WASHINGTON, DC — Telecommunications companies shouldn’t get so tied up in early technology investments that they miss out on opportunities to innovate and improve staff workloads, a committee of carriers and investors said Tuesday.
“As businesses, we have a bigger voice in the vendor world than we realize,” says Morgan Graffman, director of business intelligence for Ascent Living Communities, which operates campuses in Colorado. “We need to use that voice to push vendors to consolidate, innovate and move forward.”
If they don’t, Grafman said, don’t be afraid to look for a new technology partner that can better serve your needs. Over the course of two years, she led the evaluation and conversion of 11 technology services to new platforms; her organization plans to reevaluate further in 2025.
“If you’re using a system that you’re not happy with, don’t continue to use that system,” she told an audience at the NIC Fall Meeting 2024. “Either force them to innovate or find a new solution.”
“As operators in this room, we can move our business forward in ways we never thought possible,” Grafman added. She said interoperability is one area where operators can force change. For providers with two systems that don’t work together, she suggested setting up meetings with both brands to force integration or risk losing customers.
But other panel members warned that evolving technology requires a careful approach, given that each new process increases the workload for staff who are prone to turnover.
“We think we have a problem as an industry,” said moderator Joe Daