REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

Shellisa Mitchell
Student ID: ft0464
Wayne State University
SW 4443
Professor Althea M. Grant
2/13/16

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

The report on the field placement setting begins with the CEO history and the start of the
organization, the mission, and purpose. The Social Work Intern interviewed the CEO of Critical
Signal Technologies to get a history synopsis of the company. The CEO, Mr. Prough was born
and raised in Radford, MI. Mr. Prough father was a blue collar worker and mother was a
homemaker. The family was poor and barely had enough to survive. However, Mr. Jeffrey S.
Prough knew at an early age he wanted to become a millionaire. Mr. Prough played baseball and
thought that will be his ticket out of poverty but it failed, Mr. Prough worked very hard at various
organizations before CST such as, Paging Communication, Ram Broadcasting the first cellular
company, and Bell South which he sold a moved back to Michigan and began a family. He
became the President of Guardian Alarm for 13 years which he helped the organization go from
28 million to 100 million.
Mr. Prough introduces the Peers Family of Guardian Alarms to Medical Pull Cord Alarms
but it was not their main focus. Mr. Prough pardons from the organization and he was intrigued
by Life Line and the PERS Business which is Personal Emergency Response & Medication
Management. Mr. Prough founded the company in 2006 in two locations with just his family
friends in Florida and Ohio. Mr. Prough explains, he had a dream about the mission. Critical
Signal Technologies Mission Statement: Critical Signal Technologies is a Health Services
Company committed to offering innovative, cost-effective patient monitoring strategies for
homes, hospitals and senior independent facilities in the U.S. and abroad. Our programs
dramatically reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and allow individuals to live independently
longer without compromising their dignity by providing real patient-centered care (Prough,
2006).

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

The purpose of the organization is to provide 24-hour personal emergency response

monitoring and related services to elderly, chronically ill or disabled individuals. The overview
of the company target population is patients within the hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living
and more. CST started with 15,000 subscribers which serve purposes in medication management,
telehealth, managed care and multi-resident monitoring. CST emerged with the PERS
Monitoring company Link to Life. CST is a growing fast, with the most flexible and scalable
monitoring in the nation in two fully redundant, multi-lingual, 24/7 Care Centers located in
Michigan. The company now have 80,000 subscribers and over 300,000+ lifetime subscribers.
The organization is the fourth largest in North America to be an independent multi-channel
PERS supplier (Prough, 2016).
My role as a Social Work Intern is to provide great client services and resources.
Additionally, the Social Work Intern must offer assistance to the patients in emergent and nonemergent calls. The company is a technology place where our interaction with the patient is on
the phone. The Social Work Intern should demonstrate warm, empathy, and compassion.
Although, our assessments are on the phone the supervision promotes the Social Workers to use
our skills and abilities to effectively help the patient. The Social Workers are expected to make
sound decisions and judgments on whether the call is emergent or non-emergent. The Social
Workers responsibility is to uphold the Social Work values and ethics.
The interaction between Social Workers and other disciplines are very conservative.
Every discipline knows their role and usually focus within their department. The various
departments engage and interact within itself. However, the focal point is the patient. Moreover,
if a patient has to be direct to another department because of an issue or concern then, the two
departments will interact or engage with one another to address the patients concerns. Clients

