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Dogwood Village is a nursing home and assisted survival organization in Orange County, Virginia, USA. The elderly living there use RFID straps and pull cord devices to call for assistance. This program is provided by Status Solutions and is called Situational Awareness and Response Assistant (SARA). Through this system, managers can understand when the patient pressed the alarm button of the pendant and how long it took for the staff to respond. Dogwood Village is now expanding to adopt the SARA system. It is hoped that in the future, temperature sensing functions and locators will be placed in refrigerators and boilers to determine where the patient is when they press the button.
Previously, the residents of Dogwood Nursing Home (138 in total) used two-way walkie-talkies to ask for help. The patient pulls down a line of the bedside switch to activate the intercom and talk to the nurse at the central station. However, this system does not meet the needs of patients or employees, said Vernon Baker, Chairman of Dogwood Village. Employees can only hear the call in the nurse’s room. If they happen to be out of the nurse’s room, it will be difficult for the relevant personnel to respond to the call. Moreover, the way of two-way calls confuses many residents. It may be difficult for them to understand the nurse’s speech on the walkie-talkie or how they should respond. The staff sometimes have problems understanding the call.
The button on the SARA RFID pendant can call for help
Dogwood Village implemented the pull-string version of the SARA system in the nursing home in 2006, and now the pendant version of the system is installed in the newly built auxiliary survival home (75 beds). RFID cable equipment and pendants, as well as other RFID hardware of the program, are manufactured by Inovonics.
Each pull cord or pendant device contains an active RFID tag that sends a 902-928 MHz signal with a unique ID code. The ID code corresponds to the resident’s name, medical history, room number, and other information stored in the hospital’s back-end system. The cable equipment connected to the power supply can be installed on the wall or on the bed. The pendant, which contains a battery, is tied under a short rope around the patient’s neck. The patient can press a button on the pendant for help.
RFID cable equipment
The cable and strap devices send their unique ID codes at regular intervals to confirm whether the devices are working properly. According to Status Solutions product manager Deric Blattenberger, an Inovonics repeater (17 installed in the nursing home) receives the ID code and sends it to a second repeater, which then forwards the data to a receiver in the central area.
If the device status changes, in other words, if the patient pulls the cord-the device sends a different signal indicating that the patient needs help. The receiver is wired to the back-end system, and the system’s SARA software receives the data, uses the ID code to find the patient’s name and room number, and then sends a text alert to the corresponding employee’s pager or mobile phone.
When an employee receives a text alert on a pager or mobile phone, he checks the patient’s name and room, and then comes to the room to help the patient. There, she resets the patient cable device or the reset button on the back of the strap, indicating that the call has been processed.
If the employee does not respond within 5 minutes after the call, the system sends a second text message, this time the message will also be sent to the head nurse, and the third message will be sent to the manager. If there is no response within 20 minutes, Baker said he will receive a call himself.
There are currently 38 residents in the Auxiliary Survival Home, which is expected to grow to about 75. Residents here use pendants instead of the cording equipment used in nursing homes.
In both cases, the SARA system not only ensures that every call is answered, but also records how long it takes to respond. Once the strap and cable equipment are reset, the system records the response time and the responding personnel. Managers can use these records to determine how employees respond to calls, and if employees are complained, they can use the records to track down specific issues.
In the future, Baker said, the agency also plans to install SARA locators to identify the location of various pendants. In this way, if a resident asks for help but is not in his room, the system can identify which floor and side he is on. This requires the auxiliary hospital to install a locator on the east, west, south, and north sides of each floor.
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