Join us for the first-ever Smart Home Expo on October 26, 2023, hosted by OPEN MINDS. As part of the OPEN MINDS Technology and Analytics Institute, this day-long event is dedicated to recent advancements in smart home technology that support independent and community-based living for persons with disabilities and older adults. The expo will feature innovative smart home technologies -both general and specialized–used today by health and human service agencies to support independence in community-based living.
Our own director of U.S. sales, Scott Feldstein, and our director of implementation & compliance, Hans Cabrera, will be presenting at 3:15pm ET. We will discuss issues in the disability/aging services and how technology like GrandCare can address those concerns. Issues like:
People with I/DD deserve as much independence as they can get, and receiving all the help they need through in-person support isn’t very independent.
States seemingly cannot fully fund the need for disability support services.
Even if the money was available, where would the workforce come from? There is a nationwide staff shortage crisis in every type of in-home care, including disability support.
About GrandCare
GrandCare Systems aims to reduce the staffing costs for disability and the aging population. Their touchscreen platform assists with cognitive needs, such as checklists, medication reminders, instructional videos, and more. The technology collects data through motion and telehealth sensors and alerts a remote support team. Learn more about how GrandCare Systems are reducing onsite caregiver hours, enabling independence, and cutting costs on staffing.
https://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/grandcare-at-open-minds.png6961914info@lmcllc.ushttps://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/grandcare-logo-300x138.pnginfo@lmcllc.us2023-10-18 12:20:222023-10-18 12:20:22GrandCare Presents at Smart Home Expo: Innovative Technologies For The Consumer in Philadelphia this October
In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA), which protects people with disabilities from discrimination, was passed. Disability Pride Month, observed every July, coincides with the passing of this landmark act.
Disability is a Large Minority Group
According to the CDC, 27% of the United States have some type of disability making them the largest and most diverse minority group. Those disabilities may include…
Mobility: including serious difficulties walking or climbing stairs – 12.1%
Cognition: difficulty concentrating, remembering or making decisions – 12.8%
According to Easterseals, a nonprofit which provides disability services and support, “disability pride emerged in response to negative views of disability and to promote human rights. Many people view their disability as an integral part of who they are, rather than something that should be separated from their identity.”
We honor people with disabilities just as they are, as we continue to create and promote environments that conform to their needs and preferences rather than asking them to conform to the status quo. At GrandCare, we believe the best technology is the technology that works for everyone. We will continue to make our platform more and more accessible so that more and more people of various backgrounds and diversities can become part of the GrandCare family.
The Disability Pride Flag
Not familiar with the Disability Pride Flag? Here’s what it represents.
Black Field: Mourning for victims of ableist violence and abuse
Diagonal Band: “Cutting across” the walls and barriers that separate disabled people from society
Red Stripe: Physical disabilities
Gold Stripe: Neurodivergence
White Stripe: Invisible and undiagnosed disabilities
https://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/disability-pride-flag.png8992000info@lmcllc.ushttps://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/grandcare-logo-300x138.pnginfo@lmcllc.us2023-07-19 12:53:452023-07-19 12:53:45What is Disability Pride Month?
As a disability support professional, you already know a lot about enabling technologies. You may also know that the pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote support technology. Not only does remote supports and virtual visits keep supported people safe, it also has the benefit of helping with the current staff shortage so many agencies are experiencing. It also increases the independence and self-esteem of supported people.
What Are Enabling Technologies?
Enabling technologies are equipment or methodologies that support individuals’ independence in their homes. Devices can be as simple as a medication dispenser, a personal emergency response system, a smartwatch or smart fridge. Or, you may decide to opt in for a more fully-featured and robust solution like GrandCare Systems. GrandCare’s intuitive touchscreen interface provides your resident with self-supporting features such as cognitive assists, medication reminders, to-do task lists, routine check-ins, concierge service ordering and simple video chat features. Optional motion/door, lighting and telehealth sensors can be added to GrandCare for your staff to remotely monitor and assess the well-being of the resident.
