Dial Senior Living, manager of more than 2,100 independent living, assisted living and memory care units in seven U.S. states, embraces a philosophy of continuously improving its offerings. Along with providing caring, comfortable communities, “we’re also committed to investing more than our competitors in staffing, entertainment, technology, ambiance, quality goods and services, and overall lifestyle,” says Ted Lowndes, president of the Omaha, Neb.-based company. As part of their ongoing technology and quality initiatives, Dial leaders recently evaluated the programs they used to manage marketing, care and other operations. They found that the separate and uncoordinated systems in place duplicated information gathering and limited reporting capabilities. Perhaps worst of all, according to Michael Bowles, project coordinator for Dial, “our executives couldn’t generate reports. They had to put in a ticket, which made them and our investors wait. We wanted a more efficient reporting workflow and more responsive investor service.” These findings prompted Dial to seek out Yardi Senior IQ, a business intelligence solution that compiles operational and financial data from the Yardi Voyager Senior Housing technology platform. Reports generated by Yardi Senior IQ delivers in-depth insight into Dial’s occupancy, finances and other performance metrics. The solution also automatically compiles custom reports requested by the company’s investors. “Yardi Senior IQ is fantastic because it establishes orderly workflows and creates new reports from existing ones, complete with custom dashboards. Investors can get very specific information on demand without having to wait for us to send it,” Bowles says. “Our marketing, care and finance teams work as one team now because nobody is duplicating somebody else’s data compilation. That has drastically cut down manual tasks and helped us maintain operations with fewer people onsite, an important consideration in the COVID-19 era.” By replacing spreadsheets with a single connected...

Did you know that pets offer several health benefits for seniors? Furry, feathered and scale- friends have long received respect as dear companions. Pet ownership also offers direct physical and mental health benefits that are essential during quarantine. Companionship comforts Quarantine exacerbates feelings of loneliness and isolation that seniors may already experience. Pets, with their unique personalities, preferences and interests, offer seniors a companion when friends and family are unable to visit. Pets ease feelings of loneliness and distress. Dr. Helen Louise Brooks and her team at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom screened more than 8,000 articles and reviewed 17 papers on the subject. She reports,“Pets provided acceptance without judgment, giving unconditional support, which [participants] were often not receiving from other family or social relationships,” says Dr. Brooks. Improve mental health Pets should be included in patient care plans, particularly when diagnosed or self-reported mental illness is a factor. Dr. Kelly Rushton co-authored a study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry. She discovered that pet ownership resulted in several positive outcomes for patients’ mental health. Participants living with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder reported improvement in symptoms. Study participants report that pets provide a sense of unconditional love while helping them manage their emotions. Patients who were subject to violent outburst experienced better self-regulation and fewer acts of aggression. Patients who used to fixate on the symptoms of their mental health found a positive distraction in their pet. “We feel that pet ownership has a valuable contribution to mental health, so should be incorporated into individual care plans of patients,” says Rushton. Improved mood + outlook Caring for and interacting with a pet produces serotonin, the chemical hormone that promotes positivity and happiness. Serotonin is essential for mood stabilization and...

Isolation is necessary to keep senior living community members healthy during the pandemic – and a challenge to their well-being in other ways. As HealthTech magazine put it, “Important safety measures to keep high-risk people isolated during the pandemic hold a particular disadvantage for older adults in assisted living.” While the absence of sustained interaction can’t be completely mitigated as COVID-19 runs its course, a number of collaboration tools give senior living community residents vital mental and physical stimulation plus social engagement with the outside world. “Advances in technology for senior living are more focused on improving quality of life, providing data that enhances housing and developing personal devices that give seniors more control over their environment,” according to Craig Fukushima, managing partner for The Fox Group LLC, a health care consulting firm in Upland, Calif. Many of the technology tools leveraged by older adults are familiar to the non-senior population: smartphones, tablets, videoconferencing, telehealth. HealthTech reports that residents at Connecticut-based Maplewood Senior Living, for example, use iPads for video chats, virtual cocktail hours and birthday parties. A Thrive Senior Living community in Germantown, Md., added Alexa-enabled voice control and smart speaker devices. And Seattle-area operator Merrill Gardens outfitted seven of its communities with devices that support video calls with family and activities such as virtual card games and trivia contests. Video games are another way to keep seniors active. Fitness trackers can help them count steps, compete in competitions and create workout routines. Other apps offer quizzes, puzzles and other stimulating activities. The gap between tech-savvy younger generations and their elders is narrower than some people might think. An AARP survey published in January 2020 revealed that 51% of older Americans bought a smartphone, smart television, wearable device or other tech product in...

