How to Leverage Senior Living Technology to Turn Prospects into Community Members

When a family makes the difficult decision to transition their loved one into a senior living community, it is vitally important that sales teams meet these families with care and patience. 

A key driver for many families in scoping out communities is access to their loved one. Without community engagement platforms, virtual programming, and live-tracking of events and medical appointments, families lose this access.

It is a salesperson’s job to showcase the ways a community’s applications and digital platforms can keep families connected with their loved ones and keep these loved ones connected to their community.

Here is some senior living sales advice on how to leverage digital communication platforms and telehealth to ensure older adults, and their families, choose the best senior living community for them.

Position Your Community’s Digital Communication Platform as a Way to Keep Families Connected

As families transition a loved one to a senior living community, the desire to remain connected will be high. This concern has likely increased after a year in which many families opted to provide home care to avoid the possibility of contracting COVID-19 in a senior living community. 

The realities of social isolation likely reinforce this worry. A 2020 study from the National Academies of Sciences showed that Social isolation causes a 50 percent increase in the risk of dementia for older adults. Knowing how serious the potential impacts are, families want to know their loved one will consistently receive care and social engagement. 

For this group, it’s understandable that after a year of overseeing what a loved one eats, what they wear, and what medications they take, they may feel apprehensive about delegating these tasks to a senior living community. 

This is why it’s important to showcase the ways products like Caremerge’s Family Engagement provide families with additional insight into their loved one’s life. Ultimately, families want to give their older loved ones the best care possible. Leverage your community’s ability to do this with your senior living technology. 

Reinforce the Importance of Health and Wellness through Telehealth Visits

Sixty percent of older adults have two or more chronic conditions. Understandably, this means that senior living communities must pay special attention to tracking medications, symptoms, and now, COVID-19 tracing. 

Even prior to COVID-19, though, families were concerned about their loved one’s safety in a senior living community. This is why oversight of a loved one’s health is so important for families. 

Fortunately, the advent and success of telehealth medicine can resolve this fear. In a study published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, telehealth index visits were found successful at resolving urgent, non-emergent needs between 84 percent and 86.7 percent of the time.

When faced with families who are concerned about the health and safety of their loved one, leverage telehealth’s effectiveness. Focus on electronic healthcare systems, like EHRs and eMARs, that provide additional transparency for senior health. 

During tours, be sure to demonstrate how families can receive additional insights from community staff with the help of telehealth tools, EHRs, and eMARs. This will help reinforce the message that families will still have visibility into their loved one’s healthcare, even if their medical visits remain remote.

Senior living communities exist to provide care that families may not sustainably be capable of giving. Explaining the access and effectiveness of telehealth allows families to move forward with the knowledge that their loved one is receiving exemplary care, because they have visibility into their routines and medical needs. 

Showcase How Digital Programming Cultivates Community

Feeling connected with family is important, but in order to optimize life in a senior living community, there needs to be a strong and nurturing culture.

Detail the different activities that residents can experience around the clock in their community. For example, point to effective implementations of in-room TV solutions that broadcast events to residents while quarantining or simply lounging in their rooms. 

The benefit of an engaged community is far-reaching. According to Barrett Values Center, communities with the healthiest cultures showed the lowest staff turnover rates and fullest occupancy. This means that, due to low staff turnover, residents are receiving consistent care from the same staff members that understand their routines and preferences. 

Additionally, the availability of in-room TV solutions or community platforms drives resident engagement. Older adults want to use technology and connect with their friends and family, and even those who were reticent to use the internet at home may adopt a new affinity for social media and FaceTime after moving to a community.

Families and Residents Want Access to Each Other: Show Them How Your Senior Living Technology Facilitate This

Older adults do not want to be isolated from their family and loved ones, like they were at the height of the pandemic. Today’s older adults, though, are capable of using online resources or applications, and they became much more tech-savvy over the pandemic. 

Older adults want access to their loved ones and know how to use video calls and applications like Facebook to make that happen. Families likewise understand how to use these digital platforms to connect with their loved one. 

Align a family’s desire to remain connected with your senior living technology’s ability to maintain connections. As a salesperson, you are uniquely positioned to foster and create new connections by sharing your community’s digital platforms. 

Implementing this senior living sales advice can enable you to build out occupancy while remaining tuned into a family’s needs throughout this important transition.

If you want to learn more about how Caremerge can help connect residents with their families and their community,