Interview with Care Innovations Link

Care Innovations Link’s personal emergency response system, which the company often also calls PERS, is the result of a collaboration between two of the world’s most innovative and respected technology companies. This medical alert system offered by Care Innovations is available in one easy plan with affordable pricing and no contracts whatsoever, as pointed out in our review. It’s available for as little as a month and comes with a lifetime price guarantee, while the company itself is known to be highly customer-friendly.

It’s clear that innovating is what this company is all about – personal emergency systems with GPS tracking and fall detection technology are just a few of the novelties we may expect from this provider in the near future. In this interview, the company’s Director of Monitoring Innovations Frank Napoleon Jr. sheds some light on these upcoming medical alert buttons and the company’s mission to make living independently possible for everyone.

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and what you do at Care Innovations?

Frank Napoleon Jr. is the Director of Monitoring Innovations at Intel-GE Care Innovations™ (CI). Frank seeks to add new and complementary enhancements to native CI and our partner offerings that our customers will find useful to help them live independently. He additionally insures these offerings are delivered in a manner that meets Care Innovations high standards of excellence.

What is the partnership between GE and Intel for Care Innovations Link like?

Intel-GE Care Innovations is a unique joint venture between Intel Corporation and GE. Each company has a long history of driving innovation, solving hard problems, and creating new markets. Care Innovations is poised to transform the way that healthcare is delivered at home with progressive solutions that solve real problems. We offer a spectrum of solutions across the continuum of care, thinking beyond the technology to provide turnkey services, clinical insight and business consulting. Our heritage of large-scale, enterprise class deployments lends experience and stability to business and clinical transformation efforts. We solve real-world problems for those who provide and receive healthcare at home or on the go with solutions that are practical and dependable, intuitive to use, and tested to ensure they meet the highest quality standards. You can read more about Care Innovations here.

Which training did your monitoring personnel follow?

Our UL and FM certified central station is a state of-the-art facility. All of the Central Station Dispatchers have obtained CSAA certification through extensive training and testing. The Central Station Dispatchers provide our customers with professional, efficient and reliable service.

Why doesn’t your medical alert system feature fall detection and GPS tracking?

Intel-GE Care Innovations™ roadmap for the Link family of personal emergency response systems does include adding fall detection and a mobile version of PERS complete with GPS based reporting. The complexity of managing location accuracy, delivering long battery life, insuring robustness, and delivering on other key features valued by our customers takes time to perfect. We are testing systems now and plan to have some exciting announcements and deliveries later this year.

Your company can provide installation services if needed, can you tell us a bit more about this extra service?

We strive to make the unboxing and setup of our Link personal emergency response system easy enough for the average customer to do on his or her own. The key requirement is finding a location in the home where both an AC outlet and a phone jack are located while providing acceptable acoustics to hear the sound of the seniors voice in an emergency. While we are rarely called upon to deliver physical in home installation services, we have a partnership with a network of trusted, bonded, and trained installers, able to provide assistance. For a one-time fee of $50, an installer can be notified and dispatched within 48 hours in nearly every state in the country.

Can your system be used by non-senior persons who require medical monitoring?

There is no requirement that Care Innovations Link be used strictly by seniors. The FDA registered device offers near immediate access to a professional monitoring center able to unite the wearer with friends, family, and emergency services. The system does require enough manual dexterity to push the personal help button either on the pendant (worn around the neck, on the wrist, or on a waistband) or on the base console. The interest we have in releasing a pendant capable of detecting and reporting a fall automatically promises to help broaden the number of persons capable of being protected by PERS.

Why should we choose Care Innovations Link and not another personal emergency response system?

We strive to make Link an effective, affordable, uncomplicated offering. Customers can order our system online without “requesting information” that we all know often results in unwanted and repeated phone contact from high-pressure salespeople. We don’t require a commitment longer than a single month. (We’ve heard horror stories from our customers where competitors require not only a multi-year contract but even demand a death certificate to get out of a contract!) We give you our best price whether you plan to keep the system for a month, a quarter, or a year. Others only offer a discount when you pay tens or even hundreds of dollars in advance. We ship via ground for free. We offer a second help button and durable lockbox to allow emergency services entry into a locked home without breaking down the door. Customers can order and use the system just while a relative is visiting then return (at our shipping expense) with no questions asked. They can use a system while recovering from a medical procedure when they welcome a little extra sense of security. They can take it with them on vacation and reestablish their profile while traveling. Of course it is supported by a world-class emergency call center with all the redundancy you’d expect for a critical service like this.

Other than using a medical alert system, which tips would you like to give to seniors who wish to continue living independently?

Our website contains a number or resources including helpful guidelines for insuring home safety, fall prevention techniques, and talking to your loved ones about the benefits of having access to a PERS system.