A large care centre based in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire required the installation of a care system for their new tenant block. The Centre specialises in the fields of epilepsy, associated neurological disorders and other complex medical conditions. The Centre also provides for children within the autistic spectrum and provides residential care in small group homes for 105 adults in purpose built modern buildings, including respite care. The Centres unique requirement for specialised audio monitoring meant that standard off-the-shelf call systems did not fit the bill. B.L.Acoustics have been assisting the Centre and maintaining their current systems for many years and have developed and installed 5 systems to serve new residential blocks as the Centre has grown and developed. The latest new block has been fitted with the latest version of the BLA86 Tenant Care System.
The BLA86 Tenant Care System is a dual function unit designed to present one central listening console for multiple remote rooms. The system mixes the audio for audible monitoring and provides a visual representation of room activity to allow staff to effectively pin-point events that may need intervention. To further help the monitoring staff, audio triggering is used to highlight rooms where occupants have generated noise levels that may be associated with a medical situation. A manual call facility is also provided in each room to manually alert the monitoring staff at the central consol. This same call facility can be used to interface third-party equipment such as door alarms, movement sensors or bed wetting sensors. The consol presents an intuitive touchscreen control panel to enable easy to use functionality.
Talkback is provided for the central attendant to confirm a status with the room. The system is primarily audio and call based. The audio triggering relies on the patient making a significant noise which activates the system automatically providing room indication and hands free speech from the room. The system audio sensitivity and threshold level is adjustable by the user via the touchscreen control panel.
At the heart of the system is an all-in-one PC unit that runs the control software and presents the GUI to the user. All control information is communicated via standard IT networking equipment to allow for future upgrades or replacements. The bedhead interface is a modular unit that acts as the interface between each room bedhead. Each channel is connected to the bedhead via a single pair screened cable. There is an audio output for each channel and an ethernet interface used for communicating status and control data. All necessary audio processing such as filtering, mixing and level triggering are carried out by high performance audio DSP units which communicates sound levels and triggers to the touchscreen interface. The Bedhead panels are robust flush mounted units which can be custom finished to suit the decor. These are situated next to the residents bed and incorporate the sensors which allow the nursing station to hear what is happening in that location and is capable of triggering the detector panel back at the nursing centre.
