We all have an interest in ensuring long-term care facilities are safe, secure, and show respect for older people. Many of us will already have friends or relatives in long-term care homes or at some point may need to consider it as an option. With an aging global population, the provision of long-term care is a pressing issue for almost every country on the planet. Network technologies and analytics play a central role in long-term care, balancing safety and security, the provision of high-quality care services, and respect for the privacy of residents.
It sounds like an obvious statement, but the world’s population is aging. More accurately, the average age of the global population is increasing. There are many factors that contribute, including falling birthrates (and therefore fewer younger people) and longer life expectancy.
According to the United Nations, the number of people aged 65 or above will more than double between 2021 and 2050, increasing to 1.6bn people, more than 15% of the overall population. In 1974, this proportion was just over 5%. The number of people on the planet aged over 80 is increasing at an even faster rate.
With many of the people reading this sitting somewhere in those statistics, the subject of caring for older members of society should be of interest to us all!
Supporting healthy aging with high-quality long-term care
Given the aging population, there will inevitably be an increasing demand for high-quality, long-term care facilities. And the expectations of long-term care facilities are changing. Even where older people are experiencing declines in their physical or mental capacities, care facilities need to provide environments that promote as much freedom and activity as possible, allowing older people to live with dignity.
Network technologies and analytics are being deployed to support the challenges of long-term care facilities: ensuring security and safety, efficiency of service delivery, and the quality of care itself.
However, it is essential to implement these systems thoughtfully, with a focus on governance, privacy, security, and ethical considerations, to ensure they provide maximum benefit while respecting the rights of residents.
Key challenges in long-term care
Challenges that have traditionally faced long-term care facilities will only intensify as the global population ages and the demand for long-term care increases.
In addition to overall aspects of security, and ensuring the efficient delivery of high-quality care, every long-term care facility is concerned with issues including:
- Wandering and resident elopement: This is a constant challenge for managed care facilities. Not only can wandering lead to resident injury or death, it’s also one of the costliest risk exposures in long-term care.
- Falls: Statistics show that one in four people aged 65 and over falls every year, with the cost of these estimated to be more than $50bn per year in the US alone. Even non-fatal falls can cause serious injury, lengthy hospital stays, and diminished life quality for long-term care residents. But it’s not only residents who are at risk. Slip and falls represent the primary cause of lost days from work for healthcare staff, which only further adds to the long-term care worker shortage problem.
- Aggression and abuse: As the threat of workplace violence continues to increase, healthcare professionals remain disproportionately affected. Aggression and abuse not only contribute to days away from work, but they are also driving some to leave the profession altogether. In addition, resident on resident abuse is a common problem, particularly among those with dementia or other mental health illnesses. And sadly, the World Health Organization recently reported that 1 in 6 people aged 60 years and older experienced some form of abuse in community settings, while two-thirds of staff admitted to committing abuse in the last year.
- Caregiver recruitment: In part a result of the points above, the challenge or recruiting new caregivers is a problem often cited by those managing long-term care facilities. The elevated expectations of residents and their families in standards of service and care needs to be reflected in the proposition to caregivers, the workload, and working environment.
Bringing the benefits of network technology and analytics to long-term care
Technology has long been an integral component of any healthcare environment. With advancements in digital health, the evolution of robotics and 3D printing, and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), technology is helping improve patient outcomes, increase personal safety, and amplify healthcare efficacy. More recently, the advances in AI analytics embedded into network video devices and other network technologies, have created new uses cases for supporting long-term care facilities.
Let’s examine how technology addresses some of the long-term care safety priorities.
Improved resident monitoring
Monitoring of residents is obviously a foundation for the provision of care and support when it is needed. Believe it or not, there are still long-term care facilities that primarily rely on physical wellness checks for their residents, but this is not sustainable long-term. It’s inefficient, intrusive, disrupts sleep, and can leave residents vulnerable for extended periods of time. Monitoring technology is therefore a good complement to physical wellness checks - improving resident safety and independence.
For instance, wearable technologies that pinpoint resident location enable residents to move more freely, but also minimize the risk of elopement when integrated with door sensors. Video analytics can track residents’ movements and behaviors to identify patterns that might indicate health issues or changes in their condition, while still protecting residents’ privacy. Based on such analytics, systems can send real-time alerts for specific incidents, such as when a resident leaves a designated area or exhibits signs of distress.
More specifically, network cameras equipped with AI analytics in resident rooms can alert caregivers to falls or unusual movements, helping to provide timely assistance and reduce the risk of serious injuries. Privacy and dignity can be assured throughout by using masking technologies for specific areas of the video image, and even thermal cameras used to further enhance privacy.
Visual monitoring via remote video surveillance allows caregivers to validate alarms and perform wellness checks much more efficiently and less intrusively than physical wellness checks alone. This is particularly true in the home health sector, where caregiver presence may be minimal and non-actionable alarms more resource intensive.
A remote visual monitoring system such as the one used by the Grimstad municipality in Norway can drastically reduce false alarms, thus saving time and costs while improving patient care. Similarly, the AI-based analytics employed by the ZuidOostZorg healthcare facility in the Netherlands has had a dramatic effect in decreasing staff workloads.
Audio analytics has also emerged as a valuable contributor to resident monitoring and the delivery of care. Without in any way ‘listening in’ to conversations, audio analytics can detect specific sounds such as breaking glass or crockery, raised or distressed voices, or excessive coughing, that can give caregivers early warning of issues.
Enhancing resident to care communications
The ability to signal a caregiver is extremely important, especially for residents with limited mobility. In long-term care, two-way audio devices and network intercoms can remotely connect residents with a member of staff – either actively through the touch of a button, or as an event-based alert using sound detection and advanced audio analytics. It’s technology that both increases resident safety and protects their personal integrity. Because sometimes, a simple verbal exchange is all that is needed. And by minimizing unnecessary physical contact, it’s also possible to limit the potential spread of infection.
Other relevant communication equipment in long-term care are smart phones, virtual video visitation, and other assistive technologies that support social interaction between residents and their friends and family. This can greatly improve resident satisfaction, particularly when geographical distance can prevent them from meeting their loved ones in person.
Managing access in and around care facilities
Restricting access not only minimizes theft and protects property, but it also facilitates free movement through your long-term care facility while mitigating the risk of wandering and elopement. And as automation replaces traditional “locks and keys”, long-term care facilities can more securely manage visitors as well as staff turnover.
Automated access control offers more flexible user access options ranging from multi-factor authentication in critical areas like medication cabinets, to wearable fobs that automatically open a door for an approaching resident. It’s technology that not only secures the inside of the long-term care facility, but it can also automate vehicle entry and exit to and from parking lots and delivery bays.
The same video-based analytics should be deployed to monitor access points and detect unauthorized access or suspicious behavior, enhancing the overall security of the facility.
Operational efficiency and compliance
The provision of care to residents is the overriding priority, but doing so efficiently as possible supports a care facility’s overall objectives.
Applying resources in a targeted way, when most beneficial to residents, marks a significant step forward in operational efficiency. For instance, the reduction in workload delivered by smarter resident monitoring technologies, and the data gathered over time, can help optimize staffing levels throughout the day and night.
Video data and analytics can also augment documentation needed to demonstrate compliance with both regulatory requirements and care standards, also providing information for audits and inspections.
In the case of incidents or claims of abuse or malpractice, video data provides irrefutable evidence for investigations and provides an additional level of oversight to protect both residents and care facility staff.
Stakeholders in focus
While there is no doubt that technology offers many benefits for long-term care, acceptance and adoption are key to a successful technology implementation. And the needs of all relevant stakeholders must be considered.
For staff, the technology needs to be intuitive and easy to use. It also needs to have a real value – offering them personal protection, absolving them from liability, and reducing their workload. This is especially true of monitoring technology, which might be perceived as a tool for unwanted oversight and a violation of worker integrity. One way to help overcome this barrier is to work closely with caregiver and healthcare employee unions to develop policies and guidelines related to technology use.
For residents and their families, the technology should enhance safety, provide peace of mind, increase their freedom, and encourage social interaction. It should also protect their privacy and personal integrity while making their lives a little easier. Technology use must conform to relevant legislation and be ethical. With respect to monitoring technology, clear processes and transparency around how and when the technology is used helps build confidence and trust with residents as well as their families.
For facility administrators, the technology should enhance resident safety and well-being, increase worker efficacy and satisfaction, reduce costs, and diminish liability risk. It must also do so intuitively and, as solutions integrate more technologies and capabilities, allow them to manage their network through a single interface. Administrators must also be able to trust that the technology they implement has a high degree of cyber protection and includes features that align to best practice in corporate governance, ensure compliance with relevant laws, and support ethical use. It’s important that administrators consider all stakeholder needs, include their teams in developing formal governance and training programs, and openly discuss with residents and their family members how the technology will be used.
The decade of healthy aging
Scientists say that the first 200-year-old has already been born, while the United Nations has declared the 2020s the decade of healthy aging. By connecting people, technology, and processes to address our long-term care challenges now, we can all look forward to more active senior living and expanded possibilities in our “golden years”.
