularly and stored safely offsite, to be ready for you should you need it.
  1. Data Restore: Just as important as backing up the data is restoring it. If faced with a hardware or system failure for any reason, can you restore and make use of your data again? It’s important to schedule periodic tests to be sure that backups have been done successfully, with no data corruption, that restored data is accessible, usable, and that you are able to restore the data  and resume operations quickly.
  1. Hardware Backup: With your data safely secured, it’s important to have a plan for replacing your hardware quickly. whether it’s due to a normal hardware failure, or a flood or fire or other disaster. Be sure to have a source for the equipment that can ship quickly. In the midst of an emergency, you can’t be waiting weeks for back-ordered equipment. Be sure your plan includes a complete list of critical hardware to replace. And be sure that your systems, and your backed up system data, are compatible with your new replacement equipment.
  1. Peripherals: In addition to the system server, many systems have peripheral devices used by caregivers such as printers, phones, and monitor screens, as well as resident or patient devices, such as pendants and pull cords. When you’re recovering from an equipment failure, the biggest time investment will likely be inputting the settings for the peripherals, to reconnect them to the system. Strategize now about the best way to input or restore device settings as efficiently as possible, to get the system back to work. At the minimum, keep a hard copy of your plans and settings, and store it safely to be sure it’s available should it be necessary to rebuild your systems. Better yet, can the settings be backed up and restored like other data? Whatever you decide, don’t overlook this critical piece of your recovery plan.
  1. Temporary Solutions: Another consideration is having a stop-gap solution that you can swap into place in the short-term, while you wait for your systems to be restored to their normal functioning. Even in a crisis, your residents need to be equipped with an emergency call device. If you need to relocate your operations to another facility, or to expand temporarily into another location, a portable or stripped down system may be necessary to help you continue to provide care.

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that anything can happen.

How RCare can Help

RCare is a global provider of wireless nurse call and personal emergency response systems for the entire spectrum of eldercare and senior living. We’ve given a lot of thought to disaster preparation and recovery, because we know your call light system is critically important for the health and safety of your residents.

Rapid Deployment Kit – Portable Nurse Call System

Our Rapid Deployment Kit is a portable nurse call systems in a box, designed to be installed quickly, even outside of normal healthcare environments. It’s a temporary nurse call solution that has been employed nationwide by health systems to create temporary field hospitals to care for the surge of COVID patients. It’s quick to deploy, quick to take down, and easy to store. And it can help you be prepared in the event of an emergency. Learn more about RCare’s Rapid Deployment Kit.

Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Service for RCare’s Nurse Call Systems

RCare’s Data Backup and Disaster Recovery service minimizes disruption of service and recovery costs for our clients. It provides regular software backups, with data securely stored offsite. It also provides hardware protection, with a quick replacement of your RCare nurse call system hardware, no matter what the reason, with the replacement guaranteed to be compatible. System and device settings are also backed up, so that peripherals can be put back into use quickly and reliably. Learn more about RCare’s Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Program.

You can count on RCare every day to provide excellent, reliable nurse call capabilities for your community. And when the chips are down, you can count on RCare to help you provide the best possible care.

Find out more about how RCare’s Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Service and RCare’s Rapid Deployment Kit can help you protect your organization.

RCare Reporting: The Best Just Got Better

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RCare RMetrix reporting

RCare's RMetrix v2You’ve seen the advantages of RCare’s big-time native reporting and analytics. RMetrix, the free reporting package included with all RCare Nurse Call platforms, gives you the information and call analytics you need by person, by shift, or by group. With it, you can increase efficiencies, identify trends, and improve the quality of care.

And now it just got better.

We have recognized the changing needs of our clients and we used that information to completely overhaul our reporting, customized to your needs. Introducing RMetrix v2, a revamped RCare reporting technology providing the most modern, scalable, and customizable reporting and analytics for senior housing communities with one or more sites. Here’s what’s new:

Multiple Output Formats

Output reports in your choice of format:

  • Display them on screen
  • Download them as PDFs
  • Export them as .csv files

Pre-scheduled delivery, or on-demand:

You can choose to receive the reports in scheduled emails, or get them on demand whenever you want them.

