EPISODE 101: How Senior Living Providers Should Approach their Digital Health Transformation Journey

[00:00:05.45] Welcome to Senior Living Visionaries, a podcast for senior living leaders who are looking to stay ahead of the curve in the industry. On this show, we feature leaders and innovators in senior living who are pushing the boundaries and creating new effective services and solutions. And now, let’s settle in as host, Jennifer Drago, connects us with today’s guests.

[00:00:31.18] Welcome to Senior Living Visionaries, broadcasting live from the Phoenix Business RadioX Studio, where we showcase leaders and innovators who are shaping the future of senior living. I’m your host, Jennifer Drago, Strategy Coach and CEO of Peak to Profit.

[00:00:47.05] And my guest today is Dr. Majd Alwan, and he is an independent Digital Health, Health IT, and Strategy Expert, and a noted authority on Aging Services Technology. I’m so excited [00:01:00.00] that he’s here today. You might know the name Dr. Majd Alwan as the former Executive Director and Senior Vice-President at LeadingAge CAST, where he was responsible for creating and leading a network of technology companies, providers, and research institutions focused on technology solutions for an aging society.

[00:01:21.64] Prior to joining CAST – and I just learned this recently – Majd was an assistant professor and the director of the Robotics and Eldercare Technologies [00:01:30.00] Program at the University of Virginia’s Medical Automation Research Center. So, we have the perfect guest to launch our podcast here, Senior Living Visionaries.

[00:01:41.62] Today, Dr. Alwan has his own company. He’s recently left LeadingAge – and I’m sure they’re very sad about that. But, now, he’s available to all of us to provide consulting to a wide range of providers, technology companies, including startups, investors, and policymakers on issues related to technology [00:02:00.00] and business innovation in the aging services sector. So, thank you so much, Dr. Alwan, for being here today. And how are you doing?

[00:02:09.01] I’m doing great. Thank you so much, Jennifer. It’s a pleasure and honor for me to be with you here today. And I’m excited to be the inaugural guest on your show. Congratulations.

[00:02:21.07] Thank you so much. I’m very excited. And there’s nothing more important, I think, to senior living providers and to the industry as a whole than the emergence [00:02:30.00] of technology. And technology is really hitting us at a blinding speed. And one of the things that I hope to unpack with you today is how providers can really evaluate technology intelligently and logically.

[00:02:45.10] Because we all know sometimes technology comes with price tags that can break the budget, and we don’t want to do that especially in today’s very challenging time in our industry. Costs have escalated. We are having staffing challenges [00:03:00.00]. And we want to use technology in a way that has an ROI that provides things for our residents, perhaps makes them safer, makes them better socialized or healthier, or that provides us with efficiencies in the way that we do things in our businesses. And so, those are some of the topics that I know we’re going to dig into today. And I’m just, again, really excited to have you here.

[00:03:25.75] Great. Thank you.

[00:03:26.89] Yeah. So, let’s start with [00:03:30.00] technology as it relates to our residents. So, tell us about two or three areas that you see technology impacting senior living communities as it relates to resident socialization, safety, or their wellness. Because, obviously, when we operate a senior living community, first and foremost, is, how are we protecting our residents, keeping them safe, keeping them happy. So, tell us about that.

[00:03:57.97] Absolutely. You touched upon [00:04:00.00] very, very important areas, the safety, the socialization, and the wellness. And they’re all, believe it or not, related. So, safety is a need. While it’s really important for the providers embracing technology in this area or pushing technology down the resident’s or the client’s throat can be hard. It can be perceived to be stigmatizing. So, [00:04:30.00] we really need to be very careful and to make sure that we engage the residents in this process in terms of buy-in, and not just acceptance, embracement, because you want them to not just accept the technology but embrace it, to use it, and to get the most benefit.

[00:04:50.44] So, in terms of safety, there are two or three areas that I want to focus on. Believe it or not, falls [00:05:00.00] are still high in senior living communities, and that’s an important area. Of course, there are a lot of solutions out there now that focus on fall detection, which is important.

