Care is just three clicks away at Atria Newport Beach
Eighty-six-year-old Joan Cox lived at her Corona del Mar condo with the help of her caregivers. She liked living on her own.
She just didn’t want to cook anymore.
Recently, she mentioned that in conversation with her daughter, Joan Davidson — the second Joan in the family, Cox explained — who in turn said she’d recently heard about a new senior living community opening up in Newport Beach soon near the Hoag campus. There, Cox could be provided with three meals a day from the community’s various in-house eateries if she moved in.
So with a brochure in hand, the two headed to Hospital Road. Cox said she fell in love with Atria Newport Beach and just last week moved into it, joining 25 other residents. Though she’s relieved she doesn’t have to cook anymore, Cox admitted that the real reason she moved there was to socialize with people outside of her family — an issue made all the more pervasive with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She said she’d felt isolated and used to have people coming to visit all the time, but that ended with the onset of the pandemic.
Allowing seniors to socialize and live their lives independently while keeping them safe and healthy — during a pandemic and otherwise — is the focus of Atria Newport Beach, a task that is aided by the “wearables” that are given to all the residents and members of the residence’s 60-person staff for contact tracing.
“It’s kind of like a smartwatch,” said Sarah Laloyan, Atria Senior Living senior vice president of operations. “Touchless door entry, touchless access to any of our amenities so the resident doesn’t really have to touch doorknobs. That’s so important with disease management and infection management today in our COVID world.
“That’s the concern with all of our families and our residents: how’s mom going to be safe? We’ve really taken every measure to make sure our residents are safe with the touchless technology ... and everything’s really set up very tech-savvy, which is different because you don’t really find that in senior housing,” said Laloyan.
“This is the senior living of the future in the sense that it feels like we knew this was going to happen pre-pandemic,” she added.
Each device can also detect if a resident has fallen, and seniors can push the button on the device three times to call for assistance by on-site care staff, opening a two-way radio channel for the resident and staff to communicate during a medical emergency.
It also helps track habits to create a baseline for caregivers, which Atria Newport Beach Executive Director Ben Rodny said staff can use to note any abnormal behavior in residents.
Visitors are also given a device, but on a lanyard for similar purpose of contact tracing in the event someone should test positive living or working in or after visiting Atria Newport Beach.
The project first began development in 2018 and received its certificate of occupancy in January.
Laloyan said the team performs an assessment on a potential resident to make sure they are able to provide adequate care. A physician’s report is also required. Once those are cleared, then the move-in date is scheduled. Incoming residents must test negative for COVID-19 and then, upon move-in, are put under a special status for 48 hours before they are tested again.
Laloyan said that much of the technology in use was planned and accounted for prior to the pandemic, but COVID-19’s arrival helped Atria tune into what was important to protect the seniors not only from the coronavirus but other diseases.
In total, Atria officials said the project spans about 77,000-square-feet and will have cost about $70 million once the north building is refurbished for additional apartments and memory care.
The senior living community offers a number of amenities, including a fitness center, yoga studio, salon and spa, movie theater, game room, courtyard garden, dining options and a library.
Visitors are temperature-checked at the door and must answer a series of questions about their health before being allowed to enter. On average, Rodny said that it used to take a few hours to trace cases. With the wearables, it takes about five to 10 minutes.
Laloyan said the senior living community will have its first vaccine clinic on Friday and will be providing vaccinations to all its staff and residents. Staff members hired going forward will be required to have vaccines, and both groups will be tested regularly.
Cox said she feels safe living at Atria Newport Beach and that she’s had a lot of laughs since she arrived.
Cox said she’s befriended a few of the other women living there and she’s started keeping a diary of what happens day to day. She said she’s taking a yoga class and joked she was worried she wouldn’t be able to get up if she had to get on the floor. She said she was looking forward to going on outings once it is safe.
But, the best part?
“I don’t feel alone at all,” she said, smiling.
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