Built-in Reports:

RCare RMetrix reportingOur comprehensive list of built-in, pre-designed reports gives you many choices for what information to get and how. You can use filters like date, group, incident outcome, and more.

  • ADLs by Individual Residents
  • Calls by Hour
  • Incident List
  • Resident List
  • Call Distribution Across Multiple Shifts
  • Incident Exceptions
  • Longest Response Times
  • Frequent Resident Callers
  • Check-In Report
  • and so much more…

Plus, you will receive additional built-in reports with future updates. Completely free.

Customizable:

Our new reporting engine also includes a Report Designer. If you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for in our extensive list of built-in reports, you can tailor your own report. Don’t have time to write your own custom reports? That’s okay, too. RCare’s team can create made-to-order reports for you, giving you full-service, custom-built reporting for a low added fee.

But wait, there’s more…

  • Built-in graphs for easy trend analysis
  • Professional, branded report output

Now shipping:

This new reporting is a part of all RCare installations, and it’s shipping now. It’s just one more reason to switch to RCare’s comprehensive emergency nurse call and monitoring technology.

Are you already an RCare client? Contact your RCare Trusted Integrator to request an upgrade.

RCare’s reporting was already the most versatile and easy-to-use in the industry. And it just got even better.

A Backup Plan: Using Central Station Monitoring to Ensure Every Call is Answered

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RCare's central station monitoring

It is the middle of the night. Joyce from Room 118 gets up to answer the call of nature, and falls in the bathroom. She presses her pendant button. What happens next?

The answer is, it depends. Usually, the call is received, and an aide arrives at Joyce’s room to help her. The speed at which this occurs can depend on how reliable and robust the call light system is.

But sometimes there are added complications:

  • Perhaps Joyce lives in an Assisted Living community that is lightly staffed late at night, as a cost-saving measure. Unfortunately, at the same time that Joyce needs help, the staff are busy answering other residents, which means Joyce will wait where she’s fallen until the staff is done.
  • Perhaps Joyce lives in a low-income senior housing unit, and there’s nobody staffed to even answer the call. She’ll just have to wait on the floor until tomorrow morning at 8am when she receives the automated check-in phone call. When she doesn’t answer the phone, she’ll be added to a list for someone to check on later in the day.
  • Maybe Joyce lives in Independent Living. Normally there’s someone at the night desk to receive calls, but tonight the WiFi went out, and push button calls weren’t received by the system during the 30-minute outage. Unfortunately, Joyce’s call will go unanswered.
  • Or maybe there’s an extraordinarily high volume of calls that come in right before Joyce’s call. Unfortunately, she will simply have to wait, hoping that someone received her call.

Not only is Joyce fearful and agitated, she is now at risk for dehydration, pressure sores, increased blood pressure and heightened anxiety. All of these factors can lead to a potential bad outcome for Joyce.

What can be done? How can we ensure that all residents get the help and support when they need it?

Introducing: RCare’s Central Station Monitoring Service

No matter how great your staff and your nurse call system, sometimes you need backup to make sure that none of your residents slip through the cracks. RCare has partnered with Security Central, a nationally licensed service provider with a track record for excellence and reliability. Security Central has been in business for 57 years. Their staff is available 24/7 to answer the phones, and based on the pre-set protocols for your community, to take appropriate action.

With the integration of central station monitoring into your RCare nurse call system, you can be sure that every call is answered. Depending on your pre-set protocols, the operator may first contact the resident to confirm that it isn’t a false alarm and that help is really needed. Once this has been determined, the operator will gather additional essential information before contacting emergency responders.

No matter how great your staff and your nurse call system, sometimes you need backup to make sure that none of your residents slip through the cracks.

Or, your protocol may call for a series of escalating calls to be made, e.g. first to the on-call staff, then to the facility director, then to family members, and finally to 911 (when needed). It’s entirely flexible and customizable to fit your community, your caregivers and your administrators.

You might decide that any call that has not been answered by staff after a predefined period of time can be escalated to the central monitoring system.

Not to mention, if your community experiences a tech emergency, RCare’s cellular failover backup means calls are received even during power and WiFi outages.

Who benefits from Central Station Monitoring?