[00:05:15.43] But, again, fall detection, the three important parameters provider’s need to look at in terms of fall detection. Number one, the accuracy of the detection. What’s the sensitivity of the technology [00:05:30.00] that’s being deployed, i.e. what’s the rate of missing a true fall? That should be as close to zero as possible. The other thing, the flip side of that coin, is the specificity. You don’t want a technology that alerts to falls that gives you false positives, a high number of false positives, because that’s going to annoy staff and drive them to ignore [00:06:00.00] those alerts and those signals. So, that’s the second thing.

[00:06:05.71] The third thing is the potential for integration into the workflow to reduce the actual response time. Not just how quickly you detected the fall from the minute it happened or the instance it happened, but also how quickly can you send someone help, if [00:06:30.00] someone is living in the community, without necessarily sending the EMS and the fire department to break down the door and find out that someone just took off their pendant and slammed it on the dresser before going into the shower. So, that’s another one.

[00:06:51.70] And the third thing – the fourth thing, I should say, is the potential for preventing the fall, either identifying [00:07:00.00] the root causes or the circumstances and the environment conditions that led to that fall so that you can address them and/or identifying early signs of increasing fall risk. And intervening early on, whether it’s with exercise, whether it’s with rehabilitation, whether it’s with medication review, environmental review, and so on and so forth. So, these are the four things that [00:07:30.00] I would touch on falls.

[00:07:31.75] Another important area of safety, as we’ve all seen over the past few years, is infection control, measures for infection control. Whether those are, again, related to cleaning and disinfection, whether these are related to verification of cleaning and disinfection, whether they’re related to processes, for example, using telehealth, using social connectedness to reduce [00:08:00.00] sort of the spread of viruses, or even clinical decision support systems built into the electronic health records and built into sort of reviewing vital signs that may provide the providers with insights in the earliest instance of potential infection that they need to take care of.

[00:08:23.65] The third area, again, related to a broader set of clinical [00:08:30.00] decision support systems, for example, prevention of pressure ulcers in skilled nursing facilities, particularly dehydration, falls prevention, and so on and so forth. So, that’s with regards to the safety, the need.

[00:08:49.03] But I always find that socialization is a want. And it’s something that is much easier to accept and embrace, [00:09:00.00] especially when you have a technology that is intuitive, easy to use, that is easy to train on, and that is multimodal that caters for a broad array of older adults with different types of deficits, whether it’s vision, dexterity, hearing impairments, and so on and so forth. Voice as one user interface is a great [00:09:30.00] example.

[00:09:31.90] Another important aspect related to socialization technologies, again, because it’s a want and we are different people with different sort of likes and dislikes, it’s important for the technology to be personalizable and customizable in terms of content, but also in terms of channel, whether we sort of layer [00:10:00.00] the the content on top of a T.V. set through a setup box, or a tablet or a smartphone for those who are more sort of younger, older adults who are familiar with smartphones, or voice control devices, and so on and so forth.

[00:10:20.57] Yeah. So, Majd, you’ve talked about a lot of topics there, and I just want to hit on a couple, but let’s start with the socialization piece. So, we know [00:10:30.00] with COVID and the whole pandemic, as senior living communities really responded to that, it left a lot of the residents feeling isolated, sometimes in their own units most of the day. And I think that’s really where we started to see these apps that could socialize and connect them to different activities and to each other even before the pandemic. But I think they really proliferated during that period.

[00:10:56.39] Absolutely.

[00:10:57.26] Do we know for sure that technology [00:11:00.00] and apps are a good substitute for person-to-person connection? I mean, in-person connection?

[00:11:07.37] I don’t believe it is a substitute. I beg to differ on the word substitute. Technology is almost always never a substitute for anything. Technology is just a tool that can enhance, supplement, and augment, and [00:11:30.00] complement whatever we are trying to do.

[00:11:35.06] So, again, imagine social connectedness modality that eliminates the human touch. That is going to actually backfire and have, not necessarily unanticipated – an unanticipated, actually, downside that is sort of lack of human touch. It [00:12:00.00] may work for certain people with certain personality traits. But, again, that’s why I focus on personalization.

