Coronavirus is the greatest public health crisis of our century and older adults are the most vulnerable to it. It is our duty to help, now. The Birdie team is mobilising every possible resource, day and night, to help older adults be safer, healthier and better cared for. We are deploying all possible means to support care providers and the wider care community in dealing with this crisis.
Max Parmentier, CEO and founder
At Birdie, our guiding mission has always been to support older adults and help them to live confidently in their own homes, by empowering the people that care for them. Never before has our mission been so important. The global pandemic that surrounds us has propelled our team into fast-track action, and we’re doing all we can to support care providers and the wider community.
We are building bespoke features to help assess and prioritise those in need, a free version of our solution is being offered to new home care agencies and our team has been repurposed to focus on alleviating the pressures of care providers so they can offer the best support possible in this challenging time. Here's a snapshot of our current initiatives:
Provide care providers with a 24/7 hotline to guide and reassure them
Home care providers are under tremendous pressure and need reassurance and access to the right resources and guidance. Birdie has stepped up its customer support service with a 24/7 hotline for home care providers to answer all their questions and help them to access official guidelines and sources of information.
Enable professional carers to provide infection monitoring and support during isolation
Care staff spend a huge amount of time with the older adults in their care. They are the eyes and ears of clinicians and public authorities on the ground. We are developing new features in our app to help care teams identify risks and symptoms of disease in real-time, set a status of supplies for individual clients and to help prioritise care for those who are most vulnerable. We're also exploring joining forces with care services to share regular infection monitoring data, which can help support local preparation and planning with localised risk planning.
Reduce the demand on care agencies and mitigate loneliness of isolated older adults
While care agencies will have to increasingly shift their focus to individuals with the greatest need, others could play a role in regularly checking in with care agency clients, addressing isolation and loneliness, and monitoring risks of deterioration by using an evidence-based script and monitoring reports. We are planning to re-purpose some of our team to provide support to care agencies we work with directly. Typically, our team could make companionship calls to older adults where agencies don't have enough carers while recording any symptoms, based on a testing protocol.
Provide digital tools to enable volunteer support to isolated older adults
Local associations, local authorities and home care providers are in shortage of workforce to support the elderly and are increasingly relying on volunteers for non-essential duties such as companionship or check-in calls. Birdie is working with multiple volunteering platforms and providing its platform for free to help coordinate volunteer support, capture visit/calls reports and monitor COVID19 and mental health risks of older adults.
Provide remote home monitoring solutions for older adults who are self-isolating
A large number of older adults have now self-isolated, leaving families and carers with limited visibility on their health and wellbeing. Birdie's home monitoring solutions - based on connected non-intrusive sensors and telecare assistance provide 24/7 peace of mind by flagging any emergency and monitoring the health and wellbeing of older adults. We will be providing this solution at cost (no profit made) to alleviate the mental burden for families.
COVID-19 hub
We’ve now created a forum for home care providers that offers an all in one location for useful and relevant information on COVID-19. Our hub provides tips and advice on all things COVID, and aims to support you, your staff and older adults through these testing times. We will be adding articles and other content on a frequent basis so please do visit us by clicking HERE to see what’s new.
Contact us at support@birdie.care if you wish to partner with us on any of our initiatives or if you'd like to signup to Birdie free of charge.
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