From Independent Living, to Assisted Living, to Skilled Nursing, to Affordable Housing communities, Central Station Monitoring can provide endless benefits. The integration with RCare’s nurse call system ensures that room-level information is routed immediately to someone who can help.

RCare’s Central Station Monitoring works over a standard phone line, IP, or cellular. Cellular is also available as a backup option for phone lines or IP setups.

Emergencies happen and response time is critical. RCare’s integration with Security Central provides a proven, cost-effective model to provide critical, life-saving services for your residents when it matters the most.

Want to learn more? Contact RCare.

RCare’s Rapid Deployment Kit Fills Nurse Call Need for UMass Temporary Hospital

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nurse call systems for temporary hospital

The Challenge:
UMass Memorial Hospital had a problem. At the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, it was being flooded with patients, and needed to expand capacity, fast. 

The Solution:
To convert the 50,000 square foot Exhibit Hall of the DCU Center, a convention center and arena, into a “pop-up” temporary field hospital, to handle the overflow of patients.

The Timeline:
They had just ten days. They finished in eight.

The Story:
The DCU Center is an indoor arena and convention center in downtown Worcester, MA. In April, its Exhibition Hall was converted to a field hospital to help nearby UMass Memorial Hospital handle the overflow of COVID-19 patients, those sick enough to require hospitalization, but not sick enough to require ICU care or a ventilator. It was repurposed to act as both a field hospital led by UMass, and a shelter for homeless people who tested positive for the disease.

Despite the unconventional setting, with its many challenges, the quality of care needed to be top-notch, and that included the nurse call system. It had to be quick to install, and completely reliable, because lives would depend on it.

Signet Electronic Systems, a trusted RCare integrator, used RCare’s Rapid Development Kit (RDK) nurse call solution to help UMass create the temporary hospital. The installation was quick, smooth and successful. 

Signet has a long-standing relationship with UMass Memorial Health Care. It installs the majority of the beds in both of their Worcester campuses as well as satellite locations, with high-end wired nurse call solutions, in addition to managing other systems such as public address and master clocks. They knew they could count on RCare for a solution that works.

A Rapid Deployment Kit nurse call system includes a touchscreen server, one pendant for each patient, and four pagers. No internet connection is needed for the system, and no phone lines. The system is designed to be plug and play, and is pre-programmed to be ready to use right out of the box. One RCare RDK is fully programmed for up to 40 patients and 4 caregivers, however it can be expanded with RCare’s Expansion Kits. Patient beds are outfitted with clip-on placards that correspond to patient call buttons, so caregivers can see which patients are calling. RCare’s G4 platform provides best-in-class range to cover large campuses and deepen building penetration, which allows it to be reliable in any setting. 

nurse call systems for hospitals

The UMass temporary hospital was created in a 50,000 sq ft exhibition hall with cube-type barriers separating patient spaces. Nothing could be permanently mounted. The server was placed behind folding tables that nurses use for charting, on a box, with the paging encoder on top of it. Locators were hung on centrally-located poles with tie wraps. The server and paging encoder were plugged into a network switch with a patch cable. Pendants were given to the staff for distribution to patients as they were admitted. The openness of the space proved to be a benefit for signal transmission, allowing calls to be initiated from a pendant and received the full length of the space.

The system was installed overnight, and was completed and tested the following morning. Mark Roy, Senior Client Executive at Signet, described the scene. 

“Everyone was in there doing everything at the same time. Hospital folks were setting up computers, networking and other technical infrastructure, pharmacy was loading Picsys machines, Biomed was setting up all their equipment, contractors were running O2 infrastructure, and news crews were there at the same time, documenting the whole thing. 

Despite the tight schedule, Mark praised the UMass staff, who were very helpful, and provided everything needed in record time.

RCare’s Rapid Deployment KitUMass returned the compliment. Sean Grady, Unit Coordinator for UMass Memorial said this about the installation:

“The RCare rollout was probably the best of any  vendor rollout involved with the DCU project. From project management to technical install, it could not have gone any more smoothly. I can tell you that the nurse call system has worked great for us at the field hospital we have set up in Worcester.”

