5 Workflows to Automate With Senior Living Technology (And How They Can Lower Costs)

Despite rising resident populations, senior living communities are feeling the strain on several fronts – from ongoing labor shortages to rising operating costs.

But technology can help ease some of these pain points by cutting down on wasted time and ramping up productivity. Just look around your communities – there are probably several key workflow areas you can automate with senior living technology that will ultimately lead to lower costs, less-stressed staff, and more satisfied residents. Here are five ideas to consider.

1. Calendar Management

Managing calendars is a necessary evil, but it can still be tedious and time consuming. One way to fast-track that work? Use centralized calendar software to save your staff time every day. This way, they can interact more with residents and families and engage in more fulfilling work.

With the right automations, this technology can streamline a variety of time-intensive manual tasks. Make sure your platform supports…

• Real-time calendar syncs with Outlook or Google Calendar.
• Smart filters that display activities by service level, coordinator, meeting location, etc.
• Adjustable event colors, icons, and fonts.
• A mobile app that allows staff to take attendance, post announcements or schedule events on the go.

Of course, while great calendar management software can lighten your staff’s load, they’ll likely still have to manually plan out things like life enrichment programming. Could this be another job for AI? Maybe it should be.

Smart Aging™ technology uses AI to build out your life enrichment calendar. It taps into residents’ data – like the events they attend – to offer tailored recommendations and display similar activities more prominently on their engagement app. The benefit: more time savings for your staff and a better overall resident experience.

2. Resident Communications

Having access to regular and reliable communication is an extremely important component of your residents’ well-being. But when you’re short on staff, it’s also an area that can easily fall through the cracks – and negatively impact residents in the process. Automating certain workflows through smart home technology can help prevent those outcomes and give staff more time to support residents who are most in need.

For example, using a device like Amazon Alexa, a resident can call a family member or receive an incoming call with a simple voice command, allowing them to stay in touch without getting staff involved. Alexa can also automatically alert residents about appointments and medications on a preset schedule so staff don’t have to manually do so.

The right smart home tech – particularly the kind provided through a senior living provider like Icon, which is an Amazon partner – can even help residents stay up to date on community happenings like…

• The latest announcements.
• Weather updates.
• Personal schedules.
• Daily menus.
• Maintenance requests.

Not only do smart devices help free up staff time, they also make it easier for residents to take control of their own communication needs. That’s one big step toward a top-notch resident experience that attracts residents and drives more revenue.

3. Wellness Check-ins

Your standard of care can make or break a resident’s experience in your community (not to mention the impact on their physical and mental health). Wellness check-ins can do a lot of legwork here. But as your population grows, these check-ins can become an increasingly stressful time drain.

Here’s another area where smart home technology can come in handy. It can ease the burden of constant in-person check-ins and give staff more time to spend with residents most in need.

For instance, a smartwatch can track a resident’s vital signs – such as their heart rate and blood pressure – and share that data with staff. Some devices can even alert staff in the event of an accident or if a resident leaves the property unsupervised. And an Alexa device can empower residents to set their own medication reminders or allow someone in need of assistance to make a hands-free call to staff.

Best of all, Icon’s community engagement resident portal allows staff to configure wellness checks and have them push through to your residents, allowing them to check in through the app.

The goal, of course, is not to eliminate wellness check-ins, which are certainly comforting for residents, but simply to lighten the load on your staff.

4. Staff Scheduling

Adequate staffing is a must for any community, especially with the new CMS mandate. But managers and supervisors can waste precious hours on manual scheduling, which draws them away from higher-value work.

A digital scheduling tool can add both flexibility and convenience to your approach, allowing staff to…

• See all available shifts.
• Offer input on the shifts that work best for them.
• Get alerted to open shifts via automated notifications.
• Swap shifts with fellow employees to accommodate last-minute conflicts.

By automating your scheduling process, you’ll not only free up managers’ and supervisors’ time for more meaningful work, you’ll help ensure that no shift goes unfilled and that you’re maximizing coverage during particularly busy periods.

5. Patient Discharge Communications

Discharge communications can take a lot of time to write up and manage – time your staff just might not have to spare. But automated post-discharge communications allow staff to quickly identify at-risk patients and schedule follow-ups without a hefty time commitment.

This technology makes it easy to…

• Upload a list of discharged patients.
• Determine a customizable set of follow-up questions for them.
• Set a communication cadence of automated calls and texts (to be augmented by manual calls from staff where appropriate).
• Have easy access to a color-coded dashboard that highlights discharged patients who require intervention and follow-up.

Here again, the goal is to enhance both staff efficiency and service continuity.

Automation Can Be The Key to a More Satisfied Workforce

These are just a handful of potential workflow automations you can tap into with senior living technology. And while a lot of this discussion has focused on saving time, you’re also likely to see cost savings. With less time wasted on manual tasks, your staff can engage in the kind of higher-touch relationship building that often leads to increased revenue.

Just as important, your staff will also enjoy lighter and more resident-focused workloads – and probably a lot less stress. That means more job satisfaction and higher staff retention. What do these benefits all have in common? They’re all key steps toward solving the staffing crisis.Ready to automate but not quite sure how to get started? Book a demo or reach out to start a conversation.