Project Overview 

Many healthcare and assisted living facilities use fixed location emergency calls (i.e. the emergency call system by a bed in a hospital used to alert the nurse’s station). Mobile emergency devices are generally monitored and handled through a third party rather than the on-site staff. Our proposed project is to create a mobile emergency call system which would determine who needed help and where they are. This can be used to decrease response times and increase the amount of critical care that residents of a nursing home could receive.

A mobile response system is useful for a nursing home to better assist their residents. In a nursing home environment not every patient is monitored all the time. Even with nurses making scheduled rounds, there may be situations where immediate attention is needed. For instance, consider the case where a resident falls out of their bed or falls down and cannot reach the call button. If the resident recently had surgery, or if the fall causes them to fracture/break a bone, immediate attention is required. This is where the mobile call button fills the gap. It can alert a nurse that help is needed regardless of where the resident is and what the situation may be.

M.E.A.D. does not intend to be a solution to reduce the amount of staffing that nursing homes maintain. It hopes to act as a helper technology to provide a better standard of care for residents.