RCare is proud to be part of the solution for this ambitious project. Our Rapid Deployment Nurse Call Kit (RDK) is a plug-and-play, portable, pre-programmed nurse call system in a box that can be set up in hours instead of days, in a situation lacking standard infrastructure, while providing the critical, reliable communications required in a hospital setting, even a non-traditional one.

Related Post – RCare’s Rapid Deployment Nurse Call Kit – an Emergency Nurse Call System in a Box

Emergency Nurse Call Systems – Rapid Deployment Nurse Call Kit

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emergency nurse call system

Nurse call systems for emergency situations: RCare’s Rapid Deployment Kit is a portable nurse call system in a box. Designed for ease-of-use, it’s quick to deploy and ready to use in a crisis.

The numbers of infected patients continues to rise, and hospitals in hard-hit areas are being forced to expand rapidly and efficiently. RCare can help. Our staff have been working hard, assembling Rapid Deployment Nurse Call Systems Kits. These kits provide effective, reliable nurse call communications between patients and caregivers, and between equipment and caregivers, even in non-healthcare, field operations environments.

These plug-and-play nurse call systems are preprogrammed by RCare’s expert technicians and ready for use immediately out of the box. They include one small touchscreen server, one pendant for each resident or patient, and four pagers. Expansion kits are available. Only one internet connection is required, and no landlines are necessary.

“Our mission here is to help win this war.” – Myron Kowal, RCare founder and CEO

Designed for speed of implementation, and ease-of-use in a pandemic, a natural disaster, or other emergency situations, RCare’s Rapid Deployment Kit installs in only five minutes and offers a reliable, secure nurse call systems in a box. RCare’s G4 platform provides best-in-class range to cover even the largest of campuses and deepen building penetration. UL 1069 certified nurse call systems available NOW. Contact RCare to find out more.

3 Ways RCare Can Help You Strengthen Your QAPI Program

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QAPI Program

Is your nurse call system helping your QAPI efforts?
It should be.

Quality Assurance, and Performance Improvement are on everyone’s minds these days. Because of the new CMS regulations, QAPI is the latest watchword in long-term care and skilled nursing facilities across the country. No doubt your senior community already has an implementation strategy in place for moving forward. But here’s something you may not have realized: Your nurse call system can play an important role in the success of your QAPI program.

RCare is the global provider of advanced, wireless nurse call systems. We’ve designed our nurse call systems to give you the tools you need for your QAPI program. Why are so many communities overlooking the value of nurse call systems for QAPI? It might be because they’re not using RCare.

Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement
QAPI.
1. Caregiver response data. When a resident pulls a cord or pushes a button on their PERS pendant, your caregiving staff responds. It’s one of many services provided in your senior community. And like all other services, it is subject to QAPI. You not only need to know that you’re meeting regulatory minimums of care, you also need hard data to identify ways to improve–even if you’re already doing a good job. RCare provides this data, including response times, call volumes, shift-by-shift comparisons, and even which services are most often provided at the point of care. This data can be key in setting baselines, in planning new ways to improve, and in measuring the effectiveness of changes.

2. Resident call data. Who is calling most frequently? How often do they call, and at what time of day or night? What services are performed? QAPI requires that you look for how things are going routinely. It also requires that you investigate your outliers. Are there needs that aren’t being met well in your facility? Are there individuals who need a change in care plan? What does your data show? With RCare, you’ll know.

3. Environmental response data. Not all calls are triggered by a request from a resident. It’s important to keep tabs on the safety and comfort of the resident’s environment as well. Are your refrigerators keeping food and meds at a safe temperature around the clock? RCare’s refrigerator sensors record data continuously, and alert the staff if the temperature slips out of range. Is a resident having a restless night? RCare’s motion sensors can let you know if there’s unexpected movement in the middle of the night. Did a tub overflow? RCare’s water sensor alerts staff, who can intervene, often before the resident even knows there’s a problem. Integrated right into RCare’s nurse call system, every alert is sent quietly and discreetly. With the “I got it” feature, caregivers can now claim calls avoiding duplication and negligence concerns.

In your job, there’s a lot expected of you. You should expect a lot from your nurse call system. RCare offers the most advanced wireless nurse call technology, for large or small facilities. RCare wants to join efforts and support you as you develop your QAPI program.