List of Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the benefits of a wireless emergency call system?
- Do wireless systems provide reliable range and coverage throughout a facility?
- What are the benefits of management reports?
- What are the benefits of the LCD on the Main relay at the computer station?
- Why be cautious when purchasing a call bell system through the general contractor?
- Why are replaceable batteries important?
- Why is remote access so important?
- How does Code Blue/White work?
What are the benefits of a wireless nurse call system?
When upgrading an existing system
When facilities upgrade an aging hard-wired nurse call system with a wireless one, the main benefit at installation is that the new wireless system can be installed independently of the existing system. It can be completely installed and tested before it is cut over into service without having to tolerate the time delay and incredible mess typical of wired installations. There also could be environmental concerns such as creating dust and possibly disturbing more harmful compounds. With wireless, there is no downtime as one system is placed in service and the other is simply disconnected.
When replacing a hard-wired system with another hard-wired system, you must decide if you will keep the 15 to 20-year old wiring, if it is compatible with the new system, or you will replace the wiring. Both options mean a piecemeal installation. If you decide to keep the old wiring, it means that the old bed stations and pull cords have to be removed so that the new ones can be installed using the old wiring - and the wiring at the equipment end must also be moved from the old to the new equipment. If you decide to replace the old wiring, then it means that the old wiring must all be removed from the conduits before the new one is installed, a messy and time consuming option that must be done one room at a time. Both options will require many hours and downtime, as well as some inconvenience to each and every resident. And a point to keep in mind is that a large part of the cost for the new system will be towards extensive labour vs. acquiring the latest technology equipment.
When building a new facility
The time and money saved from not having to purchase and install conduit and wiring at your new facility, most often at union electrical rates, can be used to purchase the latest in wireless technology. If the emergency call system needs to serve more than one building, the Telealarm system requires only one pair of a single CAT-5 wire between buildings. As well, with a wireless system, a number of other peripherals can be added seamlessly at any time, as need be.
Wireless systems give all the functionality of a hard-wired system with the added benefit of complete flexibility and mobility. They can cover residents wherever they move about in the facility; residents do not have to be in reach of their bed station or have to crawl to a bathroom pull cord as is the case with a hard-wired system. Or when residents move in, they may not want their bed against the wall that you selected to install a bed pull cord.
After the initial installation
The Telealarm emergency call systems are true plug & play systems. Additions and changes to your system in future will be both easy and considerably less costly than those with a hard-wired system. If you need an additional pull cord in a common area or if you want to move one, it is a simple operation that your own maintenance staff can do since no wiring is involved. Changes in the database can also be done by your staff or we can do it remotely from our offices. The same would apply if you want to rearrange a resident's room or change a private room to a semi-private one.
Adding a level of care
As an Independent Living facility, you might decide to add an Assisted Living floor to better serve your residents as they age or market conditions change. With a Telealarm emergency call system, it can be as simple as adding some pull cords in the residents' rooms and common areas, and redirecting the Calls for Help alarms to the pagers of the aides on the Assisted Living floor.
The ‘wire free’ nature of the system allows the call button/pull cords or other transmitters to be installed and then re-installed in any required location, without the need for a service call.
In summary, a BOSCH wireless emergency call system means:
- Minimum installation effort
- Cost-effective solution for modernizing, expanding and for new construction
- Can be easily extended at any time
- High reliability through periodic self tests
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Do wireless systems provide reliable range and coverage throughout a facility?
Telealarm call buttons have exceptional range. In most cases, their signals in facilities can reach the NurseCall relay units within a spherical area with a radius of at least 75 feet, through walls and floors. When a relay unit is placed near outside walls or near windows, signals from a call button can also reach some 250 to 350 feet outdoors. This can provide coverage to parking areas, between buildings, the patio and for your residents who enjoy the outdoors, in your courtyard or to a gazebo. The quality and reliability of the transmitters are also a factor in enabling them to provide solid signal strength through concrete or steel construction, older buildings with thick foundations, elevators and stairwells.
But don’t take our word for it! See for yourself. Whenever we do a presentation of our product, we test the range in your existing facility. You get to see a live system and satisfy yourself that call button alarms are reaching to all corners throughout your facility. The Telealarm Main relay also displays the signal strength every time you press a call button, to ensure that every call in future from that location will come through. For a new facility under development, we estimate the range based on the dimensions on your floor plans and always do a physical test when walls are up, to confirm total coverage. In addition, all BOSCH equipment is supervised to ensure that it is always functional. For these reasons, we are confident to guarantee you no blind spots.
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What are the benefits of management reports?
Telealarm equipment with computerized monitoring provide you with user-friendly and useful reporting capabilities. It allows you to see how fast your staff is responding to calls and which residents are calling for help the most. Just as important as the reports themselves is the ease with which they can be produced. With the eCall software, a single click on the Events tab displays both the active and recent alarms along with the time at which they came in, the level of escalation that was required before they were reset, and the staff response time.
Reports showing similar information can be saved to a PDF file for emailing purposes or to be printed. This can be done from the ecall computer, from any other computer in the facility, or even off-site.