But, how do you even get started? How does it work? What technology should you use? How would you actually integrate technology into your existing workflow model? These are all valid and important questions to answer. Here are 10 things disability support and aging service professionals should know about choosing enabling technologies for your organization.
What You Need to Know About Enabling Technologies
1. Assistive technology can mitigate staffing shortages.
Remote support technology allows fewer staff to support more people from a central location. Using a remote support model reduces windshield time and the time your staff spends waiting in someone’s home until such time they are needed. With GrandCare, your staff is engaged only when support is required. This allows fewer staff to support more people, plus the assistive technology can even help your residents to help and support themselves.
2. Investing in technology can save you money with a quicker ROI than you may expect.
In a study from Xavier University’s Department of Occupational Therapy, remote patient monitoring and telehealth technologies including the flagship platform, GrandCare Systems, showed increased client independence, reduced in-person caregiving hours, and cut staffing costs dramatically. LADD, a Cincinnati non-profit that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, opened a smart home for four people in 2020. The Xavier study showed that LADD was able to safely reduce in-person caregiving hours by 75%. Prior to GrandCare and remote monitoring technologies, the cost of supporting these four people was $5,260 per week. Supportive technologies slashed the support costs by over 50% to only $2,607 per week. This represents a cost savings of $2,653 per week. That’s $137,941 per year. LADD was able to recoup the cost of all of their smart home technology (yes, even including the smart fridge and sensory relaxation room) in only 9 months.
3. Assistive technology allows your staff to shift focus to residents with higher support needs.
Most agencies have residents that don’t need 24/7 in-person staff support and some that always will. Why not save your limited staff for those who really need it and use assistive technology to help support those who can support themselves? Automated cognitive assists, such as notifications to brush teeth or take medication, can be provided on GrandCare’s touchscreen and be checked off by the resident. When your staff doesn’t need to be physically present at all locations, they can devote more time to individuals with high support needs.
4. Technology can reduce demand avoidance.
Providers have shared anecdotal stories about residents who were often non-compliant and exhibited problematic behaviors while receiving in-person staff support. But when they began using GrandCare’s assistive technology to nudge the residents on daily tasks and med reminders, it empowered the resident’s independence and self-esteem, plus many of those behaviors largely disappeared. This new way of receiving support put the individual in the driver’s seat and gave them the autonomy they desired.
5. The residents LOVE to interact with it, resulting in better outcomes!
In order to fully succeed with self-supporting technology, it needs to be intuitive, engaging and fun to use. That’s why the GrandCare touchscreen includes engagement features including games, jokes, workout videos, music, live radio, audio books and on-demand video chat. Plus, systems can be customized based on the supported person’s interests like sports, art, religion and food.
6. Enabling technology supports in-person staff.
Even people who receive much of their support remotely sometimes need in-person staff time. While your DSP is present in the residence, they can use the GrandCare touchscreen to check in, document how long they were there, which services they provided, and leave notes about their visit for the next onsite caregiver (also accessible remotely to the rest of the support team).
7. Data collected can be used as a tool to see patterns and provide better support.
GrandCare is a fully-featured telehealth platform. GrandCare can monitor glucose, blood pressure, weight, temperature and oxygenation. It can prompt a supported person to take a required biometric reading, and then wirelessly track, trend and record it for the remote support team. Graphs of health data can be reviewed by the support team so that problematic readings can be addressed before they become health emergencies.
8. It can provide a sense of community.
GrandCare has several community-enhancing features. Supported individuals with a common interest can receive curated content and event notifications. A Community can be about anything: stargazing, movie buffs, people with diabetes, or everyone who lives in a specific location. Community messaging and calendaring and photo sharing are available. If you choose, you can even enable video chats between touchscreens.
9. Smart assistive technology can decrease alarm fatigue for your staff.
Only be alerted when something needs your attention. GrandCare can be programmed to only send alerts based on set parameters. For example, staff could be notified of unusual activities like the front door being opened in the middle of the night, or if there isn’t motion in the kitchen at mealtime. You can also set up telehealth alerts if a health reading is “out of range”. Used in this way, GrandCare becomes a “no news is good news” system since staff are only notified when intervention is truly needed.
