Tag Archive for: Location Tracking

With each passing year, technology is playing a more significant role in improving and enhancing the lives of our aging population. Not only do these devices combat isolation and depression by increasing communication, they also enable loved ones to regain their independence. At RCare, we believe in holistic senior empowerment, and we feel technology plays a critical role. We have come up with four vital segments of technology to provide seniors with the most bang for their buck.

  • Wireless Internet Access

Wireless Internet (or WiFi) has arguably become as essential to any  american household as running water or electricity. Everything can be accessed online or through a smartphone “app”, eliminating the need for a stationary personal computer at all.  Many family and friend communications, photo sharing and information exchanges happen on websites and social media networks.   Not to mention, many remote monitoring and alert services (think alarm, security and pendants) rely on WiFi connectivity. Without wireless Internet access, our senior population may feel disconnected and disengaged with the world around them.

  • Socialization Platforms, Smartphones & Tablets

Now that we’ve done away with the traditional stationary computer, adding a tablet, simplified communication device or smartphone into the residence of a senior is a great way to reconnect. Seniors can listen to music, read books, play cards, view photos, track their health, and even play games to promote brain health.  Choices range from your typical iPad/Samsung tablet manufacturers to devices specifically targeted to connect and engage seniors with their family and caregivers (e.g. www.grandcare.com)  Wow!

  • Wireless Remote Monitoring

For seniors wishing to secure more independence, wireless remote monitoring and crisis management systems like RCare can really save lives. Technologies ranging from motion detectors to door sensors to push pendants can monitor the activity patterns for signs of an emergency, without violating privacy.

  • G4 Advanced Locating Protocol

For a patient who may have wandering tendencies or memory loss, wearing a advanced location pendant and push button can be essential. While other systems may only give caregivers a general idea of a pushed pendant location, RCare allows care facilities to pinpoint nearly the exact location, and in a fraction of the time.

Want to learn more about the technology options available for Senior Housing? Contact us to learn more about what we do, or read through our FAQs and client testimonials.

RCare brews strong QAPI at the Quality Summit

What’s Brewing at the Quality Summit? QAPI.
Do you like your QAPI Strong? RCare can help.

Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) are on everyone’s minds these days. Because of 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.

RCare brews strong QAPI at the Quality SummitNext week RCare will be in New Orleans at the AHCA/NCAL Quality Summit, to show you how the right nurse call system can help you strengthen your QAPI program.

When a resident pulls a cord or pushes a button on their PERS pendant, your caregiving staff responds. Are any calls missed? How quickly does your staff respond? How accurate and complete is their information when they arrive? Right from the start of an incident, RCare can help you improve resident satisfaction and the quality of care. And right from the start of an incident, RCare can help you gather accurate, actionable data.

The Quality Summit is the third annual gathering of long-term and post-acute care quality leaders. For three days they’ll be learning best practices, networking with other professionals, and educating themselves about the latest issues in quality and compliance for skilled nursing, post-acute, and assisted living providers.

RCare will be the only Nurse Call System provider at the summit.

Stop by our table, have a cup of coffee on us, and let us show you how your nurse call system can help with QAPI.

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.

AHCA/NCAL Quality Summit
March 12-14, 2018
New Orleans Marriott
Expo Dates/Times
Monday: 11am–1pm, 2:30pm–3pm
Tuesday: 10am–10:30am, 1:30pm-2pm, 3:30pm–4pm
#QSUMMIT18
@ahcancal

RCare was delighted to be highlighted and called out for their advanced location protocol featured in a recent Nurse Call System research report by Grand View Research, a San Francisco-based market research and consulting firm.  

RCare Mobile's "I got it" feature on ensures caregiver accountability and lets multiple caregivers know who will be responding to any given alert.

RCare Mobile’s “I got it” feature on ensures caregiver accountability and lets multiple caregivers know who will be responding to any given alert.

Nurse Call System Market Worth $1.8 Billion By 2022: Grand View Research, Inc.

This study found that the global nurse call market is expected to reach 1.8 Billion USD by 2022. This number will be driven by reimbursement coverage reductions, hospital readmission penalties and the increased expectation for digital health in long term care.

RCare is a market leader with a global footprint throughout the United States, Europe and most recently in Asia with their latest Malaysian distribution partner.

The report singles out RCare for its innovative “I Got it” feature on the RCare Mobile and the Advanced Location Protocol (available for senior housing communities in the United States).

Wireless communication equipment is expected to witness rapid growth. With the increasing healthcare complexities, the need for integrated nurse call systems and electronic health records is driving the industry players to launch advanced solutions. InNovember 2015, RCare launched its G4 technology with Advanced Location Protocol (ALP) for senior living facilities. The “I Got It” button provides a state-of-the-art solution to allow staff to pinpoint locations with the aid of RCare pendant.”

Read the entire release

Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 11.20.26 AMBeep. Beep. Beep. A page loudly rings through to four of the CNAs on staff at Greenwood Senior Homes. There’s a call on level two of the west wing. Help requested immediately. That’s the end of the communication. At this point, none of the caregivers know how urgent the situation is, any helpful details and most importantly whether all or none of them will actually respond to the call.

