As matriarchs and patriarchs age, families look to senior living communities to provide the assistance, socialization, and, most importantly, safety that independent living lacks. While community management teams undoubtedly understand the importance of maintaining safety standards, focus on programs, resident medical assistance, and day-to-day housekeeping tasks can monopolize the time and attention of management. The three simple measures below can be huge in ensuring your community stays safe and secure.
- Proper Community Lighting
The leading cause of injury in senior and assisted living communities is resident falls. While there can be many factors at play—strength and fitness, health issues, etc.—appropriate lighting is a simple change that can go a long way. Both indoors and outdoors, improper or dim lighting can lead to falls or injury from low visibility, so maintenance of bright-shining blubs should become a priority if it isn’t already. From minor carpet tears to stray items in hallways and paths, the simple addition of stronger and more regular fixtures helps to ensure all possible hazards are avoided.
- Visitor Management Tool
Growing resident populations bring increased community foot traffic in the form of family, friends, and third-party vendors. While vital in allowing residents the freedom and quality of life they desire, more traffic leads to the inevitable possibility of risk and liability for the community—particularly from third-party organizations and providers. Rather than fill in a paper sheet upon arrival in a community, a simple, digital sign-in kiosk, like Accushield, can help decrease this risk. Aimed at providing peace of mind for residents, families, and management, the data-driven system confirms proper credentials and background checks and supplies verified identification badges to vendors upon arrival. Communities can keep track of who is in their complex at any given time, without any extra hassle for management.
- Flooring Maintenance
Flooring goes hand-in-hand with lighting. All carpets, tiled floors, and laminate should be as flat and low-pile as possible. Be sure to avoid shaggy or textured rugs, as well as slick and potentially slippery flooring—all surfaces should be safely accessible for any residents using walkers or wheelchairs. Anything that could possibly be a tripping hazard should be avoided, including dislodged tiles or peeling laminate. Regular inspection of these walkways is a simple step toward resident safety.
