Does any given technology actually make things better?
By Steve Moran
The big, the huge, the massive, technology problem that every single senior living community faces is massively simple and at the same time hugely complex.
Does any given technology actually make things better?
Too often, what happens is that a company comes out with some really cool technology and imagines themselves as the next acquisition target for Google, and then they can’t figure out why they are struggling to get traction with operators.
What they fail to do, is put themselves in the shoes of those people (operators) who they want to purchase their neat new wizbang thing. Just this week I had this very conversation who a guy who has a new start-up web service he wants to sell into the industry. It was a great conversation and he was very bright, but after I started asking him questions, he just plain had not thought out the things he needed to be thinking about.
The successful technology companies have figured this out.
I recently had a chance to talk with Rachel Helfand who is The Director of Program Development & Training program for Spring Hills Senior Communities about why they adopted the SmileTM, integrated communication platform by Carextech, a Senior Housing Forum partner.
Here is how she described what happened in a nutshell:
“We were looking at a few companies that did this kind of activity tracking and family engagement. SmileTM aligned so perfectly with our company’s focus on pro-active outreach.” Helfand says. “With Smile, we have streamlined our participation tracking, have access to valuable reports for calendar analysis and are able to further develop positive rapport with families through the 2 way messaging and photo sharing.”
Spring Hills Senior Communities
All Spring Hills Senior Communities’, Home Care Services, Assisted Living Communities and Poet’s Walk Memory Care Communities offer a distinctive and innovative approach to home care services, assisted living, and Alzheimer’s care as led by Alex Markowits, President/CEO. Signature Touches is the company’s holistic approach to offering individualized care and services that are designed to meet the needs and preferences of residents and clients. Personal choice is top priority in one of the company’s eight Spring Hills assisted living communities or in client’s homes with Spring Hills home care services located in NJ, VA, OH, FL and NV, or in one of the company’s Poet’s Walk memory care communities located in VA and TX as well as soon-to-be NV, CO, FL and IN. For more information about their Caring with a Commitment to Quality dedication to senior living, visit www. spring-hills. com or www. poetswalk-springhills. com.
From Simple to Sophistication
The journey for Spring Hills Senior Communities started when they went looking for a more streamlined way, to track resident activity participation and levels of family engagement. Prior to adopting SmileTM they had activity leaders entering attendance information on excel spreadsheets and making company reporting cumbersome.
This was all very human capital intensive and prone to error.
Good News for Families
Too often when families hear from communities it is about problems, negative changes in condition or in the form of a monthly statement. All necessary, but none of it very pleasant. Spring Hills Senior Communities wanted to have a platform for delivering good news and wanted to promote the active lifestyle their residents were living.
Notification of positive status updates happens several times per week via text messages or email. They can then log onto the HIPAA compliant SmileTM App to follow the positive activities of their loved one.
Finally this ability to deliver good news and engage families becomes a huge marketing advantage creating an on-going positive image for the community which makes it much more recommendable.
CarexTech has created a case study that provides more details and color on how they are using the SmileTM platform. You can download it HERE
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