[00:12:10.16] And that’s why I talked about multimodal, because, again, socialization, I may enjoy having a conversation like this live through audio video. Others may prefer to chat. They’re a little bit camera shy and they prefer to chat. [00:12:30.00] So, again, the multi-modality helps you ensure that you are catering for the different set of personalities and the different traits. But it’s definitely not a substitute.

[00:12:45.68] And, again, when we have the right technology and the right content connecting them to the right parties, because communications and engagement, it’s [00:13:00.00] at a minimum a two-way street. So, we need to know who they’re interested in connecting and engaging with and cater for the modalities on both ends. So, when we sort of do this right, it helps increase, actually, the interpersonal communications, interpersonal connections, and strengthen [00:13:30.00] it as opposed to reduce it.

[00:13:32.72] Great. Great. And I love how you started your conversation by saying we have to engage our community in the technologies that we want to adopt and make sure that they are involved from the very frontend of that. But then, what you just said, too, is as we’re implementing, any time we can personalize it to the individual user, it’s going to have so much more impact for that personal user. So, I really like that.

[00:13:59.84] Absolutely. [00:14:00.00]

[00:14:00.92] Yeah. I also want to go back to something that I’m pretty passionate about, and that’s falls prevention. I’m guessing a lot of providers who are listening to this are well-aware of fall detection devices. Those, again, have been around a long time from the lifeline pendants, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up, to sensors that can be in apartments that can kind of monitor movement and drastic [00:14:30.00] changes in movement.

[00:14:32.36] What I really love in our industry today are the technologies that are focusing on preventing falls. And I certainly hope that from a resident perspective, they embrace these types of technologies, which don’t have to be potentially in their units everyday. But it can be something that helps evaluate their gait or their balance or things that, to your point, we can take action to improve before there’s a fall. And [00:15:00.00] I just love those types of technologies. Are you seeing more and more of those and do you feel that they’re pretty accurate in being able to identify fall risk?

[00:15:09.95] Absolutely. Again, we are seeing a lot of innovation. There’s a lot of innovation that involves vision, analysis, and using computer vision and artificial intelligence, AI, deep learning AI that evolves the models [00:15:30.00] that are being used to model and detect movement and activities. And, hence, improve, and also at the same time detect falls, different types of falls. Because, again, you know that there are different types of falls.

[00:15:50.23] And the advantage of some of those vision-based and AI- powered solutions is that they can (A) learn [00:16:00.00] and evolve with time. The more sort of instances they see, the better they get. The other thing is that because they’re imaging and vision-based, you can always go back. And whether it’s via a human or human in the loop can go back and review the videos or review the few minutes before the falls to see the exact circumstances [00:16:30.00] and the root causes for that particular fall, address those root causes to prevent future falls. Not just detect and rescue the individual who has just fallen, but try to eliminate the causes that led to that last fall.

[00:16:49.81] And we are starting to see an actual reduction in the frequency of falls as a result of using those technologies. So, again, [00:17:00.00] now many of these systems are using the human expert to review these short recordings right before the fall was detected. But we also are seeing smaller startup technology companies that are using machine learning to analyze those scenes right before the falls. And trying to identify the risk factors and provide some decision [00:17:30.00] support for the staff, giving them sort of indications to what might have led to that fall.

[00:17:40.84] And, again, if the staff address those issues, we’re starting to see a reduction in the frequency of falls. And hence, of course, liability risk, costs of care. Take, for example, transfers to hospitals. When we reduce the incidence of falls, that’s [00:18:00.00] going to decline significantly. And that’s a cost that could be borne by the senior living provider or the payer in the worst case scenario.

[00:18:15.04] Right. And that’s important, Majd, because we know as senior living providers that the health care systems, the providers, and the insurers, if they’re not our partners today, they are our future partners. And so, any way [00:18:30.00] that we can add value by doing our jobs better.

[00:18:34.63] I love that you talked about doing a root cause analysis. I come from hospitals and health systems, and we’ve been doing root cause analysis for as long as I can remember. Whenever there’s an event, you do a root cause analysis and you learn from that. And to your point, apply those learnings so that it doesn’t happen in the future or it happens with much less frequency in the future. So, I love that you’re talking about providers getting more skilled in [00:19:00.00] that type of work as well.

