SmartCore for Care Homes
Improve care home residents sleep patterns, moods, and health with SmartCore – amBX’s smart building lighting solution.
In care homes and care facilities, the correct lighting is vital to ensure sufficient illumination of rooms but also to create a human-centric lighting environment that is focused on the health and wellbeing of residents and caregivers.
Smart lighting solutions can be adapted to suit circumstances that can significantly improve the quality of life in a care home. The sophisticated smart building system can automatically adapt, ensuring care home residents have the right light level and also takes into account increased sensitivity to glare. Smart lighting solutions can compensate for inadequate amounts of daylight, helping to stabilise the human circadian rhythm, set residents body clock, create a safe environment and foster a sense of wellbeing.
What are the important factors of Care home lighting?
Lighting levels
The 24-hour lighting cycle follows a regular pattern. It starts in the morning with the highest light levels, which are significantly above normal indoor lighting levels. Between 7 am and 10 am, the algorithm uses precise spectral control, broadly equivalent to a CCT range of 6000K to 8000K; this looks like a cool white light with strong blue content.
The colour mix is then blended during the day to taper the blue content component towards the afternoon and then faded out for the late afternoon and evening, whilst maintaining as close as possible to a white light that appears much warmer. Brightness levels are also reduced in a carefully calibrated pattern from the early morning high.
After around 4 pm, the algorithm shifts towards an evening colour blend setting with a warmer white colour. Later in the evening, it will move into the night-time setting at the warm end of the spectrum with reduced intensity levels.
Lighting design
Lorraine Calcott is an experienced lighting designer who works closely with amBX to perfect the design of circadian lighting in each install. Lorraine specifies that full-spectrum lighting works not only with our emotional responses to light but also on our biological response, helping reset and maintain our body’s circadian rhythms.
Introducing SmartCore – our smart lighting solution for care home environments
SmartCore is a smart building platform that provides sophisticated lighting software that makes buildings smart and adaptable.
One of the main features of SmartCore is advanced circadian lighting, which supports human biological cycles the same way as natural light. It’s proven to make people healthier and happier.
What are the benefits of SmartCore smart lighting solutions in Care Homes?
· Good for resident and employee health and wellbeing
· Scalable solution, from 1 room to multiple homes
· Energy-efficient technology, saving you money
· Easily integrated with systems and devices such as NurseCall systems
· Sensor management and information at your fingertips
· Designed to work with multiple lighting and device types
· Ideal for retrofit to make older buildings smart, flexible, and adaptable
· Future proof your hardware with “smart” software
Installation at Heanor Park Care Home
‘We’re seeing a greater level of engagement from the residents during the day because the lighting is helping their body clock become alert and ready for the day…we’re not seeing people falling asleep in their chair or not wanting to engage in activities’.
- David Poxton, Managing Director
‘We’ve only had a couple of falls within the last 3 months since we’ve been open, which is great for residents wellbeing’.
- Catherine Bower, Care Home Manager
Read the case study in full here:
Emergency lighting
All care homes must have sufficient emergency lighting installed to allow residents and staff to remain safe if there is a power outage. These are usually separate lights with LED power indicators and are designed for a very wide range of building types.
Emergency lighting requires regular tests and checks to ensure everything is working as it should. The SmartCore solution aims to simplify this process by working with smart emergency lights to provide status reporting and testing capabilities to provide additional insight and save time.
Emergency lighting in care home bedrooms
Together with Swann Lighting (amBX partner), we have developed an emergency light where the green LED indicator dims down to ambient light levels and goes off when dark.
This is perfect for care home applications with circadian lighting that require the safety of emergency lighting but also the ability to have complete darkness and not disrupt natural circadian rhythms and sleep patterns.
What is a Smart Care Home?
A Smart Care Home is a building that is connected to the internet, collects and transfers data, and is optimised for the resident’s needs. This allows for predictive analytics, operational excellence, reduced risk, and improved health and wellbeing.
Sensor networks and IoT can be used to anonymously monitor the health of residents.
Falls are recorded as a contributing factor in 40% of care home admissions, and falls can have serious consequences resulting in broken bones, head injuries, hospitalisations, or even death. Therefore, it is essential that IoT helps to prevent this both at home and in care facilities (Care Inspectorate 2016).
Researchers from the Sinclair School of Nursing and the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri found that sensors that measure gait speed and stride length can predict likely falls. Researchers used data collected from sensor systems at TigerPlace, an innovative aging-in-place retirement residence located in Columbia, Mo. The system generated images and an alert email for nurses indicating when irregular motion was detected. This information could help nurses assess functional decline, provide treatment, and prevent falls (Srikanth RP 2018).
However, smart care homes are not only healthy for the people within them, but they can also become healthy for the environment too. Equipping Managers with the ability to understand how energy-efficient the building is and where energy can be saved is another crucial feature.
To understand more about smart technology in the elderly care industry, click here.