Falcons Landing
Leverages SARA in Emergency Preparedness Planning
Description
Falcons Landing is a premier retirement community, owned and operated by the Air Force Retired Officers Community (AFROC), located in Potomac Falls, Virginia. The mission of AFROC is to develop and operate a first-class retirement community for the benefit of retired military officers, their spouses and widowed spouses. The community provides its members with housing facilities and services specially designed to enhance their health, security, happiness and usefulness in longer living.Opportunity
Falcons Landing was in need of a monitoring and reporting system that could integrate to existing systems and devices, as well as provide proactive alerting. They were in search of one system that could take multiple alerting devices and systems and consolidate them into a single platform. The ideal solution would not only improve the safety and security of its residents, but also increase the efficiency of its staff.
Falcons Landing has an unique environment, and were therefore in search of a flexible, non-proprietary solution. "It was very important to us that Status Solutions was willing and able to customize the solution to meet the specific integration needs of Falcons Landing," comments Patrick O'Shea, Falcons Landing's IT Administrator.
Solution
Status Solutions' Situational Awareness and Response Assistant (SARA) was selected because of its ability to combine wireless emergency call, a flexible integration tool set, and broadcast communication into a single solution. SARA was installed in both the assisted living facility, as well as in the health center.
Broadcast Notification for Emergencies
Falcons Landing has gone beyond just using SARA for emergency and nurse call operations, and has incorporated the system into their overall emergency preparedness strategy to provide broadcast communication in the event of an emergency or disaster. The broadcast communication function of SARA allows alerts for community events, scheduled activities, bus departure, medicine reminders, etc. to be scheduled and automatically sent via phone to designated residents and/ or staff members. The technology uses a "text-to-voice" capability which is integrated with the phone system. Regularly scheduled, recurring events can be entered into the system, or "Quick Messages" can be created. Quick Messages are an effective tool for last minute schedule changes or safety related information, such as inclement weather.
For Falcons Landing, SARA has been expanded to be able to make 28 simultaneous calls to alert residents of important information such as inclement weather via their telephones For example, recently 80 residences were notified by SARA of a tornado warning in 3 minutes and 48 seconds.
Upon implementation, all existing resident phone numbers were easily imported into the SARA system. SARA has the ability to call resident land lines, as well as mobile phones. When a resident receives a reminder or alert, the unique voice of SARA is what they hear when answering the phone or checking their messages. This is made possible by simply typing any text into the system, and then that exact message is delivered by SARA's voice over the phone.
There are also plans at Falcons Landing for SARA to be used when conducting fire drills. "This will continue to help improve the safety and security of our residents, as we are able to notify and direct residents and staff where to go in the event of a fire," states Patrick O'Shea.
This example proves that the broadcast notification and communication capability of SARA can be used for more than just activity reminders, upcoming events, doctor's appointments, medicine reminders, etc. SARA can quickly and efficiently notify your staff and residents in the event of an emergency situation.
SARA in Skilled Care Areas
Patients in the health center facility of the campus require a higher level of patient care. In order to provide immediate assistance, nurses and other personnel need to be notified as soon as an alerting device is triggered.
Open alarms were previously reported before the implementation of SARA. "SARA is proving to be very remarkable. In the health center, response time has decreased and now averages a little over two minutes with SARA. SARA truly is like adding another person to our staff," states Patrick O'Shea.
Falcons Landing has also added motion detectors in the dementia area, and have configured SARA to alert the necessary personnel if certain individuals are wandering outside the predefined area of the facility.
Flexibility for Growth
With the SARA system, Falcons Landing has the flexibility to add more devices as they continue to grow. The system can be easily administered, therefore allowing the IT staff at Falcons Landing to add these devices without the assistance of Status Solutions support personnel.
SUMMARY
SARA integrates existing and new systems and devices into an efficient and cohesive platform that improves resident care and staff productivity. SARA's broadcast notification capability is an integral part of the emergency preparedness plan at Falcons Landing.
"SARA has indeed made our staff's jobs easier, but more importantly has helped to improve the health and safety of our residents," comments Patrick O'Shea.
Partnership
"Status Solutions is phenomenal from a support perspective. We are extremely pleased with SARA, but the company's willingness to customize the solution to meet our unique needs is what sold us," states Patrick O'Shea.
Falcons Landing has escalated the original timetable for the installation of SARA detection devices in all 323 of the Independent Living Apartments and Houses by six months due to the enthusiastic response from their residents.
Falcons Landing also has plans to extend SARA's capabilities to include environmental monitoring of devices such as thermostats, water sensors, smoke detectors, etc. With SARA, if any of these devices sense a sudden environmental change or a system such as a heat pump or refrigeration unit experiences a failure, staff can be alerted in order to address the issue before it becomes a major concern or even an emergency situation.
