TechTalks in CMMS

At the Together We Care conference, Steve from Evac Chair highlighted his company's evacuation chairs and power stair climbers. These essential devices safely evacuate individuals during emergencies, utilizing friction technology for easy operation. Steve shared compelling stories, including their chairs saving lives during 9/11 and a $26 million lawsuit against a school for not having one during a fire drill, underscoring their critical importance. The company offers free online training and ships worldwide.

In this video, Dan Roberge interviews Tenzin Woser, an Executive Director at REKAI, a long-term care home with two current locations, and a third under construction. Tenzin discusses the challenges of managing an older facility. She shares her 17-year journey with REKAI, starting as a nurse and progressing through various roles to her current leadership position, emphasizing the importance of dedication alongside formal courses. Tenzin also talks about REKAI's decade-long use of Maintenance Care software, explaining how she now uses it to monitor the completion of tasks and work orders, either by logging in directly, or reviewing scheduled reports.

In this video, Dan Roberge interviews Mark Seidenfeld, the representative for BCI Networks, a company focused on an "AI-driven care ecosystem." Seidenfeld explains that the elder care industry has traditionally relied on residents to signal when they need help, which is inefficient given that residents are there because they can no longer fully care for themselves. BCI Networks offers a solution that moves beyond the traditional "nurse call" system by automatically collecting comprehensive data on residents' daily activities and health metrics, such as sleep quality, movement within the facility, and activity levels. This proactive approach allows caregivers to identify potential health issues, and provide care before a resident experiences a problem, significantly improving the quality and efficiency of care.

In this video, Dan Roberge interviews Dylan Conley about Life Loop, a resident engagement and staff operations platform designed for senior living communities. Dylan explains that Life Loop streamlines workflows, saving staff time and improving the resident experience. He details how the platform is used by staff, residents, and family members, with features like daily updates via an app for families and AI-powered resident bios for personalized care. Dylan emphasizes the platform's adaptability to communities of all sizes, and discusses the impact of generative AI on simplifying complex tasks like activity scheduling and promoting value-based care, by proactively engaging residents, and addressing social determinants of health.

Antoine Karachekhlian talks about VTech, a Hong Kong-based company with three main divisions: contract manufacturing, educational toys (under VTech and LeapFrog brands), and telecom. At the "Together We Care" event, VTech is showcasing how their multi-cell SIP cordless phones integrate with nurse call systems in senior and extended care facilities, allowing alerts from pull cords to be sent directly to practitioners' phones, with the ability to build a mesh network for improved connectivity.

Dan was surprised to learn that Niklas isn't just testing, but soon implementing robotics technology in senior care homes. Niklas elaborated, explaining that these "helping robots" will take on fundamental tasks like food delivery and environmental cleaning. The core benefit, he stressed, is to free up human caregivers, allowing them more time for genuine "touches and interactions" with residents, which directly translates to better overall care.

Beyond day-to-day assistance, Niklas also highlighted the crucial role of robotic sensors in maintenance care, emphasizing their ability to provide live, real-time data. Dan conveyed considerable excitement about these advancements and expressed a keen interest in collaborating with Niklas on similar future projects.

This video features an interview with Edward Robeznieks about Surge, a company that provides an integrated platform for compliance-focused learning management, policy management, and quality and risk management. Robeznieks highlights Surge's significant brand recognition in Ontario, its growing presence in Western and Eastern Canada, and its commitment to creating content that helps organizations adhere to strict provincial regulations. He also discusses the company's strategy for expanding beyond Ontario, targeting rural hospitals and long-term care facilities in other provinces, while acknowledging the unique challenges of markets like Quebec due to government-provided training.

In this podcast, Dan talks with our special guest, Eric Igbokwe from Zephyr Staffing Solutions, a fully digital staffing platform that leverages AI to efficiently match healthcare facilities with qualified nurses and personal support workers (PSWs). When a healthcare professional registers, the platform uses APIs to verify their credentials, conduct digital ID verification, and perform interviews to ensure their information is genuine, and they meet all necessary requirements, including police and vulnerable sector checks. This thorough vetting process, handled by the platform, ensures that only the best candidates are presented to agencies. When a facility requests staff, the AI matches their specific criteria with registered professionals, and the system automatically notifies the best-matched candidate, moving to the next qualified individual if the first one declines.

As the administrator of an aging 151-bed Extendicare senior care home in Scarborough, Toby oversees a small maintenance team and utilizes the "Maintenance Care" software. A core policy mandates that all non-urgent maintenance requests be logged in the system; otherwise, they won't be addressed. However, significant issues such as severe leaks or structural failures are handled immediately and directly, bypassing the digital logging system. As one of the youngest administrators, Toby's main challenge is earning the trust of his more experienced team and securing their acceptance of his decisions, often needing to rely on logic rather rather than extensive personal experience.

In our continuing series of energy-saving solutions, we're joined by Neil Horne from Gold Leaf Energy. He's here to talk to us about a common but often overlooked issue: water scaling in your pipes. Let's dive in and check out what Neil has to say.