Supervision tablet displaying a care home floor plan with anonymised positions of residents wearing a BLE wristband

Resident safety

Resident tracking for care homes: a caring approach

BLE indoor positioning (< 2 m accuracy) and outdoor GPS for Belgian care homes: real-time building plan, history, zone alerts. Native GDPR, designed as a caring safety tool.

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What is Healthcall resident tracking?

Healthcall resident tracking is a safety module combining indoor positioning via Bluetooth Low Energy (accuracy below 2 metres) and outdoor GPS for gardens, terraces and supervised excursions. The system displays the position of relevant residents in real time on a building plan, keeps an operational 30-day history, triggers alerts on forbidden-zone crossings and detects in-room presence to lighten carer action logging.

Deployment is the subject of consultation with your carers, your management and, depending on the case, the resident’s legal representative or trusted person. Healthcall has been equipping around twenty Belgian care homes with this level of ethical demand since 2017.

  • < 2 m

    BLE indoor accuracy

    1 to 1.5 m in nominal conditions

  • 36 mo

    BLE wristband battery life

    no recharge, < 15 g, IP67

  • 30 days

    Nominative history

    then GDPR-compliant anonymous aggregation

  • Europe

    Belgian hosting

    premium private cluster, triple database

For more: complementary wandering prevention module · complete Healthcall ecosystem.

Six features, one coherent module

Each feature can be activated according to your context. You can start on the simple real-time plan with a partial BLE mesh, then progressively extend to configurable forbidden zones, outdoor GPS and long-term history.

  • BLE indoor < 2 m accuracy

    Blueup or Sonitor mesh (one beacon every 8 to 12 metres in corridors). Position triangulated by local server with displayed confidence level. No false sense of certainty on degraded signal.

  • Outdoor GPS for garden and outings

    Automatic switch as soon as the last BLE beacon is no longer read. Distinct marker on the plan. Activated only for residents whose profile justifies it, to limit recharging burden.

  • Real-time plan on tablet

    Sober display: coloured points by alert, short ID by default, full name at one authenticated click. Built from your architectural plans. Filter by profile (e.g. Alzheimer residents for night rounds).

  • Configurable forbidden zones

    Stairwells, doors leading to the street, technical zones, other residents' rooms. Defined by your head nurse. Cross-checked alert routed to smartphone or DECT plus supervision, with full traceability.

  • GDPR-native by design

    Article 9 health data: documented legal basis, 30-day rolling history, DPIA provided, encrypted hosting in Belgium. Anonymisation by default on screens, named access via authenticated identification.

  • Long-term aggregated history

    Beyond 30 days, anonymous statistics by zone, time slot, resident profile. Used to objectivise an Alzheimer wandering plan, identify underused zones, optimise garden access. No nominative cross-referencing.

Real-time floor plan supervision — colour points, short IDs, name at one authenticated click. Illustrative visual (client shoot to be produced).

From signal to alert in under two seconds

Each event follows the standard sequence: detection by BLE or GPS module, routing rule decision, carer action with full traceability.

  1. Detection

    BLE or GPS signal → position

    The wristband emits at regular intervals, captured by the nearest beacons. Triangulation < 2 m indoors, GPS fix outdoors. Whole chain in under 2 seconds with displayed confidence level.

  2. Decision

    Rules per zone and profile

    Authorised zones for the resident profile do not trigger an alert. Forbidden zone, lift, exterior door, other room: routing per configured rules. Critical alert + temporary door lock if Alzheimer wandering plan.

  3. Action

    Carer + traceability

    Smartphone or DECT receives alert with name + zone. Supervision sees the position on the plan. Doubt clearance, action log, automatic event closure. Every step timestamped for AViQ inspection.

Three scenes observed in equipped care homes

Disoriented resident in a corridor at 3 am

3:14 am. Mr T., advanced Alzheimer’s resident, leaves his room and heads towards the central staircase. His BLE wristband is read by the corridor beacon. The zone is configured “alert if alone outside authorised hours”. The terminal of the night carer rings in two seconds, displaying the position on the plan. The carer arrives in 50 seconds, walks Mr T. back to his room, closes the event with a short voice note. The next day, the head nurse adjusts the wandering plan with the coordinating physician.

In-room presence detection lightens action logging

Morning round. Sophie, care assistant, enters room 12 to handle Mrs L. Her BLE badge is read by the room beacon, presence detected automatically. On exit, she logs the action in 3 seconds via short list. No manual ID input, no double entry — the system already knows who, where, when. Saved time accumulates: 15 to 25 minutes per shift returned to direct care.

Garden outing without false alert

3 pm. Mr V., resident with mobility autonomy, leaves the building to enjoy the enclosed garden. The garden being declared an authorised zone for his profile, no alert is triggered. The system simply traces his presence in the garden zone for 25 minutes, then his return inside. The Quality Charter is respected: freedom of movement preserved, safety ensured by garden fencing and the wristband which would have alerted only if the main gate had been crossed.

Discreet ceiling BLE beacon — battery-powered, 3-to-5-year life, no cabling. Illustrative visual (client shoot to be produced).

