Industry · Senior living
Stop elopements before a resident reaches the door.
Tec-Tel designs, installs, and runs the cameras, access control, and wander management that keep memory care, CCRCs, and SNFs safe. CMS-aligned, HIPAA-aware, and built around resident dignity. Cameras stay out of resident rooms by design.
- NDAA-compliant
- Platform-agnostic
- 1,000+ deployments over 15 years
§01 What we install in senior living
The system a director of nursing relies on.
Once a campus is commissioned, the worry shifts off the night shift and onto the system. Here's what your DON, security director, and family liaison work with from day one.
§ How we work
An elopement is the incident every memory-care director loses sleep over. We install wander RFID system-wide tied to door schedules with verified response, so a resident approaching an exit triggers an alert before they're through the door.
How Tec-Tel works in senior living
§02 How a Tec-Tel deployment works
Five steps, one accountable team.
Walk every building before we quote
No quote-by-floorplan. We come on site, talk to your DON, facilities lead, and security director, and document what's actually there. Resident-area off-limits clearly mapped.
Standardize across the campus or system
One or two camera platforms. One access platform. Five buildings under one operator get one VMS, not five logins.
Segment from clinical networks
Cameras and access on a separate VLAN from EHR + clinical. Wander-management RFID can talk to access control without touching the clinical chart system.
Tune analytics for senior-care contexts
Slip-and-fall and wander analytics need on-site calibration in senior-living environments, until the false-positive rate is low enough to trust.
Hand off with a runbook + family-facing comms
Your team gets a written ops doc and a parent / family-member communication template. Residents and families know what is captured and what is not.
§03 What a Tec-Tel install looks like
Three building shapes. Three different stacks.
A single AL building and a multi-building CCRC need entirely different coverage. Here are the three shapes we deploy most, and what each runs.
80-150 residents, single facility, single administrator
- → Wander-management at exterior doors only
- → Common-area cameras, no resident-room coverage
- → Anti-ligature in behavioral wings
- → Medication-room access tracking
Continuing-care retirement community, IL + AL + SNF + memory care
- → 100-300 cameras across IL, AL, SNF, memory-care levels of care
- → Wander RFID system-wide for memory-care residents
- → Family-member visitor management at all entries
- → Two-person rule + camera on every med room
CMS-regulated skilled nursing facility, single building
- → CMS-aligned camera coverage of common areas
- → Anti-elopement workflow at every exterior
- → DEA Part 1300 controlled-substance handling
- → Survey-ready documentation packet on demand
§04 Compliance buyers ask us about
Frameworks we build to.
CMS conditions of participation for SNFs. Camera coverage of common areas, no resident-room coverage, anti-elopement workflow. Survey-ready documentation packet.
Footage that captures identifiable residents can be PHI in some contexts. Segmented camera storage, retention to facility policy, BAA with cloud video provider.
Controlled-substance handling for SNFs: two-person rule on the med-cart room, camera on the cabinet, badge-plus-PIN audit trail.
State-specific elder-care regulations on camera placement, retention, and family-notification rules. Designed to your specific state.
Questions buyers ask us
FAQ
- How much does a senior-living security install cost?
- Cost depends on building count, resident count, levels of care, and how much anti-elopement, wander-management, and medication-room coverage the campus needs. A single AL building and a multi-building CCRC sit far apart. We scope the campus against your building list on the consultation and come back with a defensible per-building budget. That scope is the free consultation.
- Are cameras allowed in resident rooms?
- Almost never. Most state regulations and facility policies prohibit resident-room camera coverage. We design common-area-only coverage and document the no-room policy in your install package. Some facilities allow resident-elected in-room cameras under family contract; we support that if your state allows it.
- How does wander management work?
- RFID tags worn on the wrist or ankle integrate with door schedules and the VMS. A tagged resident approaches an exterior door, the system flags the attempt, the unit clerk sees the camera, and the door stays locked or relocks. Pairs with elopement-policy paging.
- Does this support CMS survey-readiness?
- Yes. Camera coverage of common areas, anti-elopement workflow, and DEA Part 1300 medication-room handling are all designed to satisfy CMS conditions of participation. Documentation packet exported on demand for the survey window.
- How long does a typical install take?
- A single building moves quickly. A multi-building CCRC campus runs in sequenced phases around shift changes and family-visit windows, so residents see minimal disruption. We size the timeline against your building list in the free consultation.
Book a free assessment
Get a plan built around your campus.
Book a free consultation. The Tec-Tel team walks your campus, then comes back with what CMS expects, what your state allows, and a defensible per-building budget.
- Tell us how many sites you run and what's already in place. We'll show you what a build or upgrade looks like.
- Straight answers from the team that does the work. We're platform-agnostic, so you get the system that fits your sites, not one brand's catalog.
Since 2010 · 1,000+ deployments nationwide · ISN-accredited
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How can we help?
What you're looking for, plus any details. We review it and follow up, usually the same day.
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