WesleyLife, a nonprofit operator of retirement communities, and a provider of rehabilitation and home health-care services, has adopted Stanley Healthcare‘s Arial 9 Wireless Emergency Call solution at The Village, a senior community it operates in Indianola, Iowa. The active RFID system enables residents to send alerts by pressing a button on a pendant. The solution includes functionality for preventing potentially dangerous wandering by individuals at risk of leaving the facilities, or of entering an unauthorized area. In both cases, the security technology, which operates at two different active RFID frequencies, is intended to provide residents with greater freedom of movement without requiring staff oversight, as well as assurance that they can request help at any time, from anywhere throughout the 37-acre campus.
The Village first installed Arial, the Arial 9 solution’s predecessor, in 2013. The proprietary system, according to Chad Piper, The Village’s executive director, came with active 900 MHz RFID pendants, anti-wandering wristbands (also using active RFID technology, but operating at a different frequency—434 MHz) and wired emergency call stations, as well as LED screens that list data from the Arial software. Data culled from the technology is all managed by the Arial software platform. Stanley Healthcare also installed RFID readers to capture transmissions from the pendants, he says, in addition to readers and exciters for the solution’s anti-wandering function. The transition to Arial 9 simply required a software upgrade, Piper adds.
The community includes independent living apartments and townhomes, along with a 36-bed health center, assisted-living units and a memory support unit. It also offers recreational amenities, including walking and biking paths and a woodworking shop.
Prior to the Arial technology’s installation, WesleyLife had implemented wired emergency calling units only in specific areas of The Village, but there was no such support in the open campus and at many indoor locations. That made it more challenging for some residents to move far from those areas in which they knew they could summon help if needed. “We’ve got a beautiful campus,” Piper says. “But for some individuals, they wouldn’t go out or enjoy that campus out of nervousness” that if they fell or required assistance, they would not be able to receive that help.
What Stanley Healthcare has provided, says Steve Elder, the company’s senior marketing manager, is an emergency call system integrated with an anti-wandering solution. This allows the Arial 9 software to manage the collected read data, display it on the LED screens and prompt the sending of alert messages to authorized individuals as necessary, he explains.
Each resident is assigned an Arial water-resistant pendant containing an alert button that an individual can press in the event that help is needed. Each resident’s name and address is linked to the unique ID number transmitted by that person’s pendant. As such, if an individual presses the button on his or her pendant, the system knows who that resident is and where he or she lives.
A total of 48 Arial readers were installed throughout the campus, to receive the 900 MHz active RFID signals (using a proprietary air-interface protocol) transmitted by the pendants. Each reader has its own ID number, so when the device receives a pendant’s signal, the system can determine that individual’s location within approximately 100 feet.
The data is then displayed on the LED screens at nurses’ stations, and alerts are issued to the pagers of personnel onsite. Those receiving the alerts can view the name and address of the individual whose pendant is transmitting, as well as his or her general location.
The Village also operates a facility that houses the small number of residents at risk of wandering away from the area in which they should be. In this case, Piper says, the staff members working at that facility wanted a technological solution that would provide safety but still be discrete. Each of these residents wears a Stanley Healthcare RoamAlert Securaband wrist tag. This active tag periodically transmits a 434 MHz signal encoded with a unique ID number. As with the pendant, the resident’s name and room number are linked to that ID.
Installed at each facility’s exits is an Arial reading device consisting of both a 307 kHz exciter (which transmits its own unique ID number) and a 434 MHz reader. If a resident nears one of the exits, his or her RFID tag receives the exciter’s 307 kHz signal, and the tag responds by transmitting its own identifier, along with the exciter’s ID. The reader forwards the tag and exciter IDs to the Arial software residing on The Village’s server. The doors can be automatically locked, and alerts can be issued to nurses’ pagers, or to the devices of other authorized parties who can then proceed to that location and divert the resident away from the exit.
When Arial 9 was released this year, Piper says, WesleyLife opted for the upgrade because it offered several important improvements. For instance, he explains, it allows a pendant’s alert to be reset remotely once a call is placed, without requiring residents to manually reset the pendants themselves. What’s more, Arial 9 automatically generates reports as needed by the residence, with such details as the number of incidents—or, more specifically, the number of incidents that required 15 minutes or more for response.
The new system also provides escalation, if required, of alert messaging. For example, if no employee acknowledges a pendant alert within a preset amount of time, the system can send an e-mail or text message to management, such as Piper or other parties. “I can then find out what’s going on and intervene early,” he says.
The software includes a map on which an icon can indicate the general location of an alarm’s source, along with the pendant owner’s name. This information is displayed on the LED screens at the nurse stations. In the future, Elder reports, The Village’s existing fire alarm system will be integrated into the Arial 9 software as well, enabling workers to view the location from which a given fire alarm has been triggered.
Since its installation last year, Piper says, the Arial system has provided a level of comfort for residents. One resident recently fell and broke her arm while gardening behind her home, he adds, and was able to summon help using her pendant. Without the technology, he points out, she would have had few options since she was far from public view. “The residents absolutely love it,” Piper says of the technology.