[00:19:02.02] You know, I’m a systems engineer, I don’t have the tunnel vision perspective. I always like to look at the big puzzle, big picture. And, again, this is especially important with falls, because falls, as we all know, is multifactorial. So, there could be environmental factors. There could be medication, polypharmacy, side effects of medications, it could be vision and lighting, he steps and [00:19:30.00] drugs, you name it. In addition, of course, to the innate issues related to what you described early on in terms of balance and functional abilities, and drop foot, and so on and so forth, that could be addressed by physical therapists and clinicians.

[00:19:52.78] So, this is a point that I think you and I were hoping to make today, which you’ve already said it once, technology is a tool. It’s not the be all end [00:20:00.00] all. It’s not the holy grail. And in your examples that you just provided us around fall prevention, really, is a technology potentially matched with a human presence that can evaluate all the other aspects of what’s going on in the apartment, what’s going on with the medications, even beyond what the technology does.

[00:20:21.96] Absolutely. So, you’re bringing me to the third category of technology that you mentioned in your first question, which is wellness. So, we [00:20:30.00] talked about the two extremes. The need when there is a risk, like falls, for example, and the want when in socialization. But in between, there is a continuum of technologies to help in the wellness, whether that’s technologies that can monitor and encourage physical activities, again, ranging from monitoring and counting steps, all the way [00:21:00.00] to doing virtual coaches for tai chi and physical therapy or even dance.

[00:21:08.46] Monitoring of nutrition or taking care and looking at nutrition, this is especially important for older adults who are known to have multiple chronic conditions, sort of we need to feed them right and make sure that they’re getting the nutritious values, but without necessarily [00:21:30.00] negatively impacting whatever chronic condition they may have, for example, the salt content for hypertensive, and so on and so forth.

[00:21:38.97] The third thing is monitoring for biometrics, using biometric remote patient monitoring, and so on and so forth. And combining all of this – again, I’m going to go back to my soapbox and harp on the want – making the context for this [00:22:00.00] wellness management and chronic disease management more fun than directives, just instructions. I’m going to use a politically incorrect word, barking instructions at them. We need to sort of walk them through the rationale why this is not good for you. And walk them through alternatives that [00:22:30.00] are good for them, but they enjoy.

[00:22:33.93] Again, whether this is related to nutrition and nutritious substitutes or related to alternative types of exercises and physical activities, we need to find the sweet spot and what makes that individual tick or makes them motivated to take control of their own physical [00:23:00.00] and mental wellness.

[00:23:03.54] Yes. That is a topic I am very passionate about. And probably a topic for a whole nother show is how do we motivate and engage seniors around their health, especially as it relates to chronic conditions.

[00:23:17.28] Gamification is a great potential way to do so, I really believe so.

[00:23:23.52] Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, I have so many other things I want to talk to you about, so let’s keep going. [00:23:30.00] And for listeners, I want you to know we are going to also touch on before we end, how to invoke a process in your own organization that helps you make logical decisions around technology without breaking your budget. Because there are so many options. And where do we start? What are the priorities in your organization? And, again, Majd has been doing this for a long time and has a lot of advice on this.

[00:23:56.37] But before we go there, let’s now turn our focus away from residents [00:24:00.00] to more of the back office things or even front lines. We know that senior living is facing unprecedented staffing shortages, what do you think are the top types of technology that would help providers improve their productivity or their staffing efficiencies? And you’ve seen everything, so I’ll just leave it to you to take that one on.

[00:24:26.34] Absolutely. So, again, staff today, especially [00:24:30.00] after COVID, the number one demand or request – what? What do you think?

[00:24:36.96] Well, caregivers. Is that what you mean? What type of –

[00:24:40.41] No. No. Their demand. The demand from caregivers, what do you think is the number one demand and expectation?

[00:24:47.16] Well, they want to be safe from an infectious disease perspective, I imagine. And I know salaries have gone through the roof, so I imagine that compensation is a big one as well. [00:25:00.00]

[00:25:00.18] Yeah, absolutely. But the other one is flexibility. Everybody wants flexibility this day and age, especially now that they and their family members have the ability to work-from-home, work different schedules, and so on and so forth. So, I think flexible scheduling and self-service and self-directed scheduling is really important and going to continue [00:25:30.00] to gain sort of position.

