Update on No-Charge Safety Alert Messaging (SAM) in Seniors Homes

Feedback received today from Hi-Tek/Omni Veil and Corbiz Strategies concerning the no-charge SAM offer is that our offer has been well received.  The following are the points that were passed along to us in our discussions today with our partners:

1. from the initial announcement by our partners of SAM at no-charge for a six month period and their reaching out to their contacts, hundreds of seniors homes have received our offer, with almost all responding back looking for additional information on SAM, how it works, etc to order to begin SAM registrations of residents and their families.
2. three distinct channels have been identified: (i) retirement home; (ii) long-term care nursing homes; and (iii) seniors’ homes.  Each has their own differing needs and applications.  Both the registrations, messaging and alerts differ to serve the needs of each channel.
3. the highest appreciation of SAM and its perceived value-add is from the family members, who want and are asking for daily updates and instant emergency alerts.
4. all contacted sites require their management/administrators to learn how to load names into our backend; the creation of messages; selecting and messaging to different groups of names (residents; family members; residents and family; staff; all names).
5. targeting of various regions and homes by emails is now being done in stages by Hi-Tek/Omni Veil, Corbiz, iSIGN and our European partners in order to be able to handle the incoming responses in a timely manner.  In other words, the response to the original release and initial email blasts has been extremely favourable and responding to these initial inquiries is on-going.
6. the main concern of these three channels (retirement homes, long-term care nursing homes and seniors’ homes) is to streamline alert and emergency messaging to try and reduce the current percentage of seniors’ mortality from COVID-19.  So far, of the current almost 1,300 deaths in Canada, over 700 are in seniors’ homes.
7. key television, radio, newspapers and internet news operators are now being targeted and contacted.  A wider distribution of the no-charge SAM offer will begin on Monday and Tuesday (April 20 and 21).
8. current SAM registrations are being parsed and will be shared with participating promoters and homes.

More to follow.