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Aged Care eConnect

Appendix C - Virtual visiting presentation

A resource kit for residential aged care facilities

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Virtual Visiting - Keeping Connected

Virtual Visiting enables families to visit with their relatives from anywhere in the world via the internet.

How does it work?

Virtual Visits can link aged care residents with families and friends throughout the world

Why?

• Participation in a wide range of activities can contribute positively to a resident’s overall quality of life.
• Keeping in touch with family and friends can help fight boredom, loneliness and depression.
• The ability to visit from your own home means that families and friends can visit more often.
• Provides a visual connection with their loved ones therefore ensuring the quality of care they are receiving.
• Visiting via video enables residents that are non verbal the opportunity to participate and reconnect with family and friends.

Technology requirements

• A broadband internet connection.
• PC running

For IBM compatible computers:

• Windows 2000, XP, Vista or Windows 7 is required for personal computers. (Windows 2000 users require DirectX 9.0 for video calls); and

For Apple PCs:
OSX 10.x operating system.

• Speakers and microphone – built-in or separate.
• For voice and video calls a 1GHz processor, 256 MB RAM is recommended at minimum.
• A webcam.
• Registration with a video conferencing internet service provider.

How you can assist

Staff and volunteers can assist by:

• spreading the word about virtual visiting to residents and their families & friends;
• helping with residents’ virtual visits:
  • setting up the equipment;
  • ensuring the resident is comfortable and positioned correctly;
  • making the internet connection;
  • ensuring both parties can hear and see each other; and
  • packing up the equipment at the end of a visit.

How you can assist

Benefits include:

• increased social contact for residents;
• the ability for family to ‘visit’ residents more often; and
• volunteer participation can provide:
  • an important link to the community for residents; and
  • enabled visits without removing nursing staff from other duties.

Questions?

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Copyright Notice

©Commonwealth of Australia as represented by the Department of Health and Ageing 2010

Disclaimer

This document and its contents are to be used as a general resource to assist aged care facilities to run a virtual visiting program. Any aged care facility using information from this document should first obtain its own independent professional advice from a qualified person or expert to determine the suitability and appropriateness of running a virtual visiting program in its facility before relying on any information contained in this document.

Acknowledgment

This document has been developed by the Western District Health Service as part of the Virtual Visiting Project funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

Creative Commons Licence

This work is copyright and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence, a copy of which is available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.

By exercising any rights granted to you under the above licence, you will have accepted, and have agreed to be legally bound by, the terms and conditions contained in the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (By Attribution) licence.

Notice Requirements

When exercising any rights granted to you under the above Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (By Attribution) licence, you must keep intact the above copyright and disclaimer notices.

Attribution Requirements

This document must be attributed as ‘Virtual Visiting – Keeping Connected: A Resource Kit for Residential Aged Care Facilities’.

You must attribute the Western District Health Service by using the above acknowledgment.

Further Inquiries

Inquiries regarding the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence and requests for any other use of this document are to be sent via the post to the Communications Branch, Department of Health and Ageing, GPO Box 9848, Canberra ACT 2601, or via e-mail to copyright@health.gov.au.
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