[00:25:34.21] The other thing is, we have limited number of staff, limited hours. We have a lot of processes. So, we need to think about how we can digitalize and process engineer or process reengineer, reengineer processes so that they can take advantage of digitization, where you can input [00:26:00.00] data only once and use it multiple times rather than enter it multiple times in different systems. We need to sort of think about automation potentials like case automation, for example, process automation platforms.

[00:26:19.84] Robotics, in general. Specifically robotic process automation that can help us. For example, the last two, the case automation platforms and robotic process automation [00:26:30.00] can help us, for example, completely automate and reduce the staff time on things like onboarding a resident or a client admission, billing, reprocessing, denied claims with insurance, transfer and referrals, and so on and so forth. So, physical robots, especially service robots, whether it’s in [00:27:00.00] dining, cleaning, lawn mowing, and so on and so forth, they are gaining acceptance and providing ROI.

[00:27:10.96] Telehealth, remote patient monitoring, in particular. Again, electronic health records that are implemented correctly where you can have access to the same data by multiple clinicians, including, potentially, coordinating with other care providers [00:27:30.00] and care partners. So, these are some of the ones.

[00:27:35.80] And, also, for those who are on sprawling campuses and cottages, and so on and so forth, even in high rise CCRCs, think about the potential of automation and smart home, turning things on and off, automating check ins, for example, auto-detecting occupancy, [00:28:00.00] and so on and so forth. That’s all really important for gaining on maximizing efficiencies using technology.

[00:28:08.71] Yeah. I love it. I want to talk about at least two of the areas that you mentioned. One, flexible scheduling. I love this as a focus for senior living providers. And we know that there is certainly a portion the team that can work from home. But we need front line. We need people in the community. So, flexible [00:28:30.00] scheduling works for both types. Is that correct?

[00:28:34.36] Absolutely, yes. Absolutely.

[00:28:36.31] So, somewhere where we can help employees to feel that they have direction over their own schedule or at least over their scheduling requests makes us an employer of choice or could make us an employer of choice, so that’s really important. And those systems have been around for a while, so I imagine that they’re pretty well put together at this point.

[00:28:57.76] And they’re getting better. Again, they’re [00:29:00.00] starting to use artificial intelligence as well in terms of modeling the employees preferences and making suggestions or recommendations. And remember, this also has a byproduct, and that is a better work-family-life balance that we all sort of sometimes struggle with. Which leads [00:29:30.00] to satisfaction and higher retention. And we all know that this industry is also suffering from high turnover rate. So, this can improve retention of our staff.

[00:29:45.88] Yeah.

[00:29:46.21] And reduce, of course, the cost of recruiting and replacing those staff members.

[00:29:55.84] Exactly. Exactly. That’s so important. I bet you’ve made a lot of people’s [00:30:00.00] ears perk up right then because I think it’s something that everyone is focused on today.

[00:30:06.01] I want to ask you about robots. You said that you do see an ROI from robots. I’ve seen them most frequently in Arizona in the dining venues delivering meals. I haven’t seen the robots that mow the lawn. I think my husband would have loved that when we had a lawn. But tell me more about the ROI and whether this truly does replace [00:30:30.00] some positions that we would otherwise have to staff with humans.

[00:30:34.96] Yeah, absolutely. So, again, in terms of delivery, whether it’s meal delivery, it’s delivery of mail to residents, or any kind of delivery of medications, robotics is sort of becoming a popular and cost effective way to do it. [00:31:00.00] It allows you to repurpose some of those staff members that were sort of busy shuttling between the kitchen and the dining room, for example, in the dining example, or between the pharmacy and the nurse’s station stocking carts with medications, and so on and so forth. You can sort of reduce [00:31:30.00] that time and get the staff to have more meaningful tasks that involve the residents. So, the higher touch, more valuable time spent with staff.

[00:31:46.69] So, that’s one of the approaches. But, again, the robotics that are used in disinfection cleaning and infection control are also [00:32:00.00] extremely important. And we’re starting to see those, not only being used in acute care and starting to get into long term post-acute care, but also in schools, disinfecting schools after the students go home, and so on and so forth.