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

enter the system upon discharged from the hospital with the need of home care services, rehab,
or nursing facilities eligibility. CST has home health care partners who promote the medical
device to the patient and family with a sixty-day free trial and after the trial, the patient will be
contacted to see if they want to keep the device. The sales representative will go over pricing and
discounts, also, most of the patients insurances will help with the payments. The intake policy is
the responsibility of the home care nurse and the Social Workers to input the specified
demographics and needs of the patient into the CST System. The procedures on how the patients
are enter into the system are through referrals from hospitals, a friend referred, and Home Health
Agencies. The Home Health Agencies fax over patients reports for CST Social Workers to create
an account and set-up activation with the visiting nurse as a Home Test Call. Once the test went
through with the PERS department the patient is now active in the system and they are monitor
from that initial day.
How clients progress through the system is making sure the patients medical device is
charge and assessable to them. Making sure the patient actively works with the home care
agency. The cooperation of the Home Health Care Services in providing quality and effective
care for the patients. Patients abide by their doctor orders in medication management, dieting,
and exercise. CST has an integral role in health care reform. The technology CST serves as an
early intervention during a crisis. The fast response to alert health care providers in the changes
of their patients status and to intervene and help with emergent or non-emergent issues. It lowers
health care costs and reduce hospital readmissions (Prough, 2016).
How clients leave/terminate the system through a simple call and cancel or decline
services. CST gives the patients the right to make their own decisions and judgments on their
medical needs. This organization is a medical monitoring organization which is to provide

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

efficient and proficient services in emergencies. However, not just emergencies the company
monitors the patient medication management in Reminder Calls and Wellness Calls but to give
the patient resources in transportation, DME, Food Banks and more. The patient has the right to
decline any services at any time.
The commitment of CST to the community and surrounding areas it serves and achieved
their goal is by upholding their mission and to stay in the two principles of Morals and Ethics
which surrounds the mission statement. The CST is committed to serving communities all over
the Nation. CSTs multi-tenant pull-cord replacement provides property managers and owners
with the ability to more efficiently manage their resources, reduce their liability and provide their
residents with the peace of mind that they can alert emergency assistance from anywhere in their
building. CST-LTL is Critical Signal Technologies -Your Link to Life is a Michigan Based
Company that consistently gives back to their government funded partners and the communities
they serve. CST-LTL is proud of the awards and recognition we have received acknowledging
why we are the choice of state health agencies, health insurers, agencies on aging, physician
groups, hospitals and other health and safety experts (Prough, 2016).
CST achieve their goals by their three services the Care Transition & Readmission
Management Program which help discharge patients from a hospital the prevention of hospital
readmission. Long-term Care & Multi-Tenant Program provides technology to help aid multitenant care facilities with effective care for their residents and to have better patient outcomes.
Personal Emergency Response & Medication Management which is available home and portable
medical devices for Personal Emergency and Medical Response systems. These three services
implement effective and efficient ways to achieve the commitment and services to the
communities served. The patients are vital and important to the organization existence.

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

The CST first priority is the Patients in the communities they serve. The CST mission
specifies how the company takes health care to another level which will help the elderly and
mentally ill live peacefully, respectfully and comfortable at their place of living. The CST is an
advanced technology system which promotes safety, support and care for their patients wellbeing. Although, the company provides a twenty-four-hour call center does not mean the human
touch and engagement are not implemented. The Wellness and Reminder Calls exemplify the
above factors to demonstrate the Social Work skills and implement a great trust, bond, and
rapport with the patients. The company is committed to giving every senior the opportunity to
live a comfortable life.

Above is the company logo and the three services provided to the patients which is
categorized into three functions with colored heart symbols. The CST has set-up functions in
order to better serve the patients. The green heart is your Link to Life which in 2009, CST
acquired the stock and assets of GTL, Inc. dba Link to Life, a 30-year-old PERS monitoring
provider in Massachusetts (Prough, 2006). The green heart is the PERS which represents the
medical part to respond to emergent calls. The purple heart is the Multi-Tenant Solutions which
is the medical device the patient has for technicians to set a central unit technology at facilities
and assisted living centers. The orange heart is the additional part to Tele-Health monitoring of
twenty-five patients. The patients are monitor medically with their medication, daily weights,
and blood pressure. The patients are assigned under the Amerigroup Insurance. This part works
with the home care to connect Social Worker to monitor these patients which are called Home
Health Care Connect (HHC). These services help patients all over the world (Prough, 2016).

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

Prough, S. Jeffrey, (2006-2016). Critical Signal Technologies (CST), Your Link to Life (LTL),
interviewed by Shellisa Mitchell 2/10/16.

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING

REPORT ON FIELD PLACEMENT SETTING