Sponsored content
That change can be seen at Foxdale Village, the Quaker-directed retirement community on Marylyn Avenue in State College. Residents and staff are working together to use technology to make information more accessible, and build an even stronger community.
When Marsha Haack moved to Foxdale Village almost five years ago, she admits there wasn’t much in the way of technology use in the daily life of residents. That was something she wanted to change.
“I’ve always had an interest in technology and what it can do for us,” said Haack, who worked in nursing administration and served on a committee at Penn State Hershey Medical Center to digitize medical records. “The only technology we had when we moved here was a TV screen that rolled every five minutes with the dinner menus for the next two days. You could come down to the main building and look at the list but if you were up in your cottage and wanted to see what was for dinner you couldn’t do that.”
Things have changed significantly since then. In September Foxdale rolled out a resident portal that provides one online location for a wealth of information, much of which is password-protected and available only to residents to allay any privacy concerns.
It was the result of work by a small group of residents and staff and was spurred by the desire among many residents to have an online photo directory.
“You meet people once and then you can’t remember the next time you see them what their name was,” Haack said. “With a photo directory you could study up and know that’s who that is. “
Haack said the idea came up shortly after she moved to Foxdale, but a member of the residents’ council had privacy concerns, so it was tabled for a few years. Once some time had passed, it came up again and residents and staff looked at a few products for a photo directory.
Unsatisfied with any of them, the group came up with the idea to custom build a resident section within the Foxdale site. Haack thought having calendars, menus and other information might be ideas for the future, but Foxdale’s residency planning staff believed an expanded resident portal would be ideal for current and prospective residents.
Betsy Berry has lived at Foxdale for two years with her husband. A former programmer for Travelers Insurance, she said her first instinct to find information is to turn to the web.
“I wanted all this stuff on the web. I was a programmer so I had some knowledge about it,” Berry said. “I wanted to know something and my first instinct was to look on the Internet.”
Berry and Haack were among the six residents who spearheaded the resident portal along with several staff members. Though they are among the younger members of the Foxdale community, they note that two other members of the committee are in their 90s. They also point out that the resident who manages Foxdale’s computer room is also in her 90s.
“I think as more and more new people move in, they’re going to expect this,” Berry said.
The portal has six sections, three of which can be viewed by the public and three that can only be viewed by residents.
On the public side, menus for each of Foxdale’s three dining venues – the café, bistro and dining room – can be viewed for up to six months in advance and users can search for a specific date.
Detailed calendars allow users to see daily activities, as well as schedules for the exercise room, therapy pool, upcoming special programs, shopping trips, gift shop hours and meeting space availability. The portal also has maps for Foxdale’s 21-acre campus, which Haack said is helpful to both residents and visitors.
Among the three sections available only to residents is the photo directory. Because of Foxdale’s utmost respect for personal privacy, it took some logistical legwork to get permission for online photos, but about 90 percent of residents now have their photos included in their directory information.
“Names are so tough for people to keep track of,” Haack said. “Often we’re talking about somebody, someone says ‘I don’t know who that is.’ I look it up and show them and they say ‘Oh yeah.’ I’ve used it a lot to show people who’s who.”
Using the mobile web version, residents also can look up someone and call or email them directly from their phones.
Mobile use is important, because phones and tablets are often how Foxdale Village residents access the web. For some, they may have received a smartphone or tablet as a gift.
“I think some people had been using their smartphones and tablets just as a phone,” Berry said. “And that’s an expensive phone.”
Haack’s mother, Violet McLane, is also a resident of Foxdale Village. McLane is 97 and an avid user of her iPad. She uses it for FaceTime, to play games with friends, and now that the portal is up and running, to check out the menus on a regular basis.
“As you can imagine, those of us who are fairly new are fairly computer-literate. Those who have been here a long time may not have developed computer skills,” Haack said. “But we have a huge number of people in personal care who are very capable. There are some older people who are savvy.”
The protected tabs on the portal also allow residents to view information about any of Foxdale Village’s 63 different groups, which include committees, interest groups and service groups.
And the community’s entire handbook is available on the site, along with the weekly community flyer, quarterly publication, and forms, which Berry is currently working on making fillable from a device.
For those who don’t want to or can’t use a computer or mobile device, information will continue to be available in printed formats.
“We’re still going to put the paper directory out every six months,” Berry said. “It won’t have pictures, but we’re trying to be sensitive to people who don’t use a computer. Pretty much everything on here is on our bulletin boards, so people who don’t use the computer can look at the bulletin boards and get the information.”
The members of the portal committee do have a wish list for the future of the site. Berry wants to see the library catalogue added. Haack said she would like to have personal interests and background added to the directory.
Both believe that the portal is a way for not only enhancing the community, but also giving those without previous computer experience an entry point.
“Hopefully as people use it, they’ll be more confident in using something else,” Haack said.
To learn more about Foxdale and residency options, visit www.foxdalevillage.org or contact the Residency Planning Office at (814) 272-2146 or toll-free (800) 253-4951.
