Residents in group homes with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at great risk of injuring themselves from falls. Most falls occur when individuals are trying to get out of bed.
Our team worked with Lifetime Assistance, Inc. in Rochester, NY to develop a solution that provides support professionals a more accurate & less intrusive system for automatic alerts when a resident is attempting to get out of bed.
Staff should be able to reach the resident within 15 to 30 seconds, with as minimal false positive alerts as possible.
Our group's skillsets included Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Industrial & Systems Engineering, and Industrial Design.
We were given two days to work with our client representative, ideate, model, prototype and present.
Working Prototype:
Our mini prototype works with the same technology currently being used by Lifetime Assistance. The machine says "number 2", indicating that the patient in room 2 is attempting to get out of bed.
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Process
Design Criteria:
- Eliminate false positives
- Only alert when actually trying to get off the bed (not just moving around the room)
- Should not alert when support staff come to clean, make bed, etc.
- Waterproof
- Reduce replacement costs
- Non-intrusive, no stimulation overload
- Automatic: If support staff need to turn the system off whenever they come into the room, there are chances of forgetting to turn it back on.
- A solution that preferable does not require modifying existing furniture
Technology Feasibilities
Competitive Benchmarking
Business Model
Current Annual Cost / bed: $400
Estimated Production Costs / device: $10
Retail Cost / device: $40
Estimated Device Lifespan: 2.5 years
Devices per bed: 2
Number of beds: 919,559
