Lima Convalescent Home Foundation

THE CHALLENGE

Managing vaccine cards, test results, and contact tracing, as well as contending with a cumbersome paper-based screening process at the front desk.

THE OUTCOME

The Accushield solution eliminated risky paper processes and replaced them with technology and automation without creating risk to the facility. Most importantly, Accushield’s customizable and easy-to-use kiosk and mobile app took over the health screening process so that staff could get back to providing the quality care they do.

THE IMPACT

Families and residents feel safer with a kiosk-based screening system over the manual paper-based process.

It’s no secret that health screening requirements for senior living communities and nursing homes have sometimes been arcane and, at other times, simply difficult to keep up with. Whatever the case, they have added layers of manual work for providers. Front desk personnel have spent hours and hours of their already precious time ensuring that visitors, staff, and outside care providers write down their demographic information, respond to screening questions, and get their temperature taken each time they visit. This is no small task, especially in today’s already strained workforce climate.

In September of 2021, Jessica Trinko, executive director at Lima Convalescent Home Foundation in Lima, Ohio, decided that there must be a better way to comply with COVID health screening requirements while also reducing the overburden of the front-desk. After doing some research online, she found a solution in Accushield.

Goodbye Paper Logs

“I found that our paper logs were tough to read, while trying to figure out who had visited a resident at a given time was even harder,” Trinko says. “We needed to fix this and also do something about staff who were having to constantly assist with the screenings.”

Since the implementation of Accushield’s sign-in and health screening kiosk, Trinko says it has improved staff efficiencies and helped residents and staff feel more secure in the process.

“Accushield has 100 percent been worth the investment,” she says. “I can simply log into the online dashboard and look for residents, and it will give me an accurate account of who was here, when they were here, and whom they visited. Also, the very visible name badges helped our families and visitors feel more confident about who was in the building at any given time.”

Key Workforce Improvements

In addition to helping Lima with health screening requirements, the Accushield platform has also helped them improve staff efficiencies. “We have been able to shift our front-desk staff so that we no longer have to pull people just monitor the front door,” explains Trinko. “That means one less position that we are constantly trying to staff.”

It also gives those team members the ability to be more engaged with residents instead of having to watch the front door, she adds.

From a security standpoint, Trinko notes that it has also been a security booster among staff. The sight of the Accushield name badges, which are printed out at the kiosk upon check in, has also helped families and visitors feel safer.

“Our staff is trained to look for those screening badges, and if someone is able to get into the facility and walk past the kiosk, they are able to identify them as well. Accushield has made that visitor identification a lot easier,” Trinko says.

There’s an App for That

Although there was some initial hesitation among a few family members, Trinko reports that some are utilizing the Accushield mobile app. “I wasn’t sure if our visitors would understand how to download the app to their phone. But the fact that it remembers who you are makes it incredibly simple,” says Trinko.

Trinko reports that she has had “a lot of conversations with different families” who say they like the kiosk and the added security it brings. “I think they like it because they believe we are doing something; that we are proactive and taking health screening issues seriously,” she says.

As a bonus, Trinko believes that the electronic screening forces people to be a little more thoughtful about their answers, which ensures that they are cleared and safe to visit, she adds. “For me, it is so easy to print or download a report and send it off to the to the health department.”