The Power of Data: How Icon Turned Residents into Recruiters

The Power of Data: How Icon Turned Residents into Recruiters

For many senior living operators and communities, getting residents, families, and staff on the same page is a challenge. That was certainly the case for Cadence Senior Living (now merged with Cogir) – a prominent operator that manages more than 40 senior living communities.

But one thing you often need to align members of your community – and the communities you operate – with each other is data. And that’s why Cadence Senior Living made Icon’s reporting and analytics a central tenet of operations for its communities across the nation.

To understand more about how Cadence Senior Living boosted engagement by evolving its technology systems, we spoke with Perry Ryan, VP of Family Engagement and Quality Assurance.

Read on to see what led Cadence to Icon (formerly Caremerge) and how our engagement platform connects residents, loved ones, and staff to their communities.

The Problem: Siloes Leave Staff and Residents in the Dark

Before adopting Icon’s platform, Cadence Senior Living was looking to improve the community experience for families and residents.

This improvement ultimately boiled down to technology deployment. Existing platforms weren’t as robust as Icon, so it was impossible to effectively measure and boost engagement.

The platforms themselves also didn’t offer adequate data. This meant that even if Cadence Senior Living leaders wanted to standardize technology implementation and measurement across communities, they couldn’t.

Leadership knew they needed a new platform if they wanted to connect residents and loved ones to their communities. That’s what led them to Icon.

The Solution: Senior Living Technology with Robust Analytics Unifies Residents, Family, and Staff

Implementing Icon’s engagement platform has helped Cadence Senior Living in two clear ways:

1. More opportunities for residents and families to interact with the community.
2. More data for both onsite and executive teams to guide programming and outreach.

Let’s dive into the first. Because Cadence Senior Living’s legacy systems lacked engagement opportunities, adopting Icon’s full suite of enrichment functionality immediately opened up a new world for older adults and their families.

Adopting Icon’s full suite of enrichment functionality immediately opened up a new world for older adults and their families.

This is particularly valuable given that many of Cadence’s communities offer assisted living and memory care options. And, as Perry notes, this makes family engagement a huge component of establishing and strengthening community relationships.

With Icon, family members can now, for instance, check whether their loved one attended a scheduled movement class and directly message staff about their loved one’s wellbeing. But Icon’s engagement platforms don’t just transform the ways family members interact with their loved ones and staff members. Icon transforms the way every member of a senior living community engages with each other.

Community Engagement offers residents greater control in managing social calendars. Family Engagement gives families a window into loved ones’ lives. And when residents can organize activities on their own, and families can easily view loved ones’ routines, this saves staff time. The result? Staff can focus more energy on delivering high-touch care to residents.

The second way Icon has helped Cadence Senior Living grow is with reporting. Because Cadence Senior Living oversees dozens of communities across the US, data is the one way leaders can accurately gauge performance and satisfaction.

The analytics from Icon’s engagement platforms give executives – and those within the community – clear insights into what can be improved and what’s working well.

The analytics from Icon’s engagement platforms give executives – and those within the community – clear insights into what can be improved and what’s working well.

The Result: Happy Residents Recruit Their Friends

Data offers a path to unlocking senior living technology’s full value. It also highlights the benefits senior living technology currently delivers to your community. For instance, at just one of its communities, Cadence Senior Living saw the following improvements within a year of introducing Icon:

1. On average, the number of residents who attended activities increased from 25 percent to 89 percent.
2. The number of families that used one-on-one messaging with staff increased from 17 percent to 52 percent.
3. Departments are now on the same page, collaborating to improve resident and staff experiences.
4. Net Promoter Scores (NPS) now regularly fall within the “Excellent” end of the scale.

But data isn’t the only thing pointing to Icon’s value. Staff and residents sing its praises:

• “Icon is the backbone of our activity department.”
• “Icon allows us to give residents more engagement opportunities without overextending staff.”
• “I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about Icon. If families say anything, it’s how much they love it and how much it keeps them connected.”

“Icon is the backbone of our activity department.”

“Icon allows us to give residents more engagement opportunities without overextending staff.”

“I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about Icon. If families say anything, it’s how much they love it and how much it keeps them connected.”

Icon’s reporting doesn’t just help improve members’ lives in the day to day. It also helps in the long term. That’s because it gives community leaders data to support initiatives they set. This data then helps engage executive teams and inform any plans they have for improving care across their communities.

When residents feel that care – the improvements – they have even more reason to share their positive experiences with others. They can, in short, become evangelists for their community. As one Cadence Senior Living resident said:

“I’ve already referred several friends and one already became a resident!”

What’s Next: Expanding the Use of Data

Though Cadence Senior Living has embraced Icon’s reporting features, Perry knows they’re only scratching the surface. In 2023, he wants Cadence Senior Living to dig more into the data Icon provides – and seek out new ways of measuring the platform’s positive impact. Interested in seeing how an all-in-one communication and engagement platform can make life better for your community? Reach out! We’d love to discuss.