Enhancing safety and autonomy: the impact of access control

For aged care and retirement living providers, delivering their service can sometimes seem like a balancing act. Security for residents is a top priority, but they also need to ensure quality of life, operational efficiency and compliance with government regulations.

Security – residents need to know they are safe in their homes, and that unwanted visitors cannot enter. Their families want the peace of mind of knowing their loved ones are secure.

Quality of life – residents also need the independence, facilities, social interaction and care to live a happy and fulfilled life. They want to welcome visitors into their homes; they value social activities and shared facilities such as barbecue areas, swimming pool, gym, meeting rooms and gardens; they need to know that help is on hand in the case of an emergency.  

Operations and compliance – providers have the operational pressures of delivering a high quality service whilst struggling with staff shortages, managing costs, and showing they are compliant with the stringent regulations of the sector.

Addressing the challenge

Aged care and retirement village providers are therefore increasingly turning to smart access control  systems. Smart access control uses electronic locks, accessed with a keycard or fob.

SALTO is a leading global provider of smart access control systems. Their innovative technology takes the pain out of managing access for thousands of aged care and retirement living providers worldwide. It can be used across every part of a facility: outside on perimeter gates, car park barriers and main doors and internally for individual rooms, lifts, shared facilities and staff areas.

SALTO’s keycards and fobs are programmed for each individual user – so a resident can access their own room, but not staff areas; the medication room can be opened only by medical staff. When a user leaves or a fob/card is lost, the facility can revoke access in an instant, ensuring no security breach.

A user can be given access to an area for a limited time – such as when a resident books an activity area, or a contractor needs access for the duration of a job.

Wristband fobs mean residents don’t have to remember to carry keys, and can be used at a short distance from the lock, giving easy access to wheelchair users or those with limited mobility.

SALTO’s smart software provides an audit trail of who has accessed which areas – helping to show compliance with requirements such as frequency of visits to a resident’s room. It can be integrated with other systems, including nurse call, fire alarm, CCTV and room bookings. 

SALTO at UnitingSA West Lakes

UnitingSA’s West Lakes is a modern, purpose-built facility that combines aged care and a retirement village on different floors in the same building. UnitingSA involved SALTO from the very start of the project to ensure that smart access control was integral to the development. SALTO allows them to manage the very different access requirements of retirees, aged care residents and staff all though the one system. Operations Manager, Vivian Castro says “ Our top priority is security and ensuring our residents are safe. We also provide a wonderful range of facilities, and high quality care. The SALTO system helps us to manage access across the entire service.”

The users love the system – aged care resident Noreen Kitchen says: “It’s a brilliant system –  I can move around, but we all feel really safe here.”  John Wotton, a retirement living resident echoes the sentiment: “I feel very secure here, but I can still easily have visitors. The lift system brings them  directly up to my floor.”  

Smart access control is a must for aged care and retirement living providers – and SALTO is helping providers around the world to balance the demands of security, efficient operations and compliance with the best possible quality of life. This project was completed by SALTO Certified Partner, Voda Group.

To learn how SALTO systems can help you manage your aged care and retirement living facilities more efficiently, drop us an email at info.oceania@saltosystems.com or call on (03) 8683 9782.

Check out our full range and see other customer success stories at www.saltosystems.com.au