State-Of-The-Art Monitoring Technology Keeps Residents Safe, Secure At Goodwin House Alexandria Retirement Community
Residents at Goodwin House Alexandria, a faith-based, not-for-profit retirement community, are being kept safe and secure with some of the most advanced remote monitoring technology available. This technology, which includes software that can pinpoint the location of any resident who calls for help within the nearly eight-acre grounds of the community, was designed by Healthsense, a Mendota Heights, Minn.-based aging services technology company, using software developed by Ekahau, a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based real time location systems (RTLS).
The Healthsense technology is built around a standard Wi-Fi network that supports a wireless nurse call system consisting of 475 pull cords distributed in private residences and common areas throughout the Goodwin House Alexandria community. The Wi-Fi system also supports 100 lightweight call pendants that residents can wear around their necks if they choose. When a resident needing assistance activates the pendant, the Ekahau software tracks the resident's location throughout the community's 619,207 square feet of building space and anywhere on the grounds up to within a few meters. An alert is immediately sent out to Wi-Fi phones carried by staff members, notifying them that the resident needs help and giving the resident's precise location.
"Goodwin House Alexandria is delighted to work with Healthsense in providing an innovative technology solution to immediately identify emergency or need requests from residents regardless of their location on our campus," said Harry Baldwin, Executive Director of Goodwin House Alexandria. "With the Healthsense pendant, our residents can press a button to summon assistance while indicating their location. Emergencies do not always occur indoors in a resident's apartment – they can also happen on a staircase or anywhere outdoors, as we have experienced. The location technology has prevented us from having several staff scanning the building in search of a resident in distress. With the Healthsense pendant, we are able to provide effective staff response to our very active, mobile residents because the system guides us immediately to the location of anyone who asks for assistance."
An added benefit of the Healthsense Wi-Fi platform is that residents, staff and visitors also will have quick, easy wireless access to the Internet via their personal or work computers from anywhere within the facility. "Many of our residents are moving in with their own computers, so it's a tremendous advantage for us to be able to offer them the same convenient Wi-Fi Internet access that they're used to getting at their local coffeehouse," added Baldwin.
Resident Jim Carroll welcomed the new technology. "As a resident of Goodwin House Alexandria," Carroll said, "I am delighted that we are trail blazers in the technology arena and anything that can improve resident safety is, of course, an important benefit for everyone who lives here."
Brian Bischoff, Healthsense's President and CEO, said, "We're excited to partner with an innovative provider like Goodwin House Alexandria that understands the significant benefits that our remote monitoring technology can provide. We believe this is the largest deployment of this location-tracking technology at any retirement community in this area. The Healthsense technology is another tool to help providers meet the demands of caring for the growing population of aging Americans. Goodwin House Alexandria's use of this state-of-the-art monitoring system represents the future of aging services."
"Improving the staff response times to emergencies and special situations is a great example of how location technology can be applied to benefit people in those situations," said Antti Korhonen, CEO and President, Ekahau, Inc. "This is true in special-needs environments just as in any other large campus environment where knowing the location of an incident within seconds can mean a world of difference to the outcomes. Ekahau is delighted to be working with Goodwin House and Healthsense to provide this level of convenience and security to the Goodwin House Alexandria residents."
About Goodwin House Alexandria
Goodwin House Alexandria is owned by Goodwin House Incorporated which is a non-profit organization with two communities serving more than 1000 residents and employing more than 700 staff members in Alexandria and Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia. For more information about the Goodwin House communities, call 703-926-5025 or go to the website www.goodwinhouse.org
About Healthsense
Healthsense is a market leader in providing technology solutions for the future of aging services. Healthsense offers completely integrated systems including: Personal Emergency Response Systems, Wi-Fi wireless nurse call and Resident Monitoring for fall detection, wander management and alerting of changes in well-being. These systems are scalable, flexible, and based on proven Wi-Fi communication standards. The flagship Healthsense product is the eNeighbor® system. The eNeighbor system was developed under the direction of the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The system monitors an individual in their home and automatically calls for help if it detects a possible problem. The eNeighbor system utilizes a series of wireless sensors placed throughout the residence, which capture the occupant's activities of daily living. Visit www.healthsense.com for more information.
About Ekahau Inc.
Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau's customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi-based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau's solutions are being used in more than 150 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gas companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S.-based corporation, with offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Reston, Va.; Helsinki, Finland; and Hong Kong, China. For more information about Ekahau, please visit www.ekahau.com.
SOURCE: Ekahau Inc.