Resident tracking does not stand alone

The module shares its technical base with the whole Healthcall ecosystem. You are not stacking silos; you are extending a single system.

  • Wandering prevention

    The sister module. Same BLE wristbands, same beacons, same routing rules. Wandering prevention adds critical-point detection and proportionate door locking.

  • Fall detection

    Accelerometer wristbands geolocated via the same BLE beacons. A detected fall arrives with precise position on the smartphone or DECT, plus supervision plan view.

  • Nurse call

    In-room presence detection automatically closes calls without the carer having to validate manually. Action logging shortened, focus stays on the resident.

  • Central supervision

    Floor plan with positions, ongoing alerts, fire and intrusion alarms, active carers — a single screen. The duty station becomes a real control centre.

To discover all modules: see the full ecosystem · compare to other market solutions.

Frequently asked questions

Is resident geolocation GDPR-compliant?
Yes, provided three conditions are met: identified legal basis (legitimate interest or consent), explicit and proportionate purpose (resident safety), limited retention period. Healthcall is designed by default on this triptych. Indoor positions are anonymised on supervision screens (colour + short ID, not full name without authenticated action). The detailed history is kept for 30 rolling days for operational needs, then aggregated as anonymous statistics. A specific processing register is delivered at signing, along with the GDPR data processing agreement. Your DPO — internal or external — receives complete technical and organisational documentation. Access, erasure and rectification rights are exercisable via dedicated interface.
How is the consent of the resident or their representative managed?
Consent is captured upstream of wristband handover, within the residence contract or a specific addendum. Healthcall provides a clause template compliant with GDPR and AViQ / Woonzorgdecreet practice. For residents whose discernment is impaired (advanced Alzheimer's, dementia), the legal basis switches to legitimate interest — preservation of life and safety — documented by an impact assessment (DPIA) which we help draft. The legal representative or trusted person is informed. The resident can refuse to wear the wristband at any time: in that case, the risk is logged in the file and the care home adjusts its human supervision.
What is the actual accuracy of BLE indoor positioning?
Below 2 metres in normal conditions, typically 1 to 1.5 m with a Blueup or Sonitor beacon mesh correctly sized (one beacon every 8 to 12 metres in corridors, one per room and common area). Accuracy depends on three factors: mesh density, initial calibration, space geometry (high metallic density zones — lifts, kitchens — are less precise). For zones where exact room accuracy is critical, we add a dedicated room beacon. The system always provides at minimum the zone (wing, floor, room) with a displayed confidence level.
What is the impact on resident wristband battery life?
The BLE wristbands we deploy (Blueup, Sonitor depending on case) have a battery life of up to 36 months without recharging, depending on model and reporting frequency. For residents also carrying an outdoor GPS module (needed for garden outings or supervised excursions), battery life drops to 48-72 hours with night dock charging. We prefer, whenever possible, a light BLE wristband (under 15 grams) for permanent indoor wear, complemented by a GPS module activated only for risk outings. Wristbands are hypoallergenic, IP67 watertight, compatible with showers and hand-washing.
Do carers easily accept resident geolocation?
Acceptance entirely depends on how geolocation is introduced in the team. Two pitfalls to avoid. First, presenting the tool as a means of monitoring carers (room presence = controlled intervention duration): counterproductive, generates distrust. Second, imposing the deployment without training or consultation phase. Our reverse approach: in-room presence detection lightens systematic manual action logging (fewer clicks for the carer), it is not a control mechanism. Feedback after a few weeks of use is consistent: teams appreciate not running into rooms already handled by a colleague. A one-hour appropriation workshop is part of the standard deployment.
What happens if a resident crosses a forbidden zone?
An alert is sent priority to the smartphone or DECT of the relevant carers per configured routing rules. Central supervision simultaneously receives the notification with building plan and resident position. Zones are defined by your head nurse: unsupervised exterior doors, stairwell, technical zone, another resident's room (for disoriented residents wandering at night). For residents covered by an Alzheimer wandering plan, the alert can also trigger the temporary lock of a door via building automation integration. Each alert is logged with resident identity, time, zone, handling carer and reaction time.
What is the cost of a BLE mesh for an 80-bed care home?
Indicative order of magnitude: 40 to 80 BLE beacons for a standard 80-bed care home (rooms, corridors, common areas, garden), i.e. a hardware line of 2,000 to 5,000 € excl. VAT depending on chosen models and architectural configuration. Resident wristbands are billed separately, depending on the number of residents concerned — rarely 100% of the residence, generally 20 to 40% (residents with cognitive disorders, wandering risk). Software licence, building plan integration and initial calibration are added. We provide a detailed quote after on-site audit, no opaque package.
Does geolocation work during an internet outage?
Yes, for critical functions. BLE indoor detection and forbidden-zone alert routing run locally on the server installed in your care home. The real-time building plan and the operational history of the last 30 days remain accessible on the supervision tablet. Synchronisation with the private cluster at a Belgian premium host (long-term reports, archiving, audit) resumes once reconnected, without data loss. Outdoor GPS depends on the cellular coverage of the module worn by the resident — independent of the care home's connection.

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