6 Week Free Trial to Avoid Hospital Admission
Oct 2015
Welcome
This is the 18th newsletter which provides updates on developments of the City Wide Care Alarms (CWCA) service and additional Telecare and Assistive Technology support in Sheffield.
In This Issue
- Debt recovery
- 6 week free trial to avoid hospital admission
- Lively
- Improved payment system
- New portable Epilepsy sensor
- Alternative to Flood detector and Magi-plug
Debt Recovery
CWCA tries to work with customers to recover money owed to the service. This enables the service to keep overall prices to everyone as low as possible.
There are many reasons why customers may get into debt with CWCA. The following is a brief example of what happened on one occasion:
We identified that two elderly sisters, who live together, were not paying their bills for their CWCA service.
Our Business Support Manager rang them and found out that they were not aware they were in debt, were quite upset about it and wanted to pay. Unfortunately, due to sight issues they were not able to read their bank card to enable them to pay over the phone.
Our manager managed to find out that they had a friend who normally helped them with groceries etc – so they gave us her contact details.
We explained the situation to her and she agreed to support them by making payments on their behalf over the phone to clear the debt. This friend also agreed to be their emergency contact on our system, as they didn’t currently have anyone allocated.
The final issue was then to sort out their direct debit, to ensure they didn’t have an accumulation of debt in the future. The Business Support Manager visited the sisters in their home to help them complete the direct debit forms.
Other ways in which we’ve helped people in the past are by arranging staged payments, so a large debt doesn’t have to be paid off all in one go.
Eligibility for 6 weeks free trial
Some people can have a free 6 week trial of the standard CWCA service, (i.e. this does not include any of the additional sensors).
For someone to be eligible for this they must have not received or experienced the CWCA service before and are either:
a) Being discharged from hospital or intermediate care or
b) Need the service to avoid an admission to hospital
In order to obtain the 6 week free trial, the referral must be made by a professional who can certify that one of the above cases applies.
Towards the end of the 6 week free trial the service user will be contacted by CWCA and asked if they wish to keep the service and start paying for it, or cancel the service and return the equipment.
Lively
At a recent Regional Telecare meeting Dr Malachy Rice gave a presentation on the Lively alert system.
This has similarities to the Just Checking system but also some significant differences.
The Lively system includes a waterproof safety watch, (which can be set to either an analogue or digital display) and includes a pedometer and medication reminders.
The system also includes a hub and sensors.
There is a low battery warning. Batteries should last approx 9 mths for the watch and 18 mths for the sensors.
Sensors can be attached to things such as the refrigerator door or a pill box.
Movement is recorded and communicated to a carer via mobile phone signal.
The carer can pre-programme expected movement of the sensors and lack of movement, against this expected activity can alert carer to possible problems.
The watch is geofenced so can tell the carer when the service user has left the property.
Sensors are waterproof so could also be attached to shower door. Other ways they’ve been used are: attached to curtains to record opening and closing, attached to a dog lead to record taking the dog for a walk and attached to the toilet ballcock to record flushing of the toilet.
The system is monitored by Carelink.
Used in this way the sensors can record actual activity, rather than simply movement in an area.
A record of activity is kept which can be accessed by an appropriate person.
Dr Rice has offered a Lively system to be tested and evaluated in Sheffield.
If any organisation is interested in taking up this offer, has the service users or patients the system could be used with and has the staff time to undertake and produce a written evaluation, (which may be circulated in this newsletter), please contact Mark Johnson via e-mail on .
Changes to CWCA payment systems
City Wide Care Alarms (CWCA) support staff have recently taken on an additional role to help provide a better service to customers.
Previously payments over the phone would have to be passed to another Council section, which meant the customer would have to wait to be put through and sometimes had to be called back, if staff weren’t available to take the call.
CWCA staff can now take the payment themselves, rather than delaying the customer by passing them on to someone else, thus providing a smoother and more efficient process for them.
New portable Epilepsy sensor
Alert-it have recently launched the ‘Companion Mini’, the latest addition to their range of epilepsy monitors and alarms.
The digital, wireless, movement sensor is currently the smallest monitor of its kind on the market, sitting comfortably in the palm of your hand.
The sensor is placed under the mattress and is able to identify seizure induced movements whilst ignoring sleep activities. It then alerts a user’s pager via the Alert-iT Safelink Radio System.
The movement sensor has a battery life of at least a year, whilst the pager has a range of 450 metres and a battery life of 3 days, but can still be used whilst charging. The pager also continuously monitors that it is in range of the monitor.
As there are no wires with this system, it means the user is free to transport the device with them, whether for nights away or to take on holiday.
More information is available from
Alternative to flood detector and Magi-plug
During presentations about Telecare given by City Wide Care Alarms, two options are discussed for controlling flooding in a property when someone leaves water taps running with the plug in. These are CWCA flood detector and a Magi–plug.
However both of these can have their drawbacks.
The flood detector actually needs a flood, as its sensors pick up water on the floor.
The Magi-plug, whilst usually controlling the level of the water and so stopping a flood, does not give a verbal warning, so it continues to empty the user’s hot water down the drain.
When explaining these, people have sometimes asked if there was another alternative. We recently came across this:
This appears to be a water level detector that plays a pre-recorded warning message once the water level in your bath or sink etc, reaches a specific height. There is a 2 metre cable which runs from the sensor, presumably to the voice alarm, but it also sends a signal to a radio pager. (Presumably the cable would have to be laid in such a way to avoid tripping hazards etc.)
Unfortunately this unit cannot be incorporated into the general CWCA service so it would have to be bought separately, but for some situations it may be more appropriate than the other options available.
If anyone can feedback on the performance and pros and cons of this equipment, we’d be interested to hear, just e-mail Mark Johnson at the e-mail address below.
Any Comments/Questions/Suggestions?
For more information, to request a presentation, suggest a subject for a future article or to submit a case study for future newsletters contact Mark Johnson via email on .