[00:32:18.43] I love that. I love that idea. And you reminded me that when I worked in a senior living community during COVID, mail delivery was a huge issue. [00:32:30.00] The U.S. Postal Service did not want to deliver mail to the casitas in our community. And I don’t think the staff or the residents were keen on coming to get their mail or necessarily having anybody touch their mail. So, it was this whole thing. I hadn’t considered the mail delivery, but that’s an important thing. And the reason I – go ahead.

[00:32:52.15] No, no. Go ahead, please.

[00:32:53.68] I was going to say, the reason that I have kind of a love-hate relationship with the idea of these robotic things, I love the [00:33:00.00] infection control, but I feel like sometimes we might see providers gravitate toward shiny objects. And that’s a shiny object. It’s something that the residents are, “Oh, that’s cute and it’s feasible. And we can get some even press attention from it at times.” But is there truly an ROI? And so, I know that’s something that you and I want to talk about is how you evaluate whether this truly is making an impact and is not just a shiny object that gives [00:33:30.00] us some exposure.

[00:33:32.02] Absolutely. We looked at several case studies last year during the LeadingAge Annual Meeting. We actually had a session focused on robotics and the ROI. Joe Velderman, is a friend and a CAST commissioner from Cyprus living in Florida. They [00:34:00.00] were having significant issues with attracting dining staff, especially when they have a young staff who is not trained to carry large trays with multiple dishes or clear tables. They were having issues with training them and getting to onboard them quickly.

[00:34:27.94] And when they deployed robots, [00:34:30.00] they assigned those individuals to oversee. But the robots are the ones that bus the plated trays. The individual just hands the plates to the residents and engages with them. There were a lot more satisfaction on both ends. And, also, a lot less shuttling and a lot less confusion in terms of [00:35:00.00] delivering the right meal. And they were able to reduce, not necessarily the staff, but they were able to reduce the cost of the dining, and were able to give the staff a raise of about 50 percent, which, again, lead to higher satisfaction and longer retention for those staff.

[00:35:28.73] Perfect. Perfect. [00:35:30.00] And one other area you mentioned that I just want to give a little shoutout to or love to is, some of the paper processes, as providers, that we are engaged in, whether it’s getting the admission paperwork, the billing, the claims, the claims denials, even paying your accounts payable, that is an area, honestly, I believe, is also in shortage across the country as having good admissions and financial services [00:36:00.00] people sometimes. And so, any way that we can automate that as an industry, I think, is going to bring us increased efficiencies and lower costs.

[00:36:11.24] Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is why I believe in the importance of, not just digitization, but digital transformation, which is a comprehensive process that starts with digitization and goes into [00:36:30.00] analyzing processes, redesigning processes, or reengineering processes, and then automating. But to be able to do all of that, you need to ensure that we liberate the data from the different software system silos and have a data warehouse, and the right application programming interfaces or integration engines.

[00:36:57.98] And we can pull that data from multiple [00:37:00.00] sources and feed it into our process, automation platform or robotic process automation. And that’s where we can milk efficiencies from all the system, all the components of the systems within our organizations. And, moreover, when we have the data liberated, we can utilize data analytic tools to better understand where we are to [00:37:30.00] measure our performance and our efficiencies, visualize the data, so that’s prescriptive analytics – or descriptive analytics, I should say. We can start building predictive modeling, again, go on to have decision support or prescriptive analytics to help us with decision support and even automated decision making were warranted or [00:38:00.00] possible.

[00:38:01.46] Yes. Thank you. That might be a whole topic for another podcast too. But you brought up another good point that I was hoping that we could get across to listeners today, is that, make sure that we’re not just taking technology, something that sounds like a great technology application, like let’s say back office automation, and slapping it on top of processes that stink from the beginning.

[00:38:28.85] Fraud [00:38:30.00] processes, inefficient processes – exactly – that do not take advantage of the fact that you have digital tools today to do this.

[00:38:39.89] Right. So, we have to have those interfaces built, the warehouses, and the process has to work right before we put technology on top of it. Technology will accelerate it.

