Welcome to the second of our series on great care innovations. You can read part 1 here.
At KareInn, we’ve seen first hand the transformative power of technology, across many sectors. Some of our favourite innovations use the latest and greatest technology available, from virtual reality to voice activated artificial intelligence.
Sometimes innovation comes from using technology with one usage to solve a new problem somewhere else. This week, we bring you two more of our favourite innovations, which harness technology to create a simple innovation for the care industry.
PROXIMITY
GPS tracking devices have long been used in the context of care to monitor residents’ or medical patients’ movements. However, these can be unaffordable for many homes or individual carers and there are concerns about the ethics of using GPS to track people.
The Proximity button uses cost-effective Bluetooth technology and an everyday smartphone app to allow carers to monitor the movements of the person they are caring for. A device is attached to the user’s clothing, which sends a signal to a smartphone app when that person moves a certain distance away from their carer.
“The Proximity Button isn’t a direct replacement for a tracking device, it is a smart and affordable alternative”
We love Natalie’s honesty in acknowledging her product won’t suit everyone and we also love its simplicity.
ABENA NOVA
Abena Nova is a sanitary pad product with built-in sensors and a small clip attached. The sensors register when the product is wet and send an alert to carers’ smartphones or tablets.
This enables carers to better plan and provide personalized care based on the individual’s needs and, at the same time, gain insight into the resident’s incontinence pattern to plan and improve toileting and personal hygiene.
The innovation was developed together with Silicon Valley-based company, MediSens Wireless, and was recently nominated for an award by the Confederation of Danish Industry.
This innovation is definitely one we are very excited by and hope residential care homes embrace its potential.
AVOIDING TECHNOLOGY OVERLOAD
We know it can quickly become a challenge deploying so many types of technology in a care home environment if they each come with a separate hardware and software which don’t talk to one another. That’s why whatever technology you deploy in your care home should always be built for integration, like our digital care planning software.
Likewise, the amount of innovation coming to the care home industry can seem overwhelming and it is not easy to select the right provider for whatever digital solution you need. Read our guide to going digital here for tips on how to navigate that process. The most important thing to remember is, regardless of what the innovation does or how shiny the technology is: ‘does this make it fundamentally better?’
Finally, as always, if you would like to know more about what we are doing, evaluate our product, or pick our brains on industry best practice, please do get in touch. We would love to hear from you.
