Long-term care homes are continually looking for practical ways to enhance resident safety, support quality of life, and help team members deliver high-quality, person-centred care. Technology can be part of that solution when it responds to a real need and fits within the realities of long-term care.
Across Canada and internationally, new technologies are being developed to help care teams better understand resident needs, identify risks earlier and create more meaningful experiences. Some of these solutions are already being implemented in senior care environments, providing long-term care leaders with opportunities to learn from innovations that are moving beyond the idea stage.
Here are three innovations your team may want to explore.
Xandar Kardian: Supporting proactive care through contact-free sensing
Understanding changes in a resident’s movement, sleep or physiological patterns can help care teams respond proactively. At the same time, any technology introduced into a resident’s personal space must carefully consider privacy, dignity and comfort.
Xandar Kardian developed a contact-free sensing platform that uses radar technology to detect presence and movement and measure physiological signals such as heart rate and breathing. Unlike wearable devices, the technology does not require residents to remember to put on, charge or interact with the device.
For long-term care homes, contact-free sensing technologies could offer another source of information to help teams recognize patterns, or potential concerns while limiting the need for cameras or wearable sensors.
Potential applications in long-term care may include:
- monitoring movement and occupancy
- identifying sleep and activity patterns
- supporting falls prevention and resident safety
Welbi: Using resident information to strengthen recreation and engagement
As you know, meaningful engagement is an important part of quality of life in long-term care. Yet recreation and life-enrichment teams are often balancing individual resident preferences, program planning, attendance tracking, documentation and reporting.
Welbi is a senior-living platform designed to help recreation and life-enrichment teams better understand resident interests, participation and engagement. It brings resident information, program planning and analytics together to help teams plan experiences based on the people they support.
For long-term care homes, tools such as Welbi can help move programming beyond simply asking how many residents attended? toward questions such as who are we reaching, who are we not reaching and how can we better respond to individual interests and needs?
The platform may help teams:
- plan and manage recreation and engagement programs
- identify patterns and gaps in engagement
- personalize activities according to resident interests and needs
BedSense: Supporting safer care from beneath the mattress
Overnight care presents a particular challenge in long-term care. Team members need enough information to respond when residents require support while also protecting sleep, independence and privacy.
Momo Medical’s BedSense uses a sensor placed beneath the mattress to provide information about a resident’s movement, and time in and out of bed. The technology can give care teams additional insight that may help them anticipate when a resident is likely to leave the bed and respond proactively.
A recent Canadian Healthcare Technology article provides a Canadian example of the technology moving into practice. Baycrest Terraces is adopting BedSense through the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation’s Discover + Adopt program. The smart sensor mat monitors movement, heart rate and breathing and can provide staff with real-time alerts related to predicted bed exits. The project is examining its potential to support falls prevention while maintaining resident autonomy.
For long-term care homes, potential applications include supporting:
- fall prevention
- awareness of bed exits
- mobility and repositioning
Technology is only one part of implementation
Before introducing a new technology, begin with the care challenge you are trying to solve, and involve the people who will be affected by the change. Residents, families, direct-care team members and other partners can provide important insight into whether a proposed solution will work in practice.
What problem are we trying to solve? Start with the resident or team need rather than the technology.
What evidence supports its use? Look for evaluations in environments and populations similar to your own.
How does it fit into existing workflows? A useful innovation should support care rather than add unnecessary complexity.
What are the privacy, consent and data-governance considerations? Understand what information is collected, where it is stored, who can access it and how it will be used.
What will implementation require? Consider technology infrastructure, training, policies, change management and ongoing support.
How will we know whether it is helping? Identify outcomes before implementation, such as resident experience, falls, team member workload, engagement or response times.
The opportunity for long-term care
Innovation does not need to mean replacing human relationships at the centre of long-term care. The most useful technologies can help teams spend their time and attention where they matter most such as understanding residents, responding to their needs and creating opportunities for safety, choice, connection and quality of life.
Looking to adopt innovation in your care setting? CABHI’s Discover + Adopt program can help.