[00:38:50.57] Absolutely. Yeah. We have to re-engineer or redesign the processes to take advantage of all the digital capabilities and [00:39:00.00] the data elements that we have at our fingertips.

[00:39:04.94] Perfect. So, if a senior living provider is listening today, who maybe is at the beginning or early in their digital transformation journey, where would you suggest that they start to look at opportunities in terms of where technology could best suit them in their organization? We’re going to talk next how we evaluate that technology. But what would be the area? We’ve talked about so many today. [00:39:30.00]

[00:39:30.14] Sure. Well, again, there is no one size that fits. Providers come in all shapes and sizes, and problems, and the approaches, and opportunities. So, there are three approaches. One might look at what is known as low hanging fruit, things that could be implemented quickly at a low cost to solve [00:40:00.00] a problem. That problem may be small, it may be big. So, that’s one approach.

[00:40:06.20] Another approach that I see people take is tackling their biggest pain point, their biggest problem, and putting all of their resources on top of it. In my opinion, both can be advantageous. The first one is advantageous short term. The second one may or may not be advantageous [00:40:30.00] long term if you commit to it.

[00:40:34.28] I’m a systems engineer by training, by mentality, and by approach. I see the biggest opportunity in taking a strategic look, revisiting their strategic goals, their strategic plan, identifying where they want to be, in which area, is it going to be growth [00:41:00.00] in home health or focus on the campus. I believe that they need to figure that out and then link each of the strategic goals to an array of enabling technologies that are going to be key to advance that goal.

[00:41:21.83] So, for example, telehealth and medication management, if they want to be the known provider [00:41:30.00] who takes care of chronically ill individuals, whether it’s on-campus or off-campus. Tools for home care and home health staffing and scheduling if they’re going to go outside the campus. Engagement tools and modalities that link those clients to the organization and helps them become loyal clients and customers, [00:42:00.00] and also good referral sources for additional clients in the community, and so on and so forth.

[00:42:09.11] So, I firmly believe in strategic planning, ingraining technology into strategic planning, and conducting strategic IT planning. Preparing the infrastructure to be able and capable of supporting all of the different technologies that they are going to layer and cater for a well-known certainty. And that is the increasing [00:42:30.00] demand on bandwidth, which is exponential. It increases by 50 percent year over year.

[00:42:36.41] Wow. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Well, I have to say, you’ve spoken to my heart. I’m a strategic planning consultant, and so I love that you said get your strategic plan in place, your vision of where you’re taking your organization, and then layer the technology on top of that where it’s going to help advance your strategic goals. And I also love the idea of having a strategic IT [00:43:00.00] plan underneath your strategic plan. So, I think we’re very much in alignment there. And what great advice as a third takeaway from today, which is make sure your technology is supporting your strategic goals.

[00:43:15.92] And in our final minutes, I want to ask you – and I know this is a hard question to answer in a really succinct time period – what kind of process would you recommend a provider have in place to evaluate [00:43:30.00] technology? So, say, we’ll use your home care example, if they really want to build their home care and related services, and they have a number of technologies that they want to evaluate, what would a process look like that would help them evaluate, not just the cost, but the different capabilities of the systems, the ROI, things like that?

[00:43:53.90] Well, this is something that we’ve done that I helped built at LeadingAge CAST for the past, [00:44:00.00] at least, 11 years. Actually, I use to get this question a lot. I’m a CCRC. I’m planning to implement telehealth. What’s the best telehealth solution that’s out there?

[00:44:19.16] And, again, the first step is to identify where do you want to deploy telehealth? Is it just in home health? Is it just on-campus? [00:44:30.00] That’s the first step. The second step is, What are the functionalities and features that I really need in this technology based on, not only the care setting, but also the population that I’m serving? What are the the common chronic conditions that I’m planning to tackle or my team is sort of specialized in addressing? What [00:45:00.00] kind of integrations do I need?