“Heading into 2020,” Senior Housing News reported last January, “many senior living providers are focused on making investments to upgrade the resident experience, to stand out in a competitive landscape and appeal to future consumers.” Those investments are happening, albeit in different circumstances than could have been anticipated. Even before the pandemic, Barron’s noted, “The senior-living industry was already in a state of flux—adjusting to longer life spans, more-active retirements, a labor shortage, and changing desires for care.” A task force convened by the International Council on Active Aging identified six principal areas that will define the “next normal,” including community designs that optimize social distancing and technology that increases connections and efficiency. The imperative to maintain resident and family engagement in the senior living environment makes digital programming and other technology a top priority for senior living operators, says Detroit-based integrated design firm SmithGroup: “We must design to enable quality of care and flexibility in facilities … while balancing design solutions that protect and promote the social and mental wellness of residents and staff.” To enhance social connections, for example, some communities have implemented videoconference technology that lets residents engage in fitness classes, medical appointments, spiritual services, community activities and more from computers or mobile devices. Other likely developments on the horizon include the establishment of multiple ecosystems within a community, upgrades to HVAC and other building systems, enhanced infection prevention measures, continuing staff and resident testing, visitor screening and additional protective equipment. Yardi software solutions help senior living community operators work more efficiently by automating processes associated with marketing, leasing, record-keeping, resident care and more. Learn...

Fifteen percent of Americans were 65 and older as of 2018. One study projects that the population of Americans 65 or older could reach 108 million in 2050. The 85-and-older population may increase at least fivefold in that time, to more than 6% percent of the citizenry. Some indicators of an aging population — and a few fun facts — are presented in the information below, which is drawn from a range of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau; the United Nations; Washington, D.C.-based population, health and environmental information source Population Reference Bureau; and Virginia law firm Mountain Empire Legal Services. 85 and up is the U.S.’s fastest-growing age group by percentage. By 2040, about one in five Americans will be 65 or older, up from about one in eight in 2000. Persons 65 and older are projected to outnumber children by 2034 for the first time in U.S. history. In 1960, those 65 and older comprised 4.9% of the global population. By 2050, they will account for 17%. More than 10,000 members of the baby boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964) turn 65 every day. As of 2018, 24% of men and about 16% of women 65 and older were in the labor force. About 65% of baby boomers say they plan to work past age 65. Five percent of people 65 and older in 1965 had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. Twenty-nine percent of that age group had done so by 2018. About 80% of seniors own a car and drive frequently. Nearly half of all adults 65 and older volunteer. Harland David Sanders (Col. Sanders) started Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 65. May is Older Americans Month, so designated to appreciate and recognize senior citizens. August 21 is...

