By Steve Moran
If you havenโt met Sarah Hoit, the CEO and co-founder of Connected Living (a Foresight partner), you should. Sarah is a committed social impact leader, who is likely even more passionate about changing the world of senior living than I am (if thatโs possible). And thatโs saying a lot.
She is also the perfect example of a leader who is committed to โdoing well while doing good,โ which also says a lot.
So I, for one, am not surprised that Omega Healthcare Investors, who recently announced they have acquired Connected Living, invited Sarah to join the Omega leadership team and remain as CEO of Connected Living. Itโs a good move, especially when you know how it came about.
Pictured above: C. Taylor Pickett, CEO Omega Healthcare Investors (left) and Sarah Hoit, CEO Connected Living (right)
The Problem
Communication is a huge challenge for every senior living operator.
How do you:
- Communicate current events and activities to residents?
- Communicate those same things with family members?
- Keep the process of communicating from eating up staff time and energy?
- Provide meaningful content to residents in their apartments, particularly during a pandemic?
- Make communications between residents and their families easy to do?
- Communicate the right care and health status with the right family members?
These are the problems that Connected Livingโs technology platform helps senior communities solve. The end goal is to make the lives of residents and families better while, at the same time, reduce the burden on the community team.
The Solution
Taylor Pickett, the CEO at Omega, was hearing from their operators that these problems were significant and growing. The idea of using technology to solve them was growing as well. After connecting with Sarah Hoit, they realized that Connected Livingโs vision of using technology to make the lives of residents, their families, and staff better was one they shared.
It is easy to get wrapped up in technology for the โcool factorโ but, at the end of the day, technology is a tool to solve a problem or set of problems in a significant way. It reminds me of a famous marketer who once noted that people do not buy drill bits because they need a drill bit. They buy a drill bit because they need a hole.
The union between these two solutions providers makes sense in a lot of ways. Connected Living brings to Omega and the rest of the senior living ecosystem the ability to solve big communication problems. Try finding an operator who isnโt having that problem today.
Omega brings to Connected Living resources to accelerate and expand their technology offerings to the benefit of the entire industry. Arguably, needed now more than ever.
Massive Inflection Point
Right now, today, senior living is at a massive inflection point. Going back to the pre-pandemic way of doing things is a recipe for certain disaster. A sort of โway of the jungleโ operational playbook that would result in lots of very vulnerable older people and frontline workers suffering horribly.
The other option, THE OTHER OPPORTUNITY, is for senior living organizations to embrace a new reality that will more fully realize the ability of senior living to transform the lives of older people. It will take doing things in new, better, more powerful, and more efficient ways with a new set of tools, like those that Connected Living delivers.
Iโm looking for good things to come out of the Omega Healthcare-Connected Living union.
And it canโt happen fast enough.
To learn more about Connected Living, please visit their website.
Click here to read comments and join the conversation about this article.
