Gordon virtual discovery experience is leading aged care into the future
A 360° digital scan is being made for our Gordon based home, Horton House. The residential home will have its entire layout recorded, including bathrooms, gardens and even inside its cupboards. The virtual discovery experience aims to bring Horton House into the future and allow people to explore the home at any time or pace on their laptop or phone.
According to the home’s Facility Manager, Star Dang, it will “pioneer age care homes, not only in how tours are delivered but how people are able to interact with their potential homes.” Star says that the virtual discovery experience will create greater convenience for those looking at homes and also close the distance for families far away.
The program, built by Virtacom and funded by HSL, and will be more than a simple Google maps navigation. Their goal is to create an interactive experience.
The virtual discovery program will offer basic features like walk throughs, as well as extra details like opening cupboards to see storage space, moving seats to look at safety features, and additional information tags.
These small touches make a big difference in building trust, says Virtacom director, Jason Swaffield. The added layers of features empowers individuals to inspect buildings and interact with the environment. It all comes down to Jason’s philosophy of allowing people to ‘go there before they go there’.
Jason had previously work for 5 years in health care and he says experiencing places digitally means that people get to observe the safety features and build genuine trust.
For Janna Blok, a resident at Horton House, the digital scheme will be a way to connect with her family. Janna’s son lives in Kempsey and her daughter in New Zealand, meaning that visiting Gordon is often difficult.
On the day Virtacom came in to perform the scan, Janna commented that it was a ‘lovely idea’, and will be a way for her children to ‘check in’ and see where she lives.
The digital rendering of Horton House should be available by the end of April. The home is the first aged care facility from Twilight to receive a virtual discovery experience and CEO Neil Wendt is hoping to extend the initiative to more homes very soon.