What are the benefits of the LCD on the Main relay at the computer station?
The LCD on the Main relay at the computer location serves two purposes. The first is as an aid when doing programming such as adding transmitters to the system. The LCD guides you through the process and provides you with a visual confirmation at every step.
The second purpose of the LCD in the Main relay is to provide a backup in the event of a computer system failure or power outage. During such an event, the Telealarm Main relay will continue to receive the resident alarms, emit an audible alarm and display the room number of the resident requesting assistance on its LCD screen. Effectively, the LCD screen on the Main relay provides you with a downgraded system similar to the old annunciator-type nurse call system.
And, in a facility which does not have a backup generator, the Main relay will continue to display all of the alarms activated by the residents for 24 hours, because the Main and Local relays all have 24 hours of battery backup.
Why be cautious when purchasing the call bell system through the general contractor?
The normal process when purchasing the emergency call system through the general contractor is for the electrical subcontractor to provide the system. Most electrical contractors do not specialize in emergency call systems and as a result you may very likely end up with the least expensive hard-wired pull cord system on the market with a high percentage of the cost being for the conduit and wiring required for the hard-wired system. In addition, at the time when the general contract is awarded, the day-to-day operation of the facility may not have been finalized, which makes it difficult to specify the requirements for the emergency call system at such an early stage.
The cost of an emergency call system included as part of the general contract usually 'goes up' dramatically if it needs to be upgraded and 'goes down' dramatically if the decision is made to remove it from the general contract. One way to safeguard against this, if it is to be quoted as part of the general contract, is to either simply specify an allowance for the emergency call system or get an actual cost breakdown for it This way, should you decide in future to purchase the system outside the general contract, the cost has already been established.
From a service point of view, electrical contractors that do not specialize in emergency call systems might not stock spare parts, or have the technical expertise, or offer 24/7 service that senior living facilities depend upon. Unlike fire alarm systems, emergency call systems are used 24/7 and are tools that can give you efficiency gains while providing superior service to your residents. As an owner or operator, choosing the lowest initial cost system can haunt you years down the road.
For almost twenty years, we have specialized exclusively in providing emergency call systems to the senior living community. As a result, our customers benefit from the innovative technology and flexibility of the products that we offer and from our experience in matching these with your needs.
Why are replaceable batteries important?
Despite wear and tear, portable pendants will outlast their battery life by a number of years. This is the reason why you want to purchase portable call buttons with batteries that can be replaced by your own staff. Otherwise, with portable call buttons in the cost range of $100, a facility with 100 of them could be spending $10,000 every 3 to 5 years to replace call buttons that could still be functional for quite a while yet. Since these expenses will be coming out of the operational budget, you don't want to base the purchase of an emergency call system solely on the initial front-end cost. Verify also that the type of batteries used are readily available from sources other than the emergency call distributor.
The combination of the Telealarm system and eCall software will monitor the battery level and inform the staff when a threshold is reached to allow your staff to manage battery changes in a systematic way.
Why is remote access so important?
It allows us to immediately diagnose problems, assist your staff in adding or moving call buttons, change escalation times, add or modify where and when notification of Call for Help alarms are directed and all without on-site visits. Things can get done in a matter of minutes as opposed to scheduling an on-site service call.
We can install software patches and updates as well without having to go on-site. Bottom line, this can eliminate costly or unneccessary service calls.
Equally important, an administrator or director of care can monitor how well staff is responding to Call for Help alarms, in real time, at any time, or to obtain details on specific events from his/her own computer, on-site or off-site. Similarly, it can be a very powerful management tool for a head office to monitor their facilities' operations.
How does the Assistance Alarm work?
– a Code Blue/White type of alarm for Staff Assistance in facilities
Until now Telealarm offered a staff assistance alarm by using their N46 transmitter, used mostly in LTC facilities. If upon arriving in a resident’s room, the staff requires additional help or encounters a violent situation, a call for assistance could be sent by pressing the BLUE button, thereby automatically initiating a “code blue” alarm at the monitoring station.
The pagers would actually show for example, ‘Staff needs assistance’ and the location of the N46 transmitter. They could also alert different or additional staff.
Now magnetic reset portable call buttons and pull cords can also offer the same advantages
For example, in the residents’ bathrooms, whenever the button is pressed or the pull cord is activated, a Call for Help alarm will be transmitted to the computer screen and again on to the pagers. It will indicate both the room number and that it is a Call for Help from the bathroom, for example: “Bathroom, Room 304”.
These bathroom alarms can be reset by swiping a magnet over top of the LED indicator light. For convenience, we normally attach a magnet to the pull cord knob.
If upon responding to a resident’s call for help, a PSW realizes she needs her colleagues’ assistance with the resident or faces a violent situation, she clears the alarm and represses the call button within 5-30 seconds or so and the message will be sent to pagers showing “staff needs assistance”. Although regular call alarms are usually transmitted only to the staff looking after a particular wing or floor, the Assistance Alarm can also be transmitted to other pagers such as the RPN or RN. You decide who should respond to these Assistance Alarms.