Editor’s note: The author is founder and CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Aegis Living, a national leader in senior assisted living and memory care that operates 32 communities in Washington, California and Nevada and has seven other communities in development. Interacting with our seniors at Aegis Living has taught me so much—not just about life and living, but also about how to live a long and happy life. One of the things I’ve learned from our “oracles”—which has been confirmed by research—is that having purpose in your life is critical to your health and longevity. I think of purpose as putting forth effort toward doing things that have meaning for you and having daily, doable micro-goals. For example, if gardening has become a passion for you, giving it a sense of purpose in your life would lead you to read gardening books, talk to neighbors about what they’re planting and share ideas and tips, speak to experts at nurseries, and move things around in your yard to improve and enhance their health and visual impact. A sense of purpose organizes your time, focus, and even relationships. People who have goals and work toward them also feel a sense of self-worth and fulfillment, which helps them maintain a positive outlook on life. I believe that finding a renewed sense of purpose is what takes people into thriving later in life. If you are bored with cooking after many years of doing it, find a new cooking style—or a completely new hobby or pursuit that excites you. Dedicating physical and mental effort Hidekichi Miyazaki, a Japanese father of four and grandfather of 10, was 105 years old in 2015 when he completed the 100-meter sprint in 42.22 seconds. He set a new Guinness world record in track and field as...

How have sales teams adjusted to reduced face-to-face consultations during the pandemic? How do clients stay connected with leads? What product offerings will Yardi focus on in 2021? Richard Nix, senior director of senior living sales for Yardi, covers these topics and more. Below are excerpts from an interview that was published in Senior Housing News. Q.: You’ve spent your career in technology with a lot of time in the senior space and you’ve been with Yardi since 2014. What lessons do you draw from most frequently in your current role? A.: The main lesson is to always talk to people. A lot of folks like to communicate using technology, such as emails and text, but there’s nothing like getting on the phone with people and really learning their issues— especially now that we’re not seeing them at client meetings and at conferences — and to see what is really driving them and what issues are pertaining to them right now. The other key point is teamwork. The Yardi culture is all about teamwork. We have a great team, and we work to solve problems together for our clients. Q.: One of the early outcomes of the pandemic was the increase in technology adoption, including among sales and marketing teams. What are the most important ways that you’re seeing technology augment the diminished in-person sales calls in 2020? A: Salespeople depend on technology for handling many client requests. Since face-to-face meetings have been hard to arrange during the pandemic, continual contact with clients by other means became critical. In terms of specific technologies, the use of the video meetings has been a shift. This is a personal thing, but I like to put the camera on myself at the beginning of a video call....

Have you ever heard the saying that attitude is everything? How we choose to respond to a situation impacts our outlook, our possibilities and the responses of those around us. During tough times, one young woman in Raleigh constantly recommits to her positive attitude. Her decision to do so has positively impacted the entire community. Meet Victoria Meet Victoria Polston, activity and wellness director at Spring Arbor of Raleigh, an HH Hunt Senior Living community. Victoria is like many employees in assisted living communities: compassionate, patient and heavily caffeinated. She also exemplifies personality traits that have become indispensable during the pandemic: creativity, grit and optimism. As cities issued quarantine mandates in the spring, Polston faced a community of seniors who were more isolated from their loved ones than ever before. Excursions and visitors were no longer an option. Some seniors couldn’t understand the severity of the pandemic or their vulnerability. They were hurt, depressed and confused that their loved ones were no longer coming to visit. Polston got creative with engaging activities for her residents. “My goal is to make the lives of residents fun, active and worth living,” says Polston. “When I do something, I like to go all out.” Fun for every season In the warmer months, Polston offered seniors hula dancing and a luau, fake tattoos, a Mardi Gras party and a butterfly exhibit. She even coordinated a farmer’s market on the premises to replace an excursion that residents missed. As the weather cooled down, the activities continued indoors. Seniors made gourmet truffles, and danced during a neon glow stick party. They customized their shirts with glow-in-the-dark paint and donned glowing necklaces and bracelets. “I filled our activity room with black lights and all my residents were so excited when they...

