A local independent senior living center is offering a new and exciting service to help residents connect with loved ones, regardless of long distances.
Mulberry Glen, located at 1255 W. Main St., Whitewater, is the first of area independent senior living complexes to offer a new video chat system under the name Easy Connect HD, according to activity coordinator and Easy Connect HD Ambassador Gloria Bohn.
The free and easy to use system makes video calling easy for senior citizens, requiring no computer skills or equipment of their own, and allows more frequent face-to-face visits for residents and family members, according to Bohn.
Bohn said using the Easy Connect HD system is comparable to Skype, a popular video chat option, but even easier.
“Yes, they could all do Skype, but the problem is 90 percent of the seniors don’t have computers,” she said. She explained that with the Easy Connect system, residents are provided with a large screen television, connected to the internet, that has simple a remote, allowing them to scroll through a menu until they find their name and family contact information.
“As soon as they find their family, or their name, they just push that center button again, and it calls their family,” she said. “They will suddenly show up on the screen and they can start talking to them and as a phone call, video chat, and they can do it for as long as they want.”
Simple to set up online and available on smart phones, computers and tablets, family members can call residents and set up a date and time for a scheduled video call.
“A lot of the residents make comments, my grandson or granddaughter just went to college and this would be perfect for them because they’re into all the technical things and they’re going to think ‘grams is really up with it’ and it’s going to be a good situation,” Bohn said.
She said the families who are becoming aware of it are ecstatic.
“It’s really an easy program and it’s great for the seniors,” she said. “Everybody has this great idea of ‘we’re going to go visit grandma,’” she said. “Well, Billy’s sick or there’s something wrong with the car, or we can’t afford the air fare, so years go by.
“One of the residents this morning said, ‘Oh, I’ve got great news…I’ve got two brand new great nieces,’” she said. “So her nieces, just had two newborns on the same day…one of them is up in La Crosse and one is in Fort Atkinson. So I said, you know Claire, we can just get you online and you can see that newborn baby by the end of this week.”
Bohn said they are hoping that as more residents are doing it and more residents take advantage of the opportunity at hand, the free service will gain popularity.
“As one resident gets off the video chat and is all, you know, high in the sky, and ‘I just saw this and I just saw that,’ (they) are going to get the other residents interested and that’s the way I’m looking at it,” she said.
Josh Sillford, 27, who majored in marketing and advertising at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, started the company in 2011. The program is currently free to residents of Mulberry Glen and the senior living center intends to make the program free to area seniors as well.
IF YOU GO …
WHO: Mulberry Glenn
WHAT: Free public presentation on new video chat system, Easy Connect HD
WHEN: 1 p.m., Friday, May 17
WHERE: Mulberry Glenn complex, 1255 W. Main St., Whitewater.
INFO: (262) 473-4515
