Subject: [NEXTEL-1] New nursing home to open July 8 Wireless call badges connect residents, staff at nursing home

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 19:22:26 -0400

Saturday, June 28, 2003
New nursing home to open July 8 Wireless call badges connect residents, staff at
nursing home

The network, manufactured by a Salem company, is the first of its kind in
a Virginia nursing home.

By GEOFFREY ROGOW
THE ROANOKE TIMES

A wireless network at the Lutheran Nursing
Home of Virginia in Roanoke will allow residents
to call for help at any time from anywhere.

The network, manufactured by Business
Communications Systems of Salem, is the first of its kind in a Virginia
nursing home, said Jim Webster, BCS vice president of engineering.

"This system will keep patients independent but allow us to track them
down," said Michael Grepiotis , Lutheran nursing home administrator.

The new nursing home is on Brandon Avenue, in a renovated building
across the street from the main Brandon Oaks complex.

It can accommodate 62 patients, 40 of them in single rooms. The
facility will also include a state-of-the-art video conferencing unit for
residents to talk with family members via the Internet.

The wireless network, for which Virginia Lutheran Homes paid
$10,000, has more than 90 infrared sensors, 10 receivers, several
phones and speakers located in the rooms and hallways. There are two
main computer stations at the front and back of the building.

Call badges will be given to both residents and staff. Residents can call
for help by pushing a button on the badge. A nurse anywhere in the
building will be able to tell where the resident is by glancin g at his or her
own badge, which displays text.

The system uses infrared and radio waves to enable nurses to locate
the residents, Webster said. The caregiver is notified by a message on
the receiver that states where the resident is located.

Nurses have a set amount of time, usually about five minutes, to
respond. If they do not, the information will roll over to another caregiver
and eventually to all on-duty staff. The message will shut off when a nurse
enters the same room as the resident.

Nurses can always see where residents are by using the
nursing-station computers. Speaker phones throughout the building allow
for conversation between residents and nurses.

"The beauty of this program is it frees up staff to be mobile and know
where residents are at any given time," Webster said.

Dale Ankney, president of Virginia Lutheran Homes, said this
equipment will help battle the nursing shortage problem for his facility and
many others.

He said the older facility, Brandon Oaks, occasionally must use
supplementary nurses. Virginia does not regulate staff-to-patient ratios at
nursing homes, but still maintains a higher average than many states that
do.

On June 3, the Brandon Oaks nursing home had lower registered
nurse hours and licensed practical nurse hours per resident per day than
the state average, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services. It does, however, have a higher total number of nursing staff
hours per resident per day than the state and national averages.

Keith Denison, administrator for Skyline Manor Nursing Home in
Floyd, said the average cost for a nursing home is $120 a day. The
Lutheran Home will be about $130 a day, but Ankney said the new
system will cut down costs in the long term.

"Over time it cuts down dollars per day, as we elevate care for
everyone and decrease problems," he said.

Development of the system began when Ankney contacted the Salem
manufacturer. He asked BCS for a wireless system that allowed his
nurses to be more responsive to patient problems. BCS, which has been
in the hospital and telecommunications industry since 1965, configured
existing technology to what Ankney wanted. Once the system was
developed, Webster had to submit a report on the equipment to the
Virginia Department of Health.

The new facility, set to open July 8, also maintains a video
conferencing unit called EyeOnMom. Family members can go to
EyeOnMom.com and schedule a video conference with a resident. Calls
are scheduled for one hour at a time, and both residents and family will
be able to see and hear each other. This unit is the first of its kind in a
nursing facility in Virginia, according to Grepiotis.

Once the new building is ready, the 55 residents in Brandon Oaks will
be moved into the new facility.

The current Brandon Oaks facility will be converted to assisted living
or independent living, Grepiotis said.

http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story151598.html

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