Yardi continuously strives to make its property management software more valuable to operators of senior living communities. As new features are incorporated into the Yardi Senior Living Suite, the upgrades are documented, compiled into manuals and made available to clients. Recent upgrades and plug-ins include: Yardi Voyager Senior Housing: You can track monthly fee deferral requests, recovery schedules and generate payment plan agreements for signature with the Deferral Plan functionality. Community Analytics and Senior Financial Analytics reports are easier to use. Watch the video overview Yardi Senior CRM: Check out an enhanced user interface that includes a new dashboard with optimized graphical reporting, several new KPIs and goal tracking, and a redesigned prospect profile that includes a new activity feed view and streamlined navigation among prospects. We also added specific approver roles to the leasing workflow and a new Past Due Activities report that provides real-time data on overdue activities. Watch the video overview Yardi EHR and Yardi eMAR: EHR: Service plans can now be signed digitally. The Clinical Move-In workflow lets clinical teams move residents into EHR without impacting the financial Move-In process. There’s also a new Shower/Laundry/Housekeeping Schedule report that covers seven days of upcoming tasks. eMAR: Quantity tracking is enhanced, as is the ability to perform blind counts of controlled substances and identify discrepancies. You can set up the Order Change report to run nightly and send automatically to the pharmacy in a password-protected email attachment. Watch the video overview You can also join a webinar to gain even more insight into our comprehensive solution for senior living...

What is lead attribution and how can it help senior living community operators get the most out of their marketing spend? Lead attribution is the process of determining how leads from a Facebook page, Google ad, directory listing or other source become associated with a property. Understanding all sources that a prospect touches on the path to becoming a resident can help property managers determine how to allocate their marketing money and staff resources most efficiently. RentCafe Senior CRM illuminates lead attribution with a “lead journey” feature that shows how many prospects who became residents spent time on the Facebook page or follow a Google ad to the website. The lead attribution report, another element of the solution, analyzes data to reveal, among other things, the organization’s top sources for prospects. Other reports illustrate the top and bottom sources for resident conversions. The system assigns scores for each source using attribution models that split prospects across the sources in their journey and includes prospects who submitted an inquiry and toured the community. Yardi Senior CRM scores all sources that contributed to a prospect’s inquiry, with full drilldown to the score’s elements. Marketing managers might want more nuanced source information than just “property website” from a lead that comes into RentCafe Senior CRM from a website. What’s of greater value to them is the site the visitor was on when they clicked the link that brought them to their site. RentCafe Senior CRM tracks the true source of a lead journey when a prospect submit information from the “Contact us” of “Schedule a tour” page of a Yardi-hosted website. With these data and analytics, which include each marketing touchpoint that contributed to a lease and not just the first source that generated the lead, sales...

Yardi has been building Yardi EHR, a full service electronic health record solution for senior living, for the better part of a decade. Client feedback and ongoing development give rise to regular product enhancements. Here’s a sampling of recent upgrades. Clinical move-in Users can now execute a clinical move-in process that includes adding global contacts, allergies, diagnosis, orders from a library, and schedule assessments.  This new feature allows a facility to perform a financial move-in prior to the resident physically arriving in the building or vice versa.  Clinical staff can move a resident in and the billing staff can complete the financial move-in when they return. A new KPI shows a resident’s pending move-in status, allowing the facility to easily monitor resident move-in activities. Medication tracking Recent enhancements allow counting of controlled substances between shifts, check-in of medications delivered to the community and documentation of medications disposed of. Facilities can also update the quantity of medication on hand when new deliveries arrive. Digital care plan signatures New functionality enables digital signing of service plans. Five new KPIs monitor the signing status. Continuity of care document interface (CCDA) Facilities can now create, send and receive CCDA documentation using the KNO2 interface. The CCDA document sends and receives data elements in a standard format. Information exchanged includes advanced directives, allergies, adverse reactions, medications and social history. The CCDA user interface lets you search for documents by a date range or create a new document. Shower/housekeeping/laundry schedule A new report assists staff with weekly shower, laundry and housekeeping schedules. Filters allow for multiple schedules to be displayed and is viewable in a list or calendar view. The list view can also display task details. Simple wounds The wound module has been streamlined and enhanced for assisted living...

