One Contract, 7 Communities, 14 Weeks. RCare Wireless Replaced 30-Year-Old Pull-Cord Systems Across the Portfolio.
At a Glance
| Operator | Regional senior living group, [N] communities, [N] beds total |
| Scope | RCare wireless nurse call across 7 AL + memory care properties |
| Constraint | Stagger around 3 state survey windows; no resident displacement |
| Timeline | 4 weeks survey + design, 2 weeks pilot, 8 weeks rollout |
| Outcome | Standardized resident-safety coverage across all 7 communities; one help-desk number across the portfolio |
The Problem
The operator had grown by acquisition. Seven communities, three different original owners, three different nurse call platforms — two of them pull-cord systems from the early 1990s, one a mid-2000s wireless platform whose manufacturer had been acquired twice and whose support had become a matter of making calls to people who no longer answered. Parts for the oldest systems were unavailable. Maintenance was a patchwork of local subcontractors who each knew one property.
Rising maintenance cost was the proximate trigger. But the real driver was standardization: the VP of Operations couldn't run a consistent fall prevention protocol across the portfolio when every property had a different system, different alarm logic, and different reporting format. Corporate couldn't see a portfolio view of response times. The DON at each community was managing their own system — which meant the quality of oversight varied with the quality of that relationship.
Three requirements shaped the program: coverage had to extend to common areas and memory care wandering paths, not just resident rooms; the audit trail had to be exportable in a format the compliance team could use; and the operator experience had to be consistent enough that staff rotating between properties could work the same system. RCare was the platform. The question was whether anyone could run it as a program rather than seven separate projects.
What We Did
01 — Program Definition
Four weeks: one master agreement, one PM, one playbook framework, one consolidated BOM at RCare-program pricing. We established the survey protocol, the staging sequence (survey all 7, pilot 2, rollout 5), and the state survey calendar — three communities had active survey windows in the first 8 weeks that constrained mobilization timing.
02 — Site Surveys
One engineer, 7 communities, 2 weeks. Structured survey per community: floor plans, existing cable infrastructure, ceiling type, RF propagation walk, head-end space availability, and coverage gaps in common areas and wandering paths. Each survey produced a site data sheet; deviations from the standard design were priced as line-item alternates.
03 — Pilot
Two communities ran first — the largest and the most complex (a memory care unit with an unusual floor plan). The pilot was where we found the one thing the surveys hadn't caught: the common-area pendant coverage required an additional repeater position in two of the remaining properties. We adjusted the playbook before rolling out the remaining five.
04 — Rollout
Five communities over 8 weeks, sequenced around state survey windows and census peaks. Each community followed the frozen playbook. The RCare configuration was templated from the pilot; commissioning at each property took half the time of the pilot. One program manager throughout.
05 — Operate
Single RCare management console, single Nexus support agreement, single help-desk number. Record drawings, training videos, and device maps for all 7 communities are stored in the client portal. The VP of Operations has a portfolio dashboard; each community DON has a community view.
The Result
- All 7 properties live on a single RCare management console in 14 weeks
- Consistent wireless nurse-call coverage in resident rooms, common areas, and wandering paths across all 7 communities
- Consolidated a multi-vendor maintenance footprint into a single Nexus support agreement and one help-desk number
- One contract, one program manager, one support number across the entire portfolio
- All 7 properties passed state survey in the 12 months following install
"For the first time since we put the portfolio together, I can look at one screen and see how every community is performing on response times. That wasn't possible with what we had."
— VP of Operations, [Regional Senior Living Operator]
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