By James Balda
The senior living industry, characterized by a potential wealth of data and emerging transformative technologies, is standing at the threshold of innovation. In recent (and future) years, a wide array of technologies have emerged – blockchain and crypto; virtual and augmented reality; cyber risk and security; robotics and self-driving cars; wearables, the internet of things and smart communities – just to name a few.
These trends have the potential to impact the senior living industry and the care and experience provided to our residents. But none of them will be fully actualized unless we can get the fundamentals right.
In early 2023, Argentum initiated an environmental scan with a dual purpose – to understand the scope and scale of innovation and technology needs within the senior living industry and to explore what would be needed to drive meaningful change. The report encapsulates insights gathered through focus groups, interviews, workshops, and a member survey, painting a vivid picture of the current state and potential future of senior living technology.
The call to action was clear: to move the needle substantially in the senior living industry’s technological landscape and to get right what I would call the fundamentals.
The Fundamentals – Themes Emerging from the Environmental Scan
We synthesized our findings into four central themes which I would collectively call the fundamentals we need to address to take advantage of the opportunities before us – silo-busting, capital to drive technology adoption, filling the tech void, and taking action. Each of these themes represents a critical aspect of the industry’s technological evolution and serves as a call to action for all stakeholders to collaborate and innovate.
Silo-Busting: A Call for Cohesiveness
At a minimum the senior living industry needs a more cohesive and integrated technological foundation. There was near unanimous consent among stakeholders participating in our interviews and workshops, affirming the industry’s struggle with software incompatibility, lack of interoperability, and resistance to change standing out as significant barriers to innovation and progress.
More than three in four survey respondents reported software incompatibility with current infrastructure and devices as one of three primary issues while nearly half of respondents pointed to the lack of interoperability as a related challenge.
This lack of system interoperability and data integration is a critical barrier that needs to be addressed and overcome, emphasizing the pressing need for a more unified approach.
The call for Silo-Busting is not just a plea for smoother technological operations; it’s a strategic imperative for achieving comprehensive resident health management which is critical for future participation in value-based care as just one example.
Capital to Drive Technology Adoption: Navigating Financial Realities
The last several years, going as far back as 2018, have been difficult for the senior living industry. And limited capital within this challenging operating environment emerged in our discussions as a crucial theme. Despite the appetite for comprehensive, integrated solutions, financial constraints act as barriers to adoption, deployment, and effective utilization of innovative technology solutions as identified by more than half of our survey respondents.
Despite the challenging capital landscape, the appetite for comprehensive and integrated solutions is strong. Strategic allocation of a hypothetical $2 million windfall, as envisioned by survey participants, identified a shopping list which included upgrading and interoperability of their CRM platform, solutions for integrating outcome data and health records, building out a comprehensive data infrastructure for analytics, and benchmarks in care outcomes to name just a few.
To justify that hypothetical windfall though was the need for a proven return on investment when evaluating potential technological solutions. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents identified ROI as a critical element for vetting technology solutions, recognizing an acute awareness that solutions need to demonstrate defensible and uniform ROI across the industry.
Filling the Tech Void: Seeking an Unbiased Resource for Collaboration
The industry’s need for an unbiased resource to vet technology solutions which can drive collaboration across the care continuum emerged as a pivotal theme in our discussions.
Nearly two in three respondents highlighted partnerships and collaboration between health care systems and providers as essential resources to drive innovation in the senior living industry but the absence of standardized metrics, data taxonomies, and a trusted entity to vet technology solutions leaves operators overwhelmed by siloed point solutions.
Collaboration was closely followed by just over half of respondents indicating that investment in new technology and infrastructure and deployment and widespread adoption of electronic health record systems are vital resources for the future of senior living but that there needs to be common approach to identifying technologies with demonstrable ROI while also developing data standards, benchmarks, and metrics.
It Is Time: Urgency to Close Technology Gaps
A sense of urgency permeated all our discussions. Many stakeholders are enthusiastic about the opportunity to participate in value-based care arrangements, while others (like most industries) remain challenged to attract a talented labor pool, all while a new generation of residents are beginning to move into senior living communities. Layer on top of these emerging technologies and there was a strong recognition that “it’s time” to accelerate technology transformation.
A wide majority of survey participants (nearly 80%) even went so far as to express a willingness to co-innovate with technology companies to develop solutions meeting the unique needs of senior living operations. This urgency is not just a recognition of challenges but a call to action for collaborative, transformative initiatives. And this concept of collaboration was welcomed by technology solutions providers – recognizing that broadening their use cases and better understanding industry workflows can result in substantial innovation while also acknowledging that senior living is a difficult vertical to successfully penetrate.
Problems to Be Solved: A Roadmap for Innovation
These challenges are not insignificant, and the effort required to address them won’t be inconsequential. Through collaboration across the industry and using this innovation roadmap as our guide, there is an opportunity to effect real progress. Argentum’s roadmap consists of four interrelated initiatives: establishing industry-wide quality metrics and data standards, evangelizing and educating on technology needs, and leveraging advocacy and public policy infrastructure to drive legislative action – all driven by our soon to be launched Innovation Advisory Council.
As the industry stands on the precipice of change, the call is clear: it is time to break the silos, allocate capital strategically, fill the tech void, and embrace the urgency to drive transformative technology adoption in senior living. The future of senior living technology is not a distant goal; it’s an opportunity waiting to be unlocked.
