Case Study: Helping Social Workers Better Monitor People with Disabilities (Part 2 of 3)

Once these units were in place with the developmentally disabled consumers now living independently, caregivers and social services workers used them in three ways--

1. The caregivers and workers were able to login to each system via the web (using a secure log-in and password), to see the current status of all sensors, and the history of each sensor. Note that this is without regard to whether the system was in an armed or unarmed state; in point-of-fact, these systems are almost never armed, except when the residential unit was empty for prolonged periods of time. However, the Alarm.com system was able to track and archive every sensor event, all the time.
   
   
2. Case Managers, caregivers and support staff configured each system with a few mouseclicks to send, to an agreed upon contact list, real-time email and cell phone notifications in case anything was amiss-- for example, using the Alarm.com web dashboard, one worker set a rule saying email and text-message her and her supervisor if the front door was ever open after 10 pm or before 6 am, at a particular residence, any day of the week. And each system was set to send to key personnel a "power out" email/cell message in real-time, as well as a "power restored" email/cell message.
   
   
3. The case managers are able to use the electronic reporting features of Alarm.com to easily and rapidly compile needed weekly or monthly data to update the consumer’s care plan, for submission to various state and Federal agencies, as well as for other involved caregivers, while adhering completely to privacy standards.

The funding for this program (including the hardware and the small recurring monthly charges for the systems) came from approved Medicaid Waiver plans, relating to what is called "CIP"-- Community Integration Programs.

In Green Bay, providers and case managers have determined they manage four (4) to five (5) times more people with disabilities living independently in “Supported Home Care” than without the Alarm.com system, and in a more effective manner in terms of support and independent living.

Caregivers especially liked the following--

• The fact that while at their desk Monday-Friday they received emails from Alarm.com on truly noteworthy events (called "notifications"), but on nights and weekend they supplemented this with cell phone text messages-- as they did not then necessarily have easy access to email.
  
  
• The fact that no phone line was required for the system to work-- not all residential units had phone lines all the time, so this proved to make it far easier to implement the program. Further, no re-wiring was necessary for existing homes and apartments, because all the sensors communicate with the GE Simon base unit wirelessly.
  
  
• The system’s rule-setting capability (called "Custom Threat Alerting")-- for example, one caregiver ALWAYS wanted to know if a residential unit's back door was ever open, but only wanted to know if the front door was open after dinner or before breakfast, any day of the week. Another caregiver wanted a notification when the front door opened in the morning (resident off to work), and when the front door opened in the afternoon (resident returns from work). Finally, the motion sensors were routinely “watched” via the web to ensure a given resident was up and about during relevant times.
  

Where needed, panic pendants were deployed to residents, but generally were not set to call “911,” but rather the phone tree of indicated support personnel in the Alarm.com dashboard. Typically bringing on the emergency vehicles with the sirens and the flashing lights is not desired unless truly necessary, but residents wanted the comfort of knowing they can get rapid assistance if and as needed from anywhere in their home at the touch of a button.

[this is Part 2 of 3; to be concluded Thursday of this week]