Technology Tuesday

A team of Imagine! employees, in conjunction with Joe Morelli, the Director of Strategic Planning and Internal Financial Review for Living Resources Corporation, and Laurie Dale, the Director of Information Technology for Ability Beyond, have been collaborating on a project for the last five months. The goal of the project is to create a site assessment tool for evaluating the technological needs of a residential environment.

The tool looks at accessibility features, health and safety, staffing efficiencies, and the regulatory process. This tool will help organizations identify, budget for, and prioritize existing technologies that will impact the site for greater client independents, documentation ease and accuracy, and increased safety.

The assessment will focus on the relationship between the ability level of the residents, the supervision requirements of the setting, historical patterning, present and future concerns, and particular technologies. Using those criteria, the tool will create a hierarchical report of specific technologies based on these areas of application: Health and Safety; Preventative; Accessibility; Remote Supports; Regulatory and Staff Supports; and Efficiency. Imagine! and our partners hope this tool will assist organizations to better access, determine, and understand technological applications that could benefit the people they serve, as well as support the Direct Care Professionals supporting them.

The first draft of the tool will be highlighted in a presentation by Imagine!’s own SmartHomes guru Greg Wellems at the Coleman Institute’s Fourteenth Annual Conference on Cognitive Disability and Technology this Thursday.