The phrase “artificial intelligence” may be an overused buzzword, but senior housing operators are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to improve their operations.
In the words of Bickford Senior Living President Andy Eby:
In recent years, Eby, a former NFL lineman, has been shaping Bickford's future by integrating data into operations and focusing on transparency with consumers. Speaking at the Argentum conference this week in Phoenix, Arizona, he said artificial intelligence and data analytics are central to making these efforts possible.
“We have an opportunity to think differently and leverage AI to scale our collective operations and leadership,” said Eby. “Through data and information, we have the ability to expand the number of employees and the amount of intellectual property we have as an organization.”
Eby was joined by Tana Gul, president of Merrill Gardens, and Chris Hyatt, co-CEO of New Perspectives Senior Living, all three of whom are excited about how AI is shaping senior housing. We outlined ways to improve operations, increase staff efficiency, and, above all, improve resident care with a focus on fall prevention.
AI integration continues to improve care and operations
From changing the way care is delivered to identifying potential leadership candidates, senior living operators are starting to make AI an important part of their operations. When it comes to senior living, artificial intelligence is an umbrella term that includes everything from large-scale language models like ChatGPT to software that can analyze data and look for trends.
A key area where AI is enabling operators to innovate is by providing data relevant to resident care, the data needed to move from anecdotal resident care to real-world patterns and evidence. is to provide companies with the following.
This will enable providers to capture care income more efficiently, empower families to have difficult conversations, and help community leaders bring empirical evidence to an emotionally difficult process in discussions with resident families. Mr. Eby said he could
“There needs to be a big change,” Eby said. “This moves us from defense to offense, which is a fundamental shift. We are reactive as an industry, but thanks to AI, we are moving from defense to offense and helping customers get to grips with problems before they occur. You can do something for.”
The industry mantra in 2020 and beyond is “doing more with less,” and the integration of AI and data will enable organizations to move from minimizing staff workload to delivering more precise care. “We can do better with fewer resources,” Gall said.
“In conversations with families, some of the communication goes from anecdote to reality,” Gall said.
Gall and Hyatt say integrating AI into senior-care operations is difficult, as enabling the technology and integrating it into a community's day-to-day operations can sometimes be a “capital investment black hole.” Each is skeptical, Hyatt said.
But fast forward to today, and New Perspective and Merrill Gardens have integrated SafelyYou's fall protection technology into their communities and have significantly reduced those accidents. SafelyYou uses AI to monitor residents' rooms for potential falls, identify patterns that may lead to potential falls, and notify care staff when needed to prevent falls. .
“We know where the future is going, and it's about leveraging technology,” Hyatt said, noting how impactful fall prevention technology is having in the precision memory care community. .
After integrating SafelyYou, nursing staff's New Perspective response to a fall accident improved to 2 minutes and 57 seconds, a clear improvement compared to the previous average time of 40 minutes to 1 hour.
“We're raising the level of care, but we don't like having those conversations.” [with families] But the future of what we're talking about is going to be bringing data into the equation, not donuts,” Hyatt said.
Hyatt added that New Perspective has also created the role of vice president of innovation and optimization to expand the areas within the company that can benefit from data analytics.
Gall cited Nike's slogan “Just Do It” as an example of how committed operators should be to using data and AI to support their operations.
Merrill Garden's AI capabilities extended the length of stay in its memory care community by an additional three months on average after integrating fall prevention technology.
“We had to be proactive,” Gall said during the panel discussion. “Occupancy is important right now, and the other great things that come out of it are transparency, staff training, and differentiators in sales tools.”
Gall added that the integration of new data models and fall prevention technology in the community has been “revolutionary” for the Merrill Gardens storage facility.
Ebay said businesses need to build “strong technology partnerships” with vendors to improve operations. Before implementing fall prevention technology that passively monitors residents in a non-invasive manner, 92% of falls in Bickford's community were unwitnessed.
Hyatt says that before implementing fall prevention technology, 97% of falls in New Perspective communities were unwitnessed and 37 falls were unreported because residents got up on their own. noted that was captured to determine care for. .
“We're tired of competing on physical facilities and amenities,” Hyatt said. “We want to communicate to potential customers that we are doing something unique and different, that price is secondary, and that it is important to use that to sell, not dump features. is.”
In the future, Eby plans to use AI and data to create more nuanced personal care plans, from investigating staff burnout to analyzing biometric data such as genomic testing and chronic disease tracking. We envision a living environment for the elderly that provides information.
“The path to all of this is not far,” Eby told attendees Monday.
As for the new perspective, Hyatt said he hopes AI and data models can help solve key operational issues: bringing in new licensed nursing staff. He said the industry needs to consider the “GI Bill for Nurses'' to improve career conditions for caregivers as the nation's population ages and people live longer.
“The challenge is to find nurses who meet today's needs and reduce administrative duties for nurses,” Hyatt said.