Delivering peace of mind to Ivy Park
Assisted living, memory care, and retired living provider Ivy Park has multiple community locations and is known for their secure care environments. Ivy Park at San Tomas approached Accessia to replace its access control with a modern, simple to use, and ultra-secure solution to keep residents and staff safe.
Insecure, inefficient, and ineffective: when access control becomes a barrier to safety
In senior care facilities, access control should provide reassurance that residents are safe and secure while being both easy for staff to use, and simple for teams to maintain and manage.
Often, incumbent access control systems do not deliver on all (or sometimes any) of these fronts, leaving facilities with solutions that are not only difficult to use and manage, but also end up posing a security risk.
Ivy Park was grappling with one such access control system. Problems started arising when employees left, often taking their access fobs and cards with them, and Ivy Park was left with no way to provision replacement credentials.
‘We ended up with a system that was a burden on everyone to operate, especially in terms of time spent managing access. Because of the lack of available passes, staff often had to rely on managers to open locked doors to let them in, even early in the mornings. This was not a productive use of anyone’s time.‘
Abraham Chavez, Maintenance Director at Ivy Park
The problem was worsened by a complete lack of software updates and support, leaving Ivy Park with a system that became a time drain with all the manual checks needed to ensure everyone was kept safe.
When the price of progress is prohibitive
Though it was what they needed, for Ivy Park, a full and immediate rip and replace of their access control system was simply not an option.
Replacing their existing access control system with another would have meant an upfront cost of $16,500 – a significant capital investment that was difficult to justify – and one that did not account for the total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the solution.
This was just one of the problems that Accessia was able to solve for Ivy Park.
Better access, better outcomes
Ivy Park completely transformed their security and access experience with cloud access control from Accessia.
‘One of the main reasons Accessia was so appealing to us was that we didn’t have any upfront costs for the hardware. This made replacing our previous system financially possible. And from there, the benefits just kept on coming.’
Accessia Readers with Ultra-wideband were fitted across 11 doors on site. The hands-free unlock capability enabled by Ultra-wideband proves especially useful to Ivy Park employees when helping residents in wheelchairs from one area to another, making journeys across the facility smoother and quicker. And, because Ivy Park has rolled out mobile credentials, employees can use their phone as a pass, so there are no more lost or shared fobs and no more relying on managers to open locked doors.
‘A major plus for us is how easy the platform is to use. Being able to easily set up schedules and just know that doors will be locked when they need to be is such a world away from where we were before. I no longer have to manually check doors are locked. And then making changes to those schedules, adding access and users is a breeze.’
Ivy Park has made full use of Accessia’s flexibility and ease of management to completely tailor the experience to their needs. For example, by adding a 15-second exit delay to doors in their memory care facility to add an extra layer of security and reassurance that residents are kept safe.
‘That’s the biggest thing for me - we’re totally in control and I rest easy knowing our residents, employees, and facility are safe and protected.’
Is your organization relying on outdated access systems? Let’s talk about how we can modernize your security, keeping residents safe, without breaking the budget.