10 New Products in Year 10 – The Notifier

02/03/23

This year we will be celebrating our 10th birthday. To celebrate, we are launching 10 new products. The first of which is the Notifier, a pager designed for the digital future. New. Not just improved.

Our first pager, the Buzzz, enabled carers, in a one-to-one or a larger setting, to be notified when a Telecare sensor was activated. Whilst the Buzzz has been successful, we used this time to learn limitations and innovations that were truly needed in as many circumstances as possible. Understanding how the Buzzz was used in both informal and formal care settings allowed us to develop true innovation in the Notifier pager.

One limitation to pagers on the market, including our Buzzz, was the ability to offer a security blanket to those who were mainly relying on carers in their own home. With a stand-alone solution, what would happen if the person being supported needs help if their carer has popped out? What if the carer themselves needed support? This led us to develop the divert functionality, allowing families and carers to have the choice to care in the first instance, but gives the reassurance that a call can be diverted to a dispersed unit should the Notifier not be acknowledged. The length of time a call takes to divert can be easily set on the Notifier, or a carer can let the device know they are going to be away so the call goes through to the monitoring centre straight away. Our SOS button also gives the ability for the carer to raise a call for help to the monitoring centre, where it can be identified that it is the carer requesting support and appropriate action can be taken.

We also recognised that there is a place for a wireless pager in other settings, such as care homes and supported living. Features built into the Notifier have been designed with these types of organisations in mind too. The pager can be personalised to build around the needs of the care home and multiple Notifiers can be used in one space. There are many different scenarios to show how the Notifier can be set-up. In a smaller care home, two devices may be needed, one to be carried around the home, whilst the other charges. As the Notifier can store up to 150 sensors, programming these could be time consuming, so we have created a clone feature. This feature means that settings and sensors only need to be programmed into one device, to save time and remove the risk of errors. In larger settings, two Notifiers, or more, may be used simultaneously. It may be that sensors from one half of the property go to one Notifier in the first instance, but if they don’t acknowledge the alarm in a set-time frame, the divert functionality can be used to notify a carer on another Notifier. If a carer has an emergency to deal with, they can set their Notifier to ‘away’ so that it automatically diverts to another Notifier to ensure the response time is as quick as possible for the resident.

Where a sensor needs to alert every Notifier, for example that the front door has been opened, every member of staff can be notified. As soon as an available member of staff acknowledges the notification, the auto-clear function means all calls will be cleared on other devices, as well as advising which Notifier has responded.

We have also addressed other technical aspects including introducing an intuitive, modern interface, making it an intelligent, adaptable system that is easy to install and use too. We have introduced wireless charging to remove the risk of issues with charging cables and contacts and the casing is splash-proof to reduce the impact of water damage.

The Notifier has been trialled with many customers and their users widely, in many different circumstances over the last 18 months, and has been adapted and improved as a direct result of the feedback we’ve received. We are passionate about developing equipment and features that are genuinely needed.

We are a person-centred organisation who want to listen to the needs of our customers and their users, and develop equipment in partnership with them all. We believe that choice is important to everyone, and we believe the interoperability of the Notifier, as well as the vast abilities to personalise, will provide much more choice. Our Notifier will give the opportunity for more families to become independent, with the reassurance that monitoring centres can support them where necessary. For more formal settings, we are confident that we have been able to design something that can be introduced to support care, without introducing an expensive hard-wired system. The development has been alongside the people who will use our devices on a daily basis, and they have been our partners in designing the features to drive this innovation.

The customers who have tested and continue to evaluate the device, are a demonstration that we have been able to deliver what has been missing. To find out for yourself, get in touch today.

www.we-cair.com/notifier

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