[00:45:03.74] So, for example, if I have an electronic health record already and I’m looking for a telehealth, and I’m not planning to change that EHR because I love it, my staff love it. I need to ensure that the technology I’m selecting also integrates seamlessly. Or the vendor is willing to build a custom integration and prove it to me [00:45:30.00] before I commit to purchasing. So, again, soliciting those requirements from a multidisciplinary planning team from every department that solution is going to touch, including the billing, for example, including the IT. And it shouldn’t be led by IT. It should be led by the business leader of that team [00:46:00.00] who’s going to deploy this, and so on and so forth.

[00:46:03.33] So, what we’ve done is built over 13 of these technology selection tools, ranging from social connectedness all the way to electronic health records and even health information exchange. We asked the vendors who are out there over 200 to 300 questions like this, mostly yes/no questions. And we also asked about how [00:46:30.00] long the company has been on the market, how many clients or organizations they are serving, if they have case studies, and so on and so forth.

[00:46:44.34] And we put this in online selection tools that helps them quickly sort of narrow down and get a shortlist of potential vendors. All of this is available, even the [00:47:00.00] background that I talked about, the process is described in a white paper. For those who are busy, there is an interactive yes/no question driven tool that can give you an idea about this process in, like, ten minutes or less. There is also an interactive selection tool that works on this huge matrix of vendors and solutions. Also, a set of case studies from providers who have implemented these kinds of technologies. [00:47:30.00]

[00:47:30.78] So, all of these are available to providers in addition to additional tools on cybersecurity, on strategic planning, strategic IT planning, and so on. And even digital transformation, which was the crown jewel, as I call it, that sort of sits on top of all of these resources that we built for providers. And they’re all available online for free on leadingage.org [00:48:00.00] under the technology topic and issue tab.

[00:48:07.71] Perfect. So, leadingage.org, and then under the technology tab.

[00:48:14.10] Issues and Topic, and then you select technology.

[00:48:16.83] Issues and Topic, and then technology. And there is a wide variety, as Dr. Alwan suggested, of resources. But if you want to get really clear on a process that your organization can use to select technologies [00:48:30.00] and then, to your point, help narrow down that selection, it’s all there for the taking. So, Dr. Alwan has left LeadingAge CAST, but left all of those resources behind. And so, we’re so thankful for you and your team and the work that you’ve done. And I know LeadingAge will continue to do in this area.

[00:48:50.37] Thank you. Absolutely.

[00:48:51.00] Dr. Alwan, as we close, tell us what you’re doing today, the type of work that you’re doing today, and how folks can [00:49:00.00] get in touch with you if they would like to engage your services.

[00:49:04.11] Absolutely. I’m working and providing strategic guidance to a couple of startup companies. I’m also providing guidance and consulting to a couple of established companies, who they’re trying to grow their footprint into the senior living vertical. I am also [00:49:30.00] passionate about advocating for electronic health records and telehealth. I’m volunteering my time on two or three coalitions related to this. And I’m always also helping one provider tackle this selection, specifically technology selection issue. They’re looking to replace their EHR. And I’m here and happy to help any of your clients. They can reach me on LinkedIn, just [00:50:00.00] search for Majd Alwan, and they can message me over there. I would be more than happy to help.

[00:50:06.88] Perfect. Thank you so much. And I want to thank you for everything, all the knowledge that you’ve imparted and shared with us today.

[00:50:13.72] Absolutely.

[00:50:14.71] I’ve learned so much. Every conversation I have with you, I learn so much. And I just want to, again, thank you for your time. I know that our listeners have enjoyed this as much as I have.

[00:50:24.34] Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

[00:50:26.74] You bet. So, you’ve been listening to Senior Living Visionaries [00:50:30.00] Podcast and Radio Show. I’m Jennifer Drago, and I hope you will join us next time as we continue to explore the cutting edge ideas and breakthroughs shaping the future of the senior living industry. Thanks so much for listening and please subscribe to Senior Living Visionaries on your favorite podcast platform. We’ll see you next time.

[00:50:51.91] You’ve been listening to the Senior Living Visionaries Podcast and Radio Show where we showcase the leaders and innovators in the industry who [00:51:00.00] are pushing the boundaries and setting the stage for the future in senior living and services. Join us next time as we share the bold ideas and breakthroughs of the industry’s most forward thinking leaders here on Senior Living Visionaries.