The baby boomers are a “plug-and-play” generation with regard to technology, and senior living operators are preparing for their arrival by building out new tech infrastructure and programs to navigate an ever-complicated world of new devices and services.

Not only are operators preparing for a new generation, they are also themselves trying to make sense of a dizzying array of platforms, and “every single vendor is trying to mix AI in their portfolio,”said Dusanka Delovska-Trajkova, chief information officer for Washington, D.C.-based Ingleside.

As organizations like Ingleside budget for the new year, Delovska-Trajkova said her goal is to go beyond the “hype” of new AI and tech and use only services and platforms that add to the organization’s workflow.

Chicago-based Vi – which is in the process of merging with LCS – takes a similar mindset to new tech and AI, according to Melissa Evraets, the company’s vice president of resident care and chief nursing officer.

“We’re really at a crossroads between the new shiny thing out there and … what are you needing on the back-end that’s safe and has good quality controls?” she said during a panel at RETHINK, an event held by Senior Housing News sister publication Skilled Nursing News in Chicago.

Going beyond the hype

New technology such as AI is only effective if residents and staff will use it at the end of the day. The influence of AI can be felt everywhere, from Google searches to writing emails. But AI alone is not a reason to jump on a new technology, Delovska-Trajkova said.

“AI is such a generic term, there’s so much behind it,” she said. “What are our people spending their time on? What are their biggest pain points? What is our biggest return on our investment? “[We are] analyzing what people are doing during the day and how technology, including AI, can help them.”

Vi weighs infrastructure and uses cases among staff and residents to weigh whether to implement a new technology or platform. Like Delovska-Trajkova, Evraets sees a lot of hype in products such as AI that operators must not get lost in.

For example, a vendor might call its product AI-powered even if all it’s doing is scrubbing documents, a functionality that existed in software before the advent of modern artificial intelligence.

“It’s really not AI unless it takes that next step and creates the care plan for you before that resident comes in,” Evraets said. “We have to be really careful … AI gets thrown out there. But what is that? Is it old technology?”

At the end of the day, Evraets and Vi believe that technology is only worth pursuing if it adds to the resident or employee experience.

“If it doesn’t add to the resident experience and their overall happiness in other communities, I’m really not interested,” she said.

Data entry is a cornerstone of any tech platform, according to Delovska-Trajkova. And to that end, “our data collecting systems are very mature,” she said. But too much data is not a good thing in itself. She described how the standard resident electronic health record is now full of information that wasn’t recorded in years prior.

To that end, Ingleside is exploring how to make relevant data stand out to staffers more quickly.

“It’s difficult to decipher what is really important about that resident, so what we have been looking and working on is to define some kind of visuals for our staff,” she said.

As residents bring their own devices with them such as Amazon Alexa, they are also bringing with them needs for support.

Vi has for a few years offered a tech concierge service in all of its 10 communities, with half of the services dedicated for residents and the other half for staff.

“We have one of those in every community. It also helps when you’re implementing a corporate initiative technology, because they help it get hard wired into the community,” Evraets said.

Delovska-Trajkova added that residents want their devices “up-and-running the moment they come in.”

Reducing technology costs

Senior living tech is not always cheap, and operators including. Ingleside and Vi are finding ways to reduce the overall amount they are spending through partnerships or resident fees.

Ingleside works to identify its pain points and how staff are using their time with an eye on better efficiency, according to Delovska-Trajkova.

Additionally, the company is working to partner with universities that are looking to build products. Through the partnerships, Ingleside takes on pilot projects to test out new technology options and potentially reduce the overall cost of their installment.

Vi’s technology concierge is used to both offset costs and produce revenue, according to Evraets. However, she added that displaying even simple technology aspects, such as a giant flat screen TV, can bolster a community’s sales team efforts and help fill occupancy. Vi has invested in interactive tables called Tovertafels, which while it is a “mid-level expense,” happens to be a crowd pleaser during tours.

“If you have inventory, and your sales team is trying to sell these units, having visual technology exposed during the touring period … it might not be the most impactful to the resident, but you need to give your sales team some techie stuff. Because people love tech. Adult children love tech,” Evraets said. “Don’t forget about your sales team, because they’re going to produce the revenue.”