Registration has started for the Pharmacy Partnership for Long Term Care Program. This innovative collaboration facilitates free, on-premises COVID-19 vaccinations for senior living providers. CDC facilitates vaccination services for senior living residents The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has partnered with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies to offer vaccination services for residents of senior facilities. The new program, called Pharmacy Partnership for Long-term Care (LTC), “provides end-to-end management of the COVID-19 vaccination process, including cold chain management, on-site vaccinations, and fulfillment of reporting requirements, to facilitate safe vaccination of this patient population, while reducing burden on LTC facilities and jurisdictional health departments,” reports the CDC. Senior living providers gain free access to services such as: on-location clinic dates orders for the vaccine and necessary supplies vaccine administration cold chain management for the vaccine reporting to local, state and federal jurisdictions compliance with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) COVID-19 testing requirements for LTCF staff Skilled Nursing facilities (SNF) must register through the National Healthcare Safety Network. Assisted living facilities (ALF) must register via REDcap. Registration is non-binding and facilitates may opt out at any time. What to expect during Pharmacy Partnership for Long-term Care registration Providers will have the opportunity to select between CVS and Walgreens as their pharmacy partner for the initial phase of the vaccinations. After the initial phase (about two months) facilities may chose a pharmacy provider of their choice. Online sign-up details will be disseminated through the providers’ communications channels including but not limited to websites and email. The CDC will coordinate facilities’ preferences with the pharmacy partners. Please be advised that the CDC may reassign facilities to accommodate availability and other considerations. Registrations for the program ends November 6. Explore FAQ regarding the Long-Term Care Program for COVID-19...

A registered nurse quoted on the American Assn. of Nurse Assessment Coordination’s website says that obtaining baseline patient health data “is an invaluable tool to us in long-term care. It involves so much of the nurse and her relationship with the resident and getting them to get to that highest level of function. It is so important, it’s so exciting, and it’s a tool that just drives great care.” Completing that assessment, known as the resident assessment instrument minimum data set (RAI MDS), is a mandatory element of guiding resident care planning and monitoring in long-term care settings. But compiling the required information manually often involves uncoordinated efforts by multiple parties who don’t always know if the information they’re dealing with is current. Nurses, administrators and other senior care providers now have the means to complete the RAI MDS process more easily and accurately. Yardi Long Term Care, a new mobile electronic health record solution available in Canada, saves time and eliminates errors by automatically prefilling the RAI MDS with data from previous assessments through electronic workflows. Staff members updating an RAI MDS don’t have to spend time entering data or backtracking through a lengthy paper trail. Mobile charting that sends resident data from the point of care to the MDS saves even more time. Yardi Long Term care also tracks frequently changing regulations and automatically checks submissions for fatal errors, missed fields and inconsistencies. It provides a clear audit trail, with user logs, change reasons and up-to-date chart data housed in a centralized platform. Yardi Long Term Care is the Canadian version of Yardi® Skilled Nursing, a new solution that sends resident data from the point of care directly into the MDS. “Accurate data from Yardi Long Term Care will equip senior living...

The latest addition to the Yardi Senior Living Suite helps senior living staff and residents’ families stay connected as senior living communities maintain largely isolated from outside contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community managers can use RENTCafé Wellness to schedule healthy activities, track attendance and create custom-branded online wellness calendars. Activity organizers can create calendars on a community’s marketing website, manage RSVPs from residents and their families, and assign staff to the activities. “RentCafe Wellness combines with the rest of the Yardi Senior Living Suite to help communities elevate residents’ quality of life and maintain connection with family members in these challenging times,” said Ray Elliott, vice president of senior living for Yardi. “The solution also helps community staff work more efficiently by enabling management of calendar content, design, publication, registration and attendance from a single connected solution.” RentCafe Wellness is an element of RentCafe Senior Living, a secure portal that residents, staff and families use for payments, communication, service requests and other operations. Learn more about how RENTCafé Wellness and other RENTCafé Senior Living solutions can help residents of senior living communities stay connected and...

