RCare has debuted a wireless call solution, titled the BCube Nurse Call Platform, specifically geared toward small skilled nursing and assisted living communities.
The product has been in development for two years, said RCare CEO Myron Kowal. RCare provides UL 1069 tested wireless nurse call and personal emergency response systems.
While small communities often desperately need an upgrade for their nurse call systems, cost has long been a barrier. There are roughly 8,000 U.S. skilled nursing facilities with fewer than 100 beds.
“That particular market is really cost-sensitive, but they need more modern metrics and capabilities,” Kowal told McKnight’s. Additionally,
the product was developed to have “ease of installation and operations.”
The BCube nurse station functions similarly to larger RCube products, reporting sensor information and alert status.
“You will not have to spend a lot of time training people,” Kowal said. “Most of the parts and pieces are wireless, and time inside the resident’s room is minimal.”
The response since the product’s release in January has been better than expected, he said. Even for small communities, data is critical for tracking response time and staff involvement. Additionally, those with multiple facilities can track different metrics.
“Now you can say, ‘We know when a call is placed and by whom,’ and how quickly it took them to get to the room and how much time they were there,” he said. “You can now put NurseCall in the palm of the hand of a caregiver and that is really powerful.”
“This opens up a huge market,” said RCare distributor Brian Gray of Special Care Systems. “I’ve had so many smaller communities ask me for better technology, but they simply couldn’t afford the big price tag.”
If a small campus expands and gets hundreds of additional beds, it can upgrade to one of the larger and more robust RCare solutions, the company noted.
From the March 01, 2017 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
