About Birmingham Green
Birmingham Green (BHG) is a not-for-profit long term care facility located in Manassas Virginia. They have been providing high quality short-term and long-term care to seniors and adults since 1927. BHG has three buildings, including Willow Oaks, District Home Assisted Living and their Health Care Center building.
Challenge & Solution
With over 100 residents to care for and state mandated COVID-19 restrictions that kept residents isolated, Birmingham looked for a new way to keep residents connected, improve cognitive
health, and improve the overall moral of the facility. The solution was resident tablets. These tablets provide residents with entertainment, a way to communicate with others and stay up to date with the community.
Strategy & Approach
Birmingham Green selected Resident Tablets because the dashboard was 100% customizable to the individual needs of their community. Large picture-based icons make it easy for residents to navigate through apps and features, with a variety of entertainment options.
Touch sensitive screens are extremely senior friendly and a closed looped dashboard assures security. Additionally, the mobile tablets came with a protective case and a wireless keyboard. Birmingham is planning an ‘Innovation Center’ for the residents where they will be exposed to the latest technology for them to explore. The vision behind the Innovation Center is to improve resident’s cognitive health and provide them with the tools to keep them connected with family and friends.
Designing the Tablets
Symtech Solutions custom designed the Resident Tablets to the feature requests of Birmingham staff and residents. Vivian Coda, the Life Enrichment Manager and Christina Cole, the Life Enrichment Director work closely with the residents and have a good idea of their interests and hobbies.
Birmingham selected multiple “pages” for the residents including Community, Connect, Games, Entertainment. The Community page has features like activity schedule, weather, rotating food menus and other important community information. The Connect page included various apps for seniors to communicate with friends and family. The Games page consisted of multiple games, like Trivia and Entertainment consisted with different entertainment apps, such as Netflix. A full list of Birmingham’s apps and features are detailed at the end of the case study.
Delivering the Tablets
Before giving the tablets to residents, the BHG team created a plan to disburse them in a phased deployment. Vivian hosts the “Resident’s Council” meeting where she provides community updates and where residents can voice their thoughts and concerns. Vivian announced to the residents that they are receiving personal tablets and residents were ecstatic.
Upon delivery, Symtech programmed the tablets and connected each tablet to the Wi-Fi network and trained staff on the tablets. Vivian assigned the tablets to residents and got them acquainted with the tablets. Any remaining tablets were kept in a mobile charging cart for residents to sign out on a day-to-day basis.
Resident Impressions
Residents immediately took to the tablets with little explanation and training. Vivian mentioned that “some residents had very little to no experience with tablets and it was quite surprising how fast they picked them up”. Vivian reflected on how awesome it was to see some residents who initially resented the idea of tablets now enjoy using them with others.
The most popular features are games specifically Bingo, Oldies Radio, Pluto TV and YouTube. Additionally, residents enjoy viewing their emails with the tablets and using wireless keyboards. One resident is using the resident tablet to write their own book and really enjoys the ease of the keyboard.
"Some residents carry their tablets everywhere they go!"
Vivian Coda - CTRS Resident Experience Manager
Family Impressions
Resident families are very happy that Birmingham is providing tablets to keep residents informed, involved in activities of choice, entertained, and connected to loved ones. They have ease of mind knowing that Birmingham is dedicated to investing in resident’s mental, emotional and physical care. These tablets also offer the potential of telehealth features for residents.
Results and Future Plans
Since introducing the tablets, Vivian has seen a positive influence on residents’ moral and overall improving their time at Birmingham Green. BHG believes with increased brain activity that there will be a positive influence on the resident’s cognitive health. Games, movies, news, YouTube, music, Facebook, activity schedule, personal calendars, etc. provide increased brain activity and the opportunity for residents to stay independent, connected, involved and learning.
Future plans for the Resident Tablets include a fully automated system that gives residents the ability to request maintenance, cleaning services, food and more.
“The tablets help comfort residents, keeping them involved and active when no activities are happening.”
Vivian Coda - CTRS Resident Experience Manager
“The tablets help comfort residents, keeping them involved and active when no activities are happening.”
Vivian Coda - CTRS Resident Experience Manager