Rehab Center Monitors Patients With Ultra-wide Band

The nursing center also implemented Sysgen's TracPoint location software, which Heppenheimer helped develop, and which has been designed specifically for use in long-term care facilities, to locate patients and equipment, and to set rules based on each patient's needs. Rules can be set, for instance, to allow specific patients access to freely roam the facility during the day, but to require them to remain in their rooms at night. If they do wander out of their rooms during nighttime hours, the staff would be notified; notifications and alerts can be transmitted in a variety of ways, including via e-mail, text messages, cell phones, alarms and flashing lights.

At any given time, employees can go to one of four touch-screen computers set up throughout the dementia unit, then log into the system using their Smart Buddies and search for a particular patient, or for equipment that has been tagged. (Nesconset is also tagging beds, wheelchairs, medication cart keys and other costly equipment, such as pulse oximeters that measure the oxygen saturation of a patient's blood.)

Whenever a patient wearing a Smart Buddy violates a rule assigned to that person, the system alerts the proper staff members via a Windows Mobile 6 device that immediately communicates the violations to attendants. The device can display a map of the center with blinking icons representing residents, staff members and the patient who broke the rule at their exact location.

Nesconset is implementing the latest version of Time Domain's platform, PLUS 2.0. Among other features, this platform now includes tags with integrated buttons that staffers and patients can use to instantly call for help.

"If a staff member is in a room with a resident and they need help," Heppenheimer explains, "they are typically faced with a judgement call: 'Do I leave the resident and go to the door to call for help, or do I stay with the resident?' Now, the staff can just press a call button."