Growing Demand for Wander Management in Assisted Living Facilities

As the baby boom generation becomes the assisted living boom generation, Accutech sees assisted living facilities increasingly interested in wander management systems to protect and accommodate residents who previously would have required a skilled nursing facility. Our Marketing Director Chris Konicek was recently quoted in an article for Long Term Living talking about this trend:

“[ALFs] are now adding memory care units or allowing residents who have some memory issues to stay,” Konicek says. “Say a husband and a wife come in, and one of them develops early onset dementia. They don't necessarily want to be separated, and the families don't want to move them to a skilled level of care and go through the process of removing them from one another. That is leading to more [ALFs] addressing the elopement question when it arises, instead of just immediately sending the resident to a skilled nursing facility [SNF].”

As assisted living facilities look to add resident protection systems, there is a strong need for adaptable turnkey solutions that easily integrate with existing systems (fall prevention, nurse call, CCTV, etc) at a cost that is not prohibitive.

“Our [LS2400] is an ID product that is based on an open-source concept,” Konicek says. “We’re basically eliminating the need for our software, eliminating the need for a computer. We can send our wandering and alarm information out to an existing system—most typically to a facility’s nurse call station. It’s a low price point, and it requires a lot less infrastructure.”