Buttonworks and the front desk
A resident calls the desk or walks down to it, and a person takes the request and passes it on. For a resident who is anxious or confused, this beats any screen. It also runs on one person, during the hours that person is there.
Where the front desk works well
- A human being answers. Some of what residents want is to be heard, and software cannot do that part.
- It handles a vague request well. A receptionist who knows the building can work out what someone means.
- It needs no equipment and no consent form.
Where it runs out
- It is a daytime service. Evenings, nights, and weekends are when the building is thinnest and the desk is empty.
- Everything passes through one person's memory. The relay is the single point of failure, and it is doing three other things.
- The same handful of questions come up over and over: what time is dinner, when is the hairdresser, has my laundry come back.
- It can only take a request in a language the person at the desk speaks. In 2023 records, 14.4% of California nursing home residents needed an interpreter.
- Language mismatch is not only inconvenient. A study across six hospitals found adverse events affecting patients with limited English proficiency were more often the kind that caused physical harm.
Side by side
| Front desk | Buttonworks | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours | When the desk is staffed | Any time |
| Language | What the desk speaks | The resident's own |
| Routine questions | Answered again, each time | Answered from what the facility has written, in the chat |
| Who is handling it | Whoever was told | The team it was routed to |
| Record | A note, if there was time | A work order with the original message attached |
| A resident who wants a person | This is the right route | Still the right route |
What happens with Buttonworks
- Routine questions get answered in the chat from content the facility has written, so they stop arriving at the desk.
- Requests that need doing become work orders on the right team's dashboard without the desk relaying them.
- Requests made at 2am are waiting properly in the morning instead of being remembered, or not.
- The desk keeps the conversations that actually need a person.
This is not about removing the person at the desk. It is about what reaches them. If the same six questions stop arriving, the desk has more of itself left for the resident who needs it.
Buttonworks is in early access. Statistics on this page are cited on the Sources page. See the other comparisons, or what Buttonworks does.
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