10. GrandCare can streamline the process.
Some of the things GrandCare does can be done with other devices, but it does one thing that none of them can: it puts them all on one interactive platform. So now your self-empowering supports, activity monitoring, telehealth monitoring, video check-ins and med reminders are all in one place for easy management.
https://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/man-brushing-teeth-2021-08-31-16-05-50-utc.jpg9491860info@lmcllc.ushttps://www.grandcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/grandcare-logo-300x138.pnginfo@lmcllc.us2023-05-22 13:59:432023-05-22 13:59:4310 Things Disability Care Management Professionals Need to Know About Enabling Technologies
GrandCare Presents at Smart Home Expo: Innovative Technologies For The Consumer in Philadelphia this October
Join us for the first-ever Smart Home Expo on October 26, 2023, hosted by OPEN MINDS. As part of the OPEN MINDS Technology and Analytics Institute, this day-long event is dedicated to recent advancements in smart home technology that support independent and community-based living for persons with disabilities and older adults. The expo will feature innovative smart home technologies -both general and specialized–used today by health and human service agencies to support independence in community-based living.
Our own director of U.S. sales, Scott Feldstein, and our director of implementation & compliance, Hans Cabrera, will be presenting at 3:15pm ET. We will discuss issues in the disability/aging services and how technology like GrandCare can address those concerns. Issues like:
About GrandCare
GrandCare Systems aims to reduce the staffing costs for disability and the aging population. Their touchscreen platform assists with cognitive needs, such as checklists, medication reminders, instructional videos, and more. The technology collects data through motion and telehealth sensors and alerts a remote support team. Learn more about how GrandCare Systems are reducing onsite caregiver hours, enabling independence, and cutting costs on staffing.
More info at OPEN MINDS.
What is Disability Pride Month?
In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA), which protects people with disabilities from discrimination, was passed. Disability Pride Month, observed every July, coincides with the passing of this landmark act.
Disability is a Large Minority Group
According to the CDC, 27% of the United States have some type of disability making them the largest and most diverse minority group. Those disabilities may include…
Why Disability Pride is Important
According to Easterseals, a nonprofit which provides disability services and support, “disability pride emerged in response to negative views of disability and to promote human rights. Many people view their disability as an integral part of who they are, rather than something that should be separated from their identity.”
We honor people with disabilities just as they are, as we continue to create and promote environments that conform to their needs and preferences rather than asking them to conform to the status quo. At GrandCare, we believe the best technology is the technology that works for everyone. We will continue to make our platform more and more accessible so that more and more people of various backgrounds and diversities can become part of the GrandCare family.
The Disability Pride Flag
Not familiar with the Disability Pride Flag? Here’s what it represents.
Source: Wikipedia
10 Things Disability Care Management Professionals Need to Know About Enabling Technologies
As a disability support professional, you already know a lot about enabling technologies. You may also know that the pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote support technology. Not only does remote supports and virtual visits keep supported people safe, it also has the benefit of helping with the current staff shortage so many agencies are experiencing. It also increases the independence and self-esteem of supported people.
What Are Enabling Technologies?
Enabling technologies are equipment or methodologies that support individuals’ independence in their homes. Devices can be as simple as a medication dispenser, a personal emergency response system, a smartwatch or smart fridge. Or, you may decide to opt in for a more fully-featured and robust solution like GrandCare Systems. GrandCare’s intuitive touchscreen interface provides your resident with self-supporting features such as cognitive assists, medication reminders, to-do task lists, routine check-ins, concierge service ordering and simple video chat features. Optional motion/door, lighting and telehealth sensors can be added to GrandCare for your staff to remotely monitor and assess the well-being of the resident.
But, how do you even get started? How does it work? What technology should you use? How would you actually integrate technology into your existing workflow model? These are all valid and important questions to answer. Here are 10 things disability support and aging service professionals should know about choosing enabling technologies for your organization.
What You Need to Know About Enabling Technologies
1. Assistive technology can mitigate staffing shortages.
Remote support technology allows fewer staff to support more people from a central location. Using a remote support model reduces windshield time and the time your staff spends waiting in someone’s home until such time they are needed. With GrandCare, your staff is engaged only when support is required. This allows fewer staff to support more people, plus the assistive technology can even help your residents to help and support themselves.
