A home care service in Broomfield is using artificial intelligence to provide seniors with life-saving, around-the-clock care.
Griswold Home Care’s Westminster, Broomfield and Boulder locations offer their clients new technology that enables constant monitoring of the elderly – a unique approach that is already saving lives.
“It’s an additional layer of protection,” said Jim Middleton, owner of the Broomfield Griswold branch. “Customers can be confident that we can respond appropriately if something does happen.”
The technology, called Sensi AI, uses audio to monitor seniors and other care recipients. It can detect conversations as well as other noises and sounds. Middleton said that Sensi could detect, for example, if a client utters a curse word and then hears a loud bang, potentially detecting a fall. These high-level alerts are then reported to Griswold, who can track it and ensure the client’s safety.
“We get notified by phone call and text message and then we can listen to the high-level warning in an app on our phones,” he said. “So when it’s fall, we’re literally hearing that fall – and some of it is just heartbreaking.”
Operating in 32 states, Griswold provides non-medical home care services to Front Range seniors who need help managing in their homes. Services include personal care, housekeeping, companionship, and support for the sick or injured.
In a press release, Griswold CEO Michael Slupeck explained that Sensi.AI technology is connected to the wall and captures audio data to detect anomalies and thus “avoid unnecessary hospital stays.”
Sensi.AI can detect falls, physical ailments and cries for help, as well as identify early signs of cognitive decline, infections, medication errors and possible urinary tract infections, the press release states.
Middleton and his care team can check on the patient or call emergency services after listening to the recording and determining that something may be wrong.
On one such occasion, Middleton recalls, Sensi received a high-level alert at the home of a 92-year-old woman, and she did not respond to calls to confirm whether she was safe. When a caregiver arrived at her home, he found her fallen and lying unconscious on the floor.
“She had a brain hemorrhage and was taken to the hospital,” Middleton said. “She spent a few days in the hospital and was home shortly after. Her daughter thanks us to this day for saving her mother’s life.”
Even though personal emergency call systems like Life Alert allow people to make an emergency call at the touch of a button, Middleton said, they are reactive rather than proactive and therefore only work as well as they are used.
In one case, a client fell, hit his head, and was unable to get up. Sensi recorded the fall and his cries for help, and Griswold caregivers found him lying on the floor when they arrived.
“I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you turn on your Life Alert?’ and he said, ‘I didn’t even think about it, I forgot I had it on,'” Middleton said.
Sensi is offered to Griswold customers at no additional cost and is HIPPA compliant.
“Sensi is doing a lot of great things that can make a positive difference for our customers,” said Middleton.
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