We’ve recently had the privilege of working with Elderhealth Northwest to set up BigScreenLive with their residents at Gaffney House. Gaffney House offers an innovative “Supported Living” program for people with memory loss or other health conditions who don’t want to leave their homes for an institutional setting and who need more personal attention than can be found in a typical large-scale facility. BigScreenLive provided a Hewlett-Packard ‘thin client’ PC with a touchscreen to provide Gaffney with an integrated solution. The touchscreen is especially useful because people can navigate the interface and explore their family pictures and emails simply by touching the screen - mousing is only needed when text editing. As a result people who have trouble using a mouse due to arthritis or other mental or motor challenges are able to easily move around the screen simply by touching what they want to do next.
Family members get free ‘friends and family’ memberships to BigScreenLive once they are invited by the Senior Member. Gaffney families have been able to upload family photos, web bookmarks, and contacts for their seniors to view. Staff at Gaffney can publish information on the Gaffney portal in BigScreenLive - so family members can see pictures of Gaffney events, and even look at the schedule and upcoming menus their seniors will be enjoying. BigScreenLive has enabled families to keep connected even though some are separated by great distances. It is heart warming to see seniors engaging with this technology and keeping in touch with their families.