2. Investing in technology can save you money with a quicker ROI than you may expect.
In a study from Xavier University’s Department of Occupational Therapy, remote patient monitoring and telehealth technologies including the flagship platform, GrandCare Systems, showed increased client independence, reduced in-person caregiving hours, and cut staffing costs dramatically. LADD, a Cincinnati non-profit that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, opened a smart home for four people in 2020. The Xavier study showed that LADD was able to safely reduce in-person caregiving hours by 75%. Prior to GrandCare and remote monitoring technologies, the cost of supporting these four people was $5,260 per week. Supportive technologies slashed the support costs by over 50% to only $2,607 per week. This represents a cost savings of $2,653 per week. That’s $137,941 per year. LADD was able to recoup the cost of all of their smart home technology (yes, even including the smart fridge and sensory relaxation room) in only 9 months.
3. Assistive technology allows your staff to shift focus to residents with higher support needs.
Most agencies have residents that don’t need 24/7 in-person staff support and some that always will. Why not save your limited staff for those who really need it and use assistive technology to help support those who can support themselves? Automated cognitive assists, such as notifications to brush teeth or take medication, can be provided on GrandCare’s touchscreen and be checked off by the resident. When your staff doesn’t need to be physically present at all locations, they can devote more time to individuals with high support needs.
4. Technology can reduce demand avoidance.
Providers have shared anecdotal stories about residents who were often non-compliant and exhibited problematic behaviors while receiving in-person staff support. But when they began using GrandCare’s assistive technology to nudge the residents on daily tasks and med reminders, it empowered the resident’s independence and self-esteem, plus many of those behaviors largely disappeared. This new way of receiving support put the individual in the driver’s seat and gave them the autonomy they desired.
5. The residents LOVE to interact with it, resulting in better outcomes!
In order to fully succeed with self-supporting technology, it needs to be intuitive, engaging and fun to use. That’s why the GrandCare touchscreen includes engagement features including games, jokes, workout videos, music, live radio, audio books and on-demand video chat. Plus, systems can be customized based on the supported person’s interests like sports, art, religion and food.
6. Enabling technology supports in-person staff.
Even people who receive much of their support remotely sometimes need in-person staff time. While your DSP is present in the residence, they can use the GrandCare touchscreen to check in, document how long they were there, which services they provided, and leave notes about their visit for the next onsite caregiver (also accessible remotely to the rest of the support team).
7. Data collected can be used as a tool to see patterns and provide better support.
GrandCare is a fully-featured telehealth platform. GrandCare can monitor glucose, blood pressure, weight, temperature and oxygenation. It can prompt a supported person to take a required biometric reading, and then wirelessly track, trend and record it for the remote support team. Graphs of health data can be reviewed by the support team so that problematic readings can be addressed before they become health emergencies.
8. It can provide a sense of community.
GrandCare has several community-enhancing features. Supported individuals with a common interest can receive curated content and event notifications. A Community can be about anything: stargazing, movie buffs, people with diabetes, or everyone who lives in a specific location. Community messaging and calendaring and photo sharing are available. If you choose, you can even enable video chats between touchscreens.
9. Smart assistive technology can decrease alarm fatigue for your staff.
Only be alerted when something needs your attention. GrandCare can be programmed to only send alerts based on set parameters. For example, staff could be notified of unusual activities like the front door being opened in the middle of the night, or if there isn’t motion in the kitchen at mealtime. You can also set up telehealth alerts if a health reading is “out of range”. Used in this way, GrandCare becomes a “no news is good news” system since staff are only notified when intervention is truly needed.
10. GrandCare can streamline the process.
Some of the things GrandCare does can be done with other devices, but it does one thing that none of them can: it puts them all on one interactive platform. So now your self-empowering supports, activity monitoring, telehealth monitoring, video check-ins and med reminders are all in one place for easy management.
Want to learn more? Contact GrandCare for a free demo and consultation.