The most troubling issue with outdated pager systems is that everyone receiving the page might think: “I’m busy and far away. I’m sure someone else will get it.”

This is clearly a problem that can be resolved with better mobile technology like RCare Mobile.

“Senior housing facilities are still using pager systems, and we’ve seen up close how frustrated their staffs have become, especially with the lack of accountability,” said Myron Kowal, RCare’s CEO and founder. “Pagers don’t convey much information about a potentially urgent problem, and don’t allow for two-way communication. Where is the problem? What should I bring? How urgent is it? Who is accountable for it?”

Caregiving staff have admitted to this frustration and have adopted a work-around strategy of  resorting to their own personal smart devices to enable the two-way communication they need when responding to calls. This poses several HIPAA-related problems including a breach to facility security and patient privacy. It also poses an unwelcome distraction in the form of personal communications and the access to various social channels in a busy care environment.

“We knew there needed to be a better solution that was faster and easier to handle, that enabled professional messaging, but didn’t allow access to personal social media. We created a HIPAA-compliant mobile platform called RCare Mobile, for nursing staff to securely and quickly communicate and respond in real time to real issues, really fast.”

RCare Mobile uses smartphone-like handsets through which caregivers receive alerts as well as detailed resident information and location. They allow voice and text communications with other staff including the I Got It button, letting other staff know who is responding to the call.

Learn more about how RCare MobileTM can empower your Caregivers. https://rcareinc.com/products/rcare-mobile/.

Why privacy matters with the latest and greatest nurse call systems.

RCare with shadow

Our customers know RCare as the industry leaders, the head innovators. Usually that means a helpful new technology, a new thing that goes beep. Not this time. Today we’re leading the industry in an entirely new way: privacy.

We realize that this might raise a few industry eyebrows. But nurse call systems are no longer the simple, one-dimensional products of 20 years ago. The ever-increasing need for interoperability and integration with EMR and population health systems necessitates a more secure approach. And while all that new functionality helps deliver better care, it also demands additional responsibilities from companies like ours. That’s why we at RCare have decided it’s critical to ensure that all our solutions are HIPAA-compliant.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulates, among other things, the use and disclosure of protected health information. That is, it establishes guidelines for keeping private medical data private.  It’s an important issue for our customers and so it’s important to us, too.

Turns out that becoming HIPAA-compliant isn’t a small thing. In fact, people familiar with our plan often asked us why we were even bothering, since none of our competitors seem to be doing it. The answer is that we want to be proactive, to get out in front of these issues. Taking a “wait and see what happens” position struck us as an irresponsible approach to privacy and security. We know where the industry is going. We know because we’re taking it there ourselves. So why wait until a crisis occurs? Why wait until someone’s medical data is not safe and private? We think now’s the time to address HIPAA compliance.

Our customer facilities already know all about HIPAA, but to make sure RCare matches their level of compliance we had to take a careful look at a lot of different areas, from the way we design our products to our own internal practices. We now have policies on how to secure client data, like making sure protected information is encrypted at every stage of use. We have performed risk analysis and mitigation. We have rigorous policies about breach notifications, so our customers will always know exactly what is going on with their data. On top of all this we have done extensive training to make sure that everyone at RCare understands these policies and practices–including how important they are.

Going forward we want all our customers to know that even as their care models are being enhanced through our newest and most innovative features, their privacy and security are guaranteed.

You’ve always known that RCare’s got the most advanced nurse call solutions. Now you know that RCare’s also got your back.

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RCare is taking to the road for the next few weeks,  introducing the Pretty Pretty Pendant at trade show and conferences around the country.  Looking for us? Check out LeadingAge Illinois, and ISC West.

About LeadingAge Illinois

LeadingAge IL Annual Meeting & Exhibition offers a premier forum to showcase products and services to an elite group of members that are interested in finding the most innovative solutions for their communities.  

Location:  Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center & Hotel, 1551 Thoreau Drive, Schaumburg, IL 60173

Dates:  April 5 – 7, 2016

Time:  Sessions begin at 7:30 a.m. on April 5 and conclude at 12:00 p.m.on April 7.

About ISC West

ISC West is the largest security industry trade show in the U.S. Meet with technical reps from 1,000+ exhibitors and brands in the security industry and network with over 28,000 security professionals.

Location: Sands Expo Center, 201 East Sands Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Dates: April 5-7, 2016

Time: Sessions begin at 8:30 a.m. on April 5 and conclude at 4:30 p.m.on April 7.

Will we see you at any of these conferences? Tweet us at @ResponseCare and let us know! For more information on RCare, please visit www.rcareinc.com or email info@rcareinc.com.

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Response Care, Inc. (A.K.A. RCare), is honored to announce they have been awarded the Rochester Business Journal’s 2016 Health Care Achievement Award Honorees in the Health Care Innovation category.

