Westlake Village
Improves Life Safety with SARA's Wireless Coverage
Description
Westlake Village in Cleveland, Ohio is committed to offering its residents a living environment that maintains the highest standards in the industry. The facility offers Independent Living, Assisted Living and Alzheimer's Care.
Opportunity
Westlake Village was seeking improvements to the community from a life safety and security standpoint. The community was not equipped with any type of sensing device on the residence or exterior doors, and there was an immediate need for the monitoring of smoke detectors in the apartments. Pull cords were installed in the resident apartments living areas and bathrooms, but the residents themselves were not carrying pendants. The staff was looking to leverage their existing nurse call system, and provide a more technologically sophisticated means of protection for its residents.Solution
Westlake Village chose to partner with Status Solutions, and install the Situational Awareness and Response Assistant (SARA) system. The SARA system allowed Westlake Village to improve their dated emergency call system by enabling alerts to be sent using everyday technologies such as phones, pagers, email and cell phones.
Creating a Wireless "Bubble"
By installing the SARA system a wireless "bubble" now covers the entire community. It enables wireless devices that previously required cumbersome wiring, such as resident pull stations and door monitors, to be installed anywhere quickly and easily. The system also supports temperature sensors, motion sensors, smoke detectors, and other devices typically needed in today's senior communities.
Wireless smoke detectors were installed in all of the resident apartments, so that if a fire occurs the proper staff and emergency services can be notified immediately. All exterior doors around the perimeter of the facility are now equipped with sensors to monitor all activity. Given the fact that the community has a pond, the addition of SARA is especially important at night.
These wireless devices are frequently checked by the SARA system for proper operation and condition. Another benefit is that devices can be easily and economically added by community maintenance personnel, eliminating the need for outside vendor charges.
Flexible Alerting with the "Voice" of SARA
SARA has the ability to send the proper alert or notification based on the action that occurred. Whether the signal is from a mobile pendant, motion sensor, smoke detector, etc., SARA can send voice and/ or text alerts. The "voice" of SARA can clearly state the appropriate message via community telephones, cell phones, or even home phones. The text alerts can be sent to in-building pagers, community email, and external email. Residents at Westlake Village are confident that if an accident occurs, the proper staff and emergency services will be notified.
From an environmental perspective, if devices such as temperature sensors detect a sudden change or a system experiences a failure, staff will be alerted. This enables an issue to be addressed before it can become a major concern or even an emergency situation.
SARA's flexible alerting allows for a cascading notification process at Westlake Village. Depending on the type of alert that is triggered, the notification can go from a pager to a handset to a cell phone, and can even leverage the intercom system as a voice announcement.
Reliability via the Power of Persistent Supervision
Westlake Village can be assured that their system will always be up and running with remote system supervision and backup being provided by Status Solutions. Additionally, as new software updates are made available, upgrades can be made remotely. In the event that a disaster occurs, Status Solutions will be able to perform a remote recovery to help retrieve and restore valuable information. In the past, the staff would have to perform daily maintenance on the nurse call system. With SARA, the integration to up to 1,000 different devices has been seamless. Nancy Martin, Director of Environmental Services at Westlake Village, comments, "The SARA system is very low maintenance. With Status Solutions remotely watching the system, we are assured that it is backed up and that we will be alerted if any trouble is detected."
The SARA system has been a welcomed addition at Westlake Village and performs like an additional staff person on watch - 24 hours a day, seven days a week - assuring the community and keeping everyone informed.
