How Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber Drove Resident Engagement with Caremerge

As the demand for technology in senior living increases, choosing the right senior living technology provider becomes an even more important decision. But finding that partner can take years. Just ask Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber’s Director of Independent Living, Christine Bush.

After a fair share of pilot programs – and what felt like a revolving door of technology partners – Christine found a platform that engaged both residents and staff (hint: it’s us).

Here, Christine shares what led Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber to Caremerge and how she and her staff leverage the Caremerge platform to keep residents connected with their community.

Disparate Platforms Created Headaches for Staff and Residents

Prior to Caremerge, Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber offered an in-room TV channel solution. But the community wanted to expand its senior living technology capabilities. The goal: foster greater resident engagement.

Christine and her team spent the next six years trying to find the right partner, piloting more than 10 programs.

This steady churn of new pilots and programs hurt the community in two key ways:

1. Most residents spent this time without any new senior living technology solutions – because pilots rarely led to community-wide implementations.
2. Staff regularly needed to learn about platforms that didn’t fit the community’s needs. In other words, Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber was pouring time and money into solutions that never delivered an ROI.

Christine and her team knew they needed to end this cycle. So they created a checklist for their next senior living technology solution:

• Function as a one-stop shop, offering everything from in-room TVs to a resident engagement platform.
• Streamline administrative processes, like entering and tracking resident data.
• Produce data-driven insights.

This list of must-haves pointed Christine and her team right to Caremerge.

A One-Stop Shop for Senior Living Technology Draws Enthusiasm from Residents and Staff

Implementing Caremerge put an end to the technology turnover at Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber and improved the lives of both residents and staff members.

Today, activity coordinators and directors can organize events and track attendance with Calendar Central. Residents can easily learn about community-wide news with their in-room TVs and digital displays. And the entire community can use the Community Engagement platform to check lunch menus or share photos from choir rehearsals.

One necessary component of this successful implementation has been resident buy-in. The initial pilot group even formed a resident tech committee to help other residents enroll in Community Engagement or troubleshoot any issues that come up.

Learning how to use new technology platforms can feel daunting. Christine and her team knew this. It’s why they’ve made sure to foster a judgment-free onboarding process, supported by how-to guides and a committee of enthusiastic, tech-savvy older adults.

Resident Engagement Grows with Streamlined Solutions

Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber initially set a target of 50 percent adoption with Community Engagement. But Christine and her team felt they could surpass that number quickly.

They were right.

Within four weeks of implementation, the community got to 74 percent. Today, that number has risen to 89.6 percent.

But that’s not the only measure of success. As part of its ongoing adoption process, Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber regularly sends out surveys asking residents to review Caremerge solutions. The results? One-hundred percent of resident users consistently report wanting to keep Caremerge.

Staff members have also embraced Caremerge because the platforms save them time.

Now directors can easily track analytics and oversee which pages residents engage with the most, whether it’s activity calendars, daily food menus, or surveys from staff. And staff across departments can access and update information – a feature that wasn’t possible with other solutions.

The end result: staff can efficiently finish their tasks and get residents the information they need.

What’s Next for Ohio Living: A Wide-Scale Expansion of Caremerge

Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber plans to implement Caremerge at its new independent living residence opening in July. This will be the third facility at the Westminster-Thurber location and will increase the total number of residents to 600.

But the larger Ohio Living brand has its sights on something even bigger: it plans to implement Community Engagement and Calendar Central at each of its 12 locations across Ohio.

To learn more about how you can streamline resident engagement and whether Caremerge is the senior living technology partner for you,