Senior Housing News recently interviewed Fil Southerland, director of healthcare solutions for Yardi, about the biggest changes in senior living technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, how technology is meeting new healthcare demands and his experience growing up in Idaho, where his father operated assisted living facilities and built his own technology platform to support them. Excerpts follow. Q.: One of the early outcomes of the pandemic was the increase in technology adoption. What are the main silver linings in terms of senior living technology? A.: COVID-19 has definitely been hard on our industry and the residents we’re caring for. I think what it’s really highlighted is the incredible resilience of the organizations and their staff members that we work with. I’ve been particularly impressed with the amount of rapid innovation and technology uptake within the industry. Yardi’s contribution is a broad-based platform that helps providers efficiently manage everything from the care-related side to operations to finances. We’ve continued to add new clients at a rapid pace and we’re also seeing our existing clients working to automate and streamline a lot of their workflows. I think that kind of technology adoption is a necessity now. Over the long term, we’re hopeful that it will produce a lot of good dividends for the industry in terms of care coordination and personalization, wellness, operational efficiency and risk mitigation. Q.: Which changes in senior living technology prompted by the pandemic do you think will last? A.: One area is marketing and admissions. Previously, residents or family members had to come into communities to sign leases or changes to service plans. Yardi has a solution that allows all that to be done online. We’ve seen a lot of interest in that. Also, families considering a community are really concerned about...

Yardi created the Yardi Senior Living Suite to encompass every element of senior housing management within a single platform, from sales, marketing and care management to payments, family communication and medication administration. The suite helps facility operators grow their occupancy, deliver quality care and lower total costs of ownership. A recent addition brings even more key operations into the suite. Yardi Skilled Nursing is a mobile solution that helps senior living staff members deliver care and document their actions more efficiently. Yardi Skilled Nursing saves time in resident assessment, charting and reporting by sending resident data from the point of care directly into a standardized patient health assessment repository known as the MDS. This streamlined documentation process lets staff members spend more time on resident care instead of entering and validating data. The solution also fortifies compliance by ensuring operators are current on frequently changing regulations and automatically checking for fatal errors, missed fields and inconsistencies. User logs, change reasons and up-to-date chart data establish a clear audit trail. Advanced reporting, clinical key performance indicators and financial measures enable full oversight of care services. Yardi Skilled Nursing also delivers value to senior living facility operators by: Reducing manual data entry errors with automatic pre-population of MDS with information from previous assessments Providing a user-friendly interface that helps lighten staff workloads and improve productivity Streamlining government reimbursements with simplified, error-free claims management Delivering full access to real-time clinical information for staff across the business “Staff members can devote their energies to resident care because all electronic point-of-care charting is readily available on any mobile device,” said Ray Elliott, vice president of senior living for Yardi. “That benefit combines with real-time availability of full service information to give facility operators the means to improve health outcomes,...

Data analytics may not be easy, but they’re often necessary. You can’t just gather data. You’ve got to know what the numbers actually mean if you want to push your teams forward in senior living. That’s just one piece of advice that Dave Eskenazy, an industry expert with over 25 years’ experience, recently shared with us. We sat down with Dave to hear how he’s used the Yardi Senior Living Suite to drive growth through technology. From the importance of integration to the value of easy-to-understand metrics, he had plenty of insight to offer. Q: How do you track prospects in senior living? What I love about RENTCafé Senior CRM is that from the very first moment an inquiry is made, the prospect’s name is entered into the system. And I begin to track that. At some point, that prospect moves in, but the ability to move that prospect in and change them from a prospect to a resident becomes so much easier and so much quicker. Oftentimes, when somebody is looking for senior housing, they take a lot of time to really make a decision. But once that decision is made, it’s time to move. Having a lot of that information already in the system – and being able to simply pick up from before – is a key benefit of RENTCafé Senior CRM and the complete stack of Yardi products. One of the things I like most about Yardi is that there are a lot of modules that follow us all the way through the system. And it starts with RENTCafé Senior CRM. Q: How does data sync improve billing? One of the problems with billing is if you have separate systems for capturing your care than you do for billing your...

