How Smart Aging™ Levels Up Your Community Wellness Program

It seems like every organization today is trying to leverage the power of AI technology. Senior living is no exception.

But what benefits can AI technology bring? Here, we outline how one form of AI technology – Smart Aging™ – can improve your community wellness program while saving time and money. Keep reading for the three reasons why.

Wait! Want a quick refresher on what SmartAging™ is first? Check out our blog: What Is Smart Aging™? An In-Depth Exploration from Icon

1. Caters Wellness Activities to Residents

Analysis paralysis. You’ve probably experienced it. Whether it’s finding the perfect restaurant or the right show on Hulu, the abundance of choice can make arriving at one almost impossible.

Businesses today know this. It’s why you have a “For You Page” on TikTok. It’s why Amazon offers “customers also buy” recommendations. It’s why Spotify shares “Discover Weekly” playlists.

Personalization is the name of the consumer game. Why should the senior living experience be any different?

Your residents may see all the engaging activities you offer. But they also might find themselves questioning which event to attend before, eventually, just deciding to just stay where they are. Decision fatigue is common. And without an easy way of teeing up wellness activities, you risk letting residents’ decision fatigue limit the benefits of your community wellness program.

Smart Aging™ helps address this by delivering personalized life enrichment activities to your residents. If a resident has recently participated in a pickleball event, they might open their SmartAging™ dashboard and see recommendations for relevant events coming up: such as a dance class or upcoming step competition.

But Smart Aging™ doesn’t just benefit your residents. It also…

2. Saves Staff Time on Promoting and Personalizing Activities

Amid the ongoing staffing crisis, it’s been difficult for senior living employees to focus on tasks that aren’t “mission critical.”

Mission-critical tasks may vary from wellness check-ins to appointment drop-offs and pick-ups. But the central theme is that they represent the baseline level of care that’s required. Other tasks, like chatting with a resident over lunch, are still important, but staff must find time to do them after completing wellness check-ins or administering medications. And, because time is limited, those important (but not critical) tasks rarely happen.

Event promotion and personalization is one of those important, but non-mission-critical, duties. Without Smart Aging™, if staff members want to highlight specific events to certain residents, they’d need to seek out the resident on their own and tell them. Now extend that task to every resident in a community, and you’ve just come up with an hours-long, ongoing process.

Smart Aging™ automates this manual process and lets the resident take control of their own activities schedule. This means that staff members can focus on the mission-critical tasks and use their remaining time on other important duties, like grabbing ice cream with a resident or sharing community updates with family members.

Plus, with the help of Enterprise Reporting and Digital Calendar solutions, you can further simplify the event planning process. You can track whether event attendance or satisfaction has increased since adopting Smart Aging™. And if it has, you can use the attendance data to inform which future activities you should add to your life enrichment calendar.

You might, for instance, find that your artistic events are gaining lots of traction. If your community is filled with artists and hobbyists alike, you might program new painting and writing workshops. The same can be said for any dimension of wellness. The larger takeaway is that your staff can save time while improving the level of care your residents receive.

3. Simplifies Resident Engagement with Community Wellness

While it’s true that Smart Aging™ streamlines much of the decision-making process – for event attendance and creation – it has another powerful benefit.

Smart Aging™ offers a lower barrier of entry to senior living technology.

You might already have an intuitive, easy-to-use engagement platform. But it still takes time to onboard new community members. And even the most thorough implementation process doesn’t guarantee full resident adoption – or proficiency. But with Smart Aging™, your residents don’t have to grasp the ins and outs of a platform before using it. They can go to one place – their Smart Aging™ dashboard – and immediately see relevant wellness information.

Plus, as we build out the Smart Aging™ capabilities, residents won’t just be able to view recommended wellness regimens; they’ll be able to see tailored suggestions that cover every aspect of resident life, from the meals they eat to the appointments they attend.

To be clear, you should still want a community engagement platform that incorporates features like a “three-click rule” and offers mobile access. But consider: do you explore every menu or tab on Netflix before finding a show? No, you go to the homepage, see what’s recommended, and pick from there. Your residents behave the same way. They want convenience without compromising on quality. That’s what Smart Aging™ can do.

Personalization Is the Future of Senior Living

Senior living is in a complicated place today. 2020 and the associated pandemic shutdowns are largely in the rearview. But the silver tsunami is just ahead. Occupancy is rising. But operating costs remain high.

As a result, it can be difficult to know what initiatives to commit to – or which to avoid. But if the past several years have taught us anything, it’s this: regardless of business, consumers want personalization.

They want interactions to be easier. They want tailored experiences. And that trend will only hold steady in senior living with the newer generation of prospective residents. These older adults weren’t raised on technology, but they’ve used it for most of their lives. And they know what it can do to improve their day-to-day.Interested in hearing more about Smart Aging™ and the impact it can have on your community wellness program? Grab some time with us or book a demo!