Senior living operators continue to show a growing interest in technology innovation to help deliver quality of care and a positive staff experience. And for two days in August, leaders from senior living came together with VCs, capital partners and innovators to build their knowledge and answer their questions during the inaugural Silicon Valley Senior Living Summit, sponsored by SafelyYou, a provider of world-leading AI video technology in senior care.
These leading executives met just outside Palo Alto, California to connect, collaborate and create change, all for the benefit of senior living residents and staff.
What they found were three keys to senior living innovation:
- Innovation is critical for both today’s needs and tomorrow’s goals
- Operators need strategic partnerships with trusted technology partners
- Innovation must be on an operator’s agenda each and every day
They also learned this: the connection between venture capitalist investment and senior living operators is only growing stronger.
Innovation is critical for both today’s needs and tomorrow’s goals
A few years ago, Pleasanton, California-based operator HumanGood designed a new process for its technology innovation. The strategy: focus on technology that offers real solutions to real problems, and then scale that technology across its communities.
“That discipline has allowed us to quickly screen out the stuff that either doesn’t solve a real problem (or) doesn’t solve it in a measurable way,” John Cochrane, President & CEO of HumanGood, said during the summit.
That focus on measurable solutions to concrete problems is HumanGood’s innovation North Star. And it speaks to one of the themes highlighted during the summit, and found in the SafelyYou 2022 State of Falls report. For success in senior living, operators must balance many competing priorities — such as staffing vs. NOI — and as such are challenged to find the time and resources to dedicate to innovation and technology.
Take fall prevention, for example. Approximately 80% of operators surveyed in the 2022 report see technology as highly effective to reduce falls. Yet when asked about solutions, those operators expressed dissatisfaction. They were overwhelmed by the process and cost of implementing the technology and training their staff, challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic hastened.
“COVID amplified our need and absolutely accelerated our adoption of technology,” Cochrane said. “And as we look to create a culture of innovation, something that I couldn’t get people to buy into five years ago, they are now saying, ‘I get it.’ But if it doesn’t make their lives easier on day one, they’re out of here.”
For Doris-Ellie Sullivan, president at Retirement Unlimited, technology is a win when there is true collaboration between vendors and operators.
“I think the ability to share ideas openly and let people peek in on the other side of your operations makes it greater for everybody,” she said. “And then we can propel technology further. People being open with their data and communication and their struggles. Struggles are where the growth comes from.”
To drive innovation, operators need strategic partnerships with trusted technology partners
While collaboration between senior living operators and VCs remains rare, the opportunity is growing. The question is who must take the lead.
According to VCs, the answer is operators. Investors at the summit said that senior living executives must be proactive in their own innovation, and choose a champion that will drive the industry forward.
But too often, operators felt that technology vendors could not adequately show how their technology would solve the biggest problems that they face.
“We are an industry that thrives on what I call ‘vapors and good feelings,’” Cochrane said. “We thrive on promises (like) ‘This is going to make your life easier’ — but no one can ever quantify it. And I can tell you, if you can’t quantify it for me, that’s a fast ‘no.’”
Essentially, both sides are saying the same thing: that the opportunity for strategic partnership and collaboration is ripe, so long as both sides can properly and proactively communicate what they need and want from the other.
Test and learn quickly: innovation needs to be on the agenda every day
For senior living innovation to work, all silos that prevent communication must be eliminated between senior living, capital partners and technology vendors. That communication is then an ongoing process. Technology innovation does not end at implementation. Operators need ongoing measurement and strategic conversations on insights to inform how they can best drive results. ROI can be difficult to pinpoint, so operators must know the total impact that new solutions have so that they can justify the cost.
If a solution is meant to improve the resident experience, for example, there isn’t always a standardized way to measure what that improvement looks like. Operators must be able to articulate that an X% improvement in resident satisfaction is worth Y dollars to investors. To do that, they must approach innovation as a daily exercise, not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor.
That’s what Alan Fairbanks, executive vice president of Olathe, Kansas-based Bickford Senior Living, views as the key to senior living’s innovation success: finding a partner that will work with them every day.
“That’s what I love about the SafelyYou platform, is that they teach us and they stick with us and they hold our hand all the way through it to make sure we’re getting the maximum benefit out of the technology,” he said at the summit. “And I think that’s what a lot of technology vendors miss.”
This article is sponsored by SafelyYou. To learn more about how to bring the best technology innovation to your community, read the State of Falls report here.
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