As the world’s population ages, the demand for elderly care in healthcare facilities also increases. One of the most difficult tasks in elder care is caring for people with incontinence. Statistics show that urine leakage and incontinence problems occur in almost one in ten people in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is time-consuming for caregivers to check multiple times a day whether the incontinence diaper needs to be changed and can be uncomfortable for the elderly. Ontex developed the Orizon Smart solution especially for this challenge. To connect the solution to the Internet, Ontex chose Capestone and Comgate.
Ontex is a Belgian personal hygiene company that has developed a smart solution to improve incontinence care. This groundbreaking solution will accelerate the innovation process in elder care. The Orizon Smart incontinence management system was developed to alert caregivers when the resident’s absorbent product has reached a certain saturation level, ensuring the patient’s dignity and comfort.
Healthcare professionals do their best to meet the needs of the healthcare facility, but they still cannot say for sure whether or not an absorbent product needs replacement without repeatedly checking 2-3 times a day. Such errors lead to unnecessarily inconveniencing residents with constant checks of their absorbent products. To solve this problem, Ontex has developed a smart incontinence care system with TEKTELIC gateway technology and connectivity from Comgate, which sends alerts when the absorbent product is saturated and in need of replacement.
Changing an absorbent product is a task for a caregiver that can be inconvenient, and can cause discomfort for the elderly. In addition to the physical discomfort of changing the product, residents may also develop urinary tract infections or incontinence-related dermatitis if the absorbent product is not changed on time. Thus, other essential care tasks become expensive because they require more time and effort from the medical staff.
A smart incontinence diaper is the most simple and efficient solution, contributing to an improved resident experience, reducing unnecessary use of incontinence products and taking international personal hygiene to the next level. Using TEKTELIC’s LoRaWAN gateways and connectivity from Comgate, Ontex has developed a solution in the form of a smart personal hygiene product that solves existing problems in continence care. The system consists of an Orizon clip-on device, attachable to a new smart incontinence diaper, transmission technology with a gateway from TEKTELIC and a cloud-based backend, which uses advanced algorithms and alerts caregivers as soon as the absorbent product is saturated. The combination of these elements provides accurate information accessible through an app, eliminating the need for caregivers and residents to perform additional unnecessary checks.
Capestone configured and delivered the total solution for Ontex with the TEKTELIC KONA Micro gateway and IoT connectivity from Comgate on KPN-IoT’s network. Because of the global coverage and reliability of connection thus obtained, each gateway is always well connected to transmit its data. The Orizon clip-on immediately transmits updates on the saturation level of the absorbing product via the gateways’ stable LoRaWAN network to the cloud and thus to a mobile app without any delay. Also, TEKTELIC KONA Micro IoT gateways have “Always On” connectivity and battery backup. This is extremely important for a healthcare facility because it allows the transfer of data even if the main location goes without power. This feature ensures that Ontex Orizon Smart monitoring processes are not disrupted by power outages.
To roll out the fleet of products, Capestone and Comgate configured the gateways according to Ontex-defined configuration settings and then delivered the LoRa gateways, SIM cards and data connectivity as a turnkey complete solution. In this process, the settings in the TEKTELIC gateway are custom set and the SIM card is set with the correct APN.
Nikhil Nagwanshi, Global Procurement Category Manager at Ontex explains, “By having Capestone handle the configuration of the entire fleet, we are completely unburdened. This ultimately saves us money but also time. A big advantage of working with Capestone is their ability to scale to our needs. As Ontex grows every year, so does our device rollout. It is important for us to have a reliable partner that can grow with us.”
Are you curious about what Capestone can do for your business? Our sales department is happy to think with you! Contact sales@capestone.com or call 085 111 0838. Would you like more information about Ontex or Ontex Orizon Smart? You can read more at the following website: www.ontex.com.
