Family Virtual Visits Center Opens at Irving Cypen Tower, Miami Jewish Home and Hospital

The Miami Jewish Home and Hospital at Douglas Gardens recently celebrated the Grand Opening of its new Virtual Visits Center at Irving Cypen Tower, the Home’s independent living residence. The Virtual Visits Center has a large-screen TV, a video camera, a microphone and speakers supplied by Family Virtual Visits, Inc., a relatively new California-based company, most of whose current clients are on the West Coast. MJHH is the company’s first client in the State of Florida.

The Family Virtual Visits technology enables the Home’s senior home residents to see and talk to family and friends anywhere in the world, as if they were in the same room. Even close relatives who don’t live that far away find Virtual Visits very valuable. By scheduling 15-minute Virtual Visits, they can literally see how their senior loved ones are doing more regularly than might otherwise be possible – right at their desktop and without having to contend with traffic, or burning travel time or gas. No special computer skills are needed, and they can connect from either their home or office PC. For the senior, it’s as easy as watching TV, but interactive. Subscribing family members need a Windows PC, a high-speed Internet connection, and a webcam, which is provided free of charge if they don’t have one. Seniors just sit down in front of a large screen TV in the senior community’s Virtual Visits Center and visit with their family and friends.

Family Virtual Visits, Inc.’s Denise Tharp demonstrates their system at the Grand Opening of the Miami Jewish Home’s Virtual Visits Center.

Michael Brodie, MJHH’s Director of Assisted Living, explained the genesis of the Home’s Virtual Family Visits Center, which is intended to be used primarily by residents of Irving Cypen Tower and Harriet Cypen Tower, MJHH’s adjacent assisted living facility: “We always strive to make this as homelike and comfortable an environment as we possibly can for our residents, but you obviously cannot replace contact with family members. When one of our board members told us about the Family Virtual Visits system, we realized it would give us a means to empower our residents to connect with their families on a regular basis, thus making them happier and less worried or lonely. Equally important, when family members can not only hear but see their loved ones as often as they wish, they worry less about them.” MJHH’s Virtual Visits Center is also open to area seniors outside the Home, who can register as “virtual residents” in order to participate in the program. Participation is free to the seniors; family members pay a $20 monthly subscription fee, for which they can schedule as many appointments for virtual visits as they like.

The Miami Jewish Home’s Judy Salintero and Michael Brodie answer residents’ questions at the Grand Opening of the Home’s new Virtual Visits Center.

Brodie reports that Irving and Harriet Cypen Tower residents, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, have reacted to the Virtual Visits Center “with absolute wonder. We’ve had residents sit down and not be able to figure out how the person knows what they’re wearing, even though they’re in California. All in all, they’re in love with the idea that they can visit with children and grandchildren that they otherwise would see rarely or not at all.”