UK care provider Friends of the Elderly (FotE) is using wireless acoustic technology to help keep isolated residents safe 24 hours a day during the Covid-19 pandemic.
FotE, which runs residential homes, day care and home care services throughout England, installed Ally Labs wireless acoustic monitoring devices in 2019 to improve night-time care.
With the outbreak of Covid-19, FotE now also uses Ally’s acoustic monitoring during the day to keep isolated residents safe 24/7.
A small device sits in each resident’s room and the Ally app is installed on mobile devices to alert the on-shift team to residents in need of care.
By using remote monitoring, FotE care home managers find they are better able to manage staff pressures, reduce the risk of infection and keep their residents safe all the time, Ally Labs said.
Ally said up to 40% of staff time was consequently freed up and there has also been a significant reduction in falls and hospital admissions.
FotE found that Ally removes the need to carry out scheduled checks, which disturbed sleeping residents unnecessarily.
FotE chief executive Steve Allen said: “The ability to monitor remotely day and night is a huge benefit to our teams who are under additional pressure due to Covid-19. The system is a solid asset which helps them to continue to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our residents.”
Ally Labs has meanwhile released an update to the product that automatically detects coughing, helping care home managers to make informed decisions as early as possible about whether to isolate residents.
With staff unavailable due to self-isolating, childcare requirements, sickness or other demands, FotE is leading the sector by using tech to enable its teams to provide safe care whilst reducing the risk of transmission.
Teams using Ally report how they:
● Have more time to care for higher dependency residents
● Can identify residents in need of care using the acoustic monitoring system - including coughing, calls for assistance and other non-COVID-19 related care needs
● Have more awareness of the wellbeing of every resident, even whilst they are isolated in their room
● Waste less time, precious PPE and other resources preparing to enter each room when there is no need
For further information about acoustic monitoring, contact Ally Labs chief executive Tom Tredinnick at tom@ally.is.