The Rochester Business Journal chose 21 individuals and two organizations (RCare being one) for its 14th consecutive year of awards celebrating the impact of healthcare innovation in the Rochester community.  The Health Care Achievement Awards recognize excellence, promote innovation and honor the efforts of individuals and organizations who are making a significant impact on the quality of health care in Rochester. The awards honor the best that Rochester has to offer.

RCare’s Myron Kowal, a veteran attendee of this exclusive awards ceremony, was delighted to learn his organization had been selected.

“I have been attending this ceremony for years and am delighted that I will be able to be on stage with some inspiring innovators in the Rochester area,” said RCare CEO, Myron Kowal. “I am proud of the RCare Innovative team for honing and releasing the latest in Nurse Call technology, the G4 Advanced Locating Protocol. This new, ground-breaking technology is ultimately what secured us the award.”

Since 2006, RCare has been devoted to improving the lives of elders around the world. Beginning in the Rochester, New York area, RCare continues to flourish and now serves facilities throughout the United States, Canada and most recently into Europe.

The honorees in all categories will be featured in the Health Care supplement in the Rochester Business Journal.

For more information on RCare, please visit www.rcareinc.com or email info@rcareinc.com

When a resident at Columbia Healthcare nursing home triggers their nurse call system, they get help fast. Every time. How do we know? We compiled a list of every call in 2015 and analyzed the data. The average response time was 2:56. That’s from January to December, first shift through third, day in and day out. The whole year. Just under three minutes.

But we dug deeper, because an average doesn’t always tell the whole story. When you go over to Bill Gates’ house, the average net worth of people in the house is a deceptive $40 billion dollars. That’s why, in addition to averages, we need to know how much variation there is in the data. Did some people wait really long times and others get lightning fast service? Nope. The wait times were very consistent. The standard deviation (the average distance away from the average wait time) was only nine seconds.

That’s how we know that Columbia residents not only get rapid responses, but that they get them reliably.

We could tell you that RCare is partly responsible for these great numbers. But we don’t have to.

G4-ALP

Recently, rumors have been circulating that the newest version of the iPhone is set to debut save one crucial feature–the headphone port. Created in the early part of the nineteenth century, this audio connector was popularized when telephone switchboards were still widely used.

A staple feature of nearly every MP3 player, stereo system, and phone, if removed, all non-bluetooth headphones and speaker systems will become obsolete. We see this trend with other Apple devices as well with each new Macbook being released with a brand new charger.

Isn’t it frustrating when companies make changes that aren’t backward compatible? It leaves the customer holding the bag, expected to throw away previously purchased hardware and re-purchase new hardware. It doesn’t seem very customer-centric, which doesn’t sit well with us here at RCare.  We design our product with the caregiver and customer in mind. We want to create the most seamless and easiest tech transitions. As always, we will continue to grow and innovate, adding on new technology features to make our system even more comprehensive.

But, here’s the good news: you don’t ever have to worry that we will leave any of our valued customers holding the bag.  That’s why we made sure that RCare’s new G4 Advanced Locating Protocol works with all existing RCare transmitters. When we upgrade our systems, we take that extra step to ensure that our new technology works with our old technology. It’s that simple. 

Interested in joining our satisfied senior housing customers and become part of the RCare family? See a video testimonial about how a Wisconsin customer successfully improved the way they provide care for their residents using RCare.

Contact us or visit us at rcareinc.com.

 

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A man wearing his RCare pendant knows that help is only one button push away.

It’s 3 A.M. and Alice hears wheezing and coughing coming from down the hall. She rushes down to check on poor Henry who has spiked a temperature, again. She makes a note to check on him again in an hour and looks in on Sophia and Alan on her way back down the hall. All is quiet, a moment of relief.  That moment fades quickly away as her mobile phone displays that Ellen is in need of help.

She returns to her nurse station at Rock Hills Senior Community. This is just another normal night shift for Alice. She monitors the activities of 15 residents.  She responds to notifications such as a pendant being pressed at a bedside, or perhaps a high-risk resident has gotten out of bed.  She manages a team of caregivers and ensures the residents’ physical, emotional and mental needs are being met.

Technology in senior housing communities is rapidly growing. More and more communities are realizing that the Internet is no longer an option, but an expected amenity for not only the residents and their families, but also for the team of hardworking caregivers that care for many residents at once.  Remote monitoring solutions, Telehealth, telemedicine and advanced nurse call technologies are changing the way senior housing provides care.  

Leading remote monitoring and nurse call companies like RCare are making it easier for nursing and caregiving staff to quickly, effectively respond, and manage care for many residents at once. RCare Mobile alerts multiple caregiving staff members with an incident, and allows caregivers to eliminate duplicate efforts by the ingenious “I got it” feature.

When a fall happens, it can be frightening and minutes can matter. RCare’s G4 ALP (Advanced Locating Protocol) can narrow down the location of a pendant to a matter of feet, ensuring better response time and faster caregiver support.  Isn’t it time that you stopped trying to get better and just go for the best?  Choose empowered and faster caregiving. Choose RCare today.