Dunwoody Village

It’s hard to find a trickier problem for long-term care providers than incontinence and toilet training management. Efforts by Dunwoody Village in Newtown Square, PA, to address the problem led the operator to the Gold Award in the Dignity category of the 2017 McKnight’s Tech Awards competition.

The continuing care retirement community adopted the MPower Rounding smartphone application to forecast times residents needed to use the bathroom, and to alert certified nursing assistants when to take the residents.

To make the program work, aides record information on a tablet at the bedside as to when residents went to the bathroom. The data then helps predict the next time the resident will need to go to the toilet.

“The CNAs are documenting whether the resident had a successful toileting trip or were incontinent,” said Brandon Jolly, Director of Health Services at Dunwoody. “Based on whether they were successful or not successful, the algorithm recalculates. It creates a new schedule for that particular resident.”

Mpower was able to validate a 71% reduction in incontinence with the participating residents. In addition to the reduction in incontinence, falls for these same residents dropped by 54%, as residents often fall at night when trying to reach the bathroom.

Jolly said improving the toileting program not only reflected a way to increase dignity for residents, but what the industry should expect.

“This is where medicine is moving: Not waiting to figure out what the needs are, but actually predicting,” he said. “Aides are proactively anticipating the needs of the residents, and customer service has improved.”

The mPower option also was more customizable and cost-effective than some other incontinence tracking options, he said.

The Village at Marymount in Garfield Heights, OH, was named the Silver winner for working with the Medtronic RESTORE Program to implement its FDA-approved treatment initiative for overactive bladder. The community is hoping the treatment will reduce incontinence by around 50%. It is using Medtronic’s bladder control therapy, delivered by NURO Percutaneous Tibial Neuromodulation. The therapy sessions are 30 minutes each for 12 weeks and involve stimulating the tibial nerve.

The Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing at Guilderland in Altamont, NY, earned Bronze in the category through creating a mobile app that gives residents more support. Whether they want another pillow, a room change or a different menu, they can make requests through the app. The community is using Samsung Galaxy smart tablets retrofitted with its applications and technology, and placed in every room for subacute admissions.

Kane Allegheny County Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Centers in Pennsylvania earned a Certificate of Merit for working with The Teepa Snow Organization, Highmark and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation to create a four-hour program for the Kane Network Drive. This program has been used to provide training to more than 900 Kane employees

Winners for the remaining McKnight’s Tech Awards category — Transitions — will be announced Monday. To read about the Innovator of the Year winners, which were announced Tuesday, click here. To read about the High Tech/High Touch winners, announced Wednesday, click here. For the Quality winners, which were announced Thursday, click here.

The McKnight’s Tech Awards program is sponsored by CareRise.