Employing disconnected procurement processes eats up staff members’ valuable time, fritters away resources and creates opportunities for runaway spending. Managers of senior living communities need to direct their resources toward productive activities. So why not find a better way to purchase, approve and pay for goods and services? That was the purpose of a recent webinar moderated by Senior Living Foresight and featuring Yardi Procure to Pay manager Kim Hensley along with Carmin Tomassi, vice president controller for Silverado, an Irvine, Calif.-based assisted living, home care and hospice care provider. The traditional approach to purchasing goods and services involved manually scanning data and routing paper around for approvals. The lack of formal workflows and repeated manual tasks obscured budget visibility, duplicated payments, and created opportunities for duplicate payments and other errors. The sheer volume of invoices to be processed – up to 35,000 per year for a typical user of Yardi PayScan – made the process even more daunting. Silverado offers an example of a senior living community operator overcoming the flaws inherent in manual procurement processing. Tomassi recounted how Silverado reduced its payables reversed rate to 0.56%, versus the industry average of 1.8%, and its checks voided rate to 0.43%, versus 2.1% for the industry, by automating the process end to end with Yardi Procure to Pay. The system, he said, produced “a night-and-day difference from where we were just four years ago. Now we have one automated system paying all our bills. All approvals are electronic, we have vendors set up in workflows, and we have centralized a big chunk of the business function, with better results. It’s been real win for us.” Silverado uses Yardi Procure to Pay to move its purchase orders through the approval process electronically, with customized approval...

Charlie Trefzger is no stranger to change. Already this year, as president and CEO, he oversaw the rebrand of his company from Affinity Living Group to ALG Senior. At the same time, he reorganized his company’s operational structure. ALG communities now have more autonomy in how they operate, able to make decisions and take action without a set directive from headquarters. That’s not to say that Trefzger and his team don’t support their communities, however. When the coronavirus first started making news, they instituted change after change to ensure resident safety. They reacted fast thanks to having prepared well in advance just for this sort of emergency. “We implemented a pandemic flu policy some time ago. Since, we have tailored it to the COVID-19 policy, which is founded upon the CDC guidelines,” said Trefzger. “We’ve been drilling and practicing that for a good portion of the last year, and Lord have mercy, here we are right now dealing with it.” In recognition of the transformations Trefzger has driven, Senior Housing News has inducted him into the 2020 class of Changemakers. Read on to learn what steps ALG took to slow the spread of COVID-19 and how he believes the pandemic will impact senior living going forward. What have been the biggest changes that ALG Senior has made since COVID-19 hit in mid-March? Gosh, what hasn’t changed? There have been so many things that we’ve had to adapt to, such as visitation; narrowing our network of health care professionals; gathering data and having a greater reliance on data; the screening of our employees; using technology, both for visits as well as data-gathering and for activity programs; the need to address loneliness in our residents and trying to be innovative with visits. Probably our biggest change...

The annual Argentum Senior Living Executive Conference Argentum wasn’t live with thousands in attendance as is usually the case, but it still lived up to its legacy as a major event in the professionally managed senior living community industry. Held in September and hosted by a major national trade association, Argentum offered 30 hours of programming over three days. Leaders from Life Care Services, Mather, Eclipse Senior Living, Heritage Communities and other providers offered tips on such timely topics as shifting from survival mode to a sales-oriented environment, giving buyers a seamless journey (“omnichannel marketing”), protecting health data from cyberattacks and staying ahead of COVID-19. Besides sponsoring registration for the event, Yardi’s principal contribution was hosting a virtual session that addressed how advanced business intelligence technology can drive informed decision-making. Senior living executives J.R. Southerland and Richard Nix focused on one of Yardi’s new contributions to efficient senior living management – Yardi Senior IQ, a BI solution designed for senior living that compiles portfolio-wide information. Southerland and Nix explained how executives can use Yardi Senior IQ to execute benchmarking, elevate reporting to investors, board members and others, and deliver details on everything from unit availability to current market rates. Please contact us if you would like to know more about the business intelligence presentation or the Argentum conference in...