Nurse call and emergency call systems have an essential role in senior living facilities. They provide a crucial communications channel between residents and caregivers and enable a facility to efficiently provide for the health and safety of their residents in a cost-effective manner.
Given that call system are so important, safety and performance standards have been created specifically for the nurse and emergency call systems used in skilled nursing and assisted living communities. These standards include 2 Underwriters Laboratory (UL) standards:
UL 2560 was introduced in 2011 to address the operational requirements of emergency call systems intended for use in non-acute care settings. This type of call system is typically found in senior living environments and focuses mainly on wireless systems.
UL 1069 applies more to traditional nurse call equipment found in hospital environments, though it does allow for portions of that system to be wireless. Since the seventh edition’s introduction in 2007, some states have mandated that any nurse call system used in a skilled nursing environment must meet the UL 1069 standard. While most states do not currently have legal requirements, each year more states are adopting and beginning to enforce the requirement of a UL 1069 nurse call system.
This white paper will explain more about how the UL 2560 and UL 1069 standards could affect your choice in wireless emergency and nurse call systems for your senior living community. Continue reading to understand industry standards for nurse call and emergency call systems.
The full UL 1069 standard covers many topics related to nurse and emergency call systems, including construction, performance, tests, and marking. There are 50 different sub-sections within the published standard itself, detailing everything from battery performance to drop tests, with the seventh edition adding specifics on wireless device operation.
To summarize, the key attributes of a UL 1069 certified nurse call system include:
Vendors that are certified to either UL 2560 or UL 1069 go through extensive product testing. In fact, the signaling and receiving operation for call devices are tested more than 100,000 times. Compliance with these standards offers many benefits for senior living communities, including longer product lifetimes, high durability, and safety and performance in high humidity and oxygen-rich environments. That said, because UL 2560 was created for non-acute care environments, such as independent and assisted living communities, its certification requirements are different from UL 1069, which was created principally for hospitals.
UL 2560 has several notable system design requirements versus the UL 1069 standard:
The short answer is it really depends on where your community is located. We highly recommend that you contact your authority having jurisdiction, or AHJ, regarding the requirements for your wireless call system in your local area. If you are unsure of who your AHJ is for nurse and emergency call systems, a good place to start is your county or state health departments and building departments, since there is no single source listing every possible AHJ. Wireless call vendors, consultants, architects, and other senior living communities in your area are also good resources for information on local and state AHJs.
Whether or not your state requires a UL 2560 or a UL 1069 certified system, there are some important system features to keep in mind when selecting a solution provider. Given the critical performance that nurse and emergency call safety systems deliver, while there are several manufacturers who claim to have UL-certified call systems, each provider is different; considering some key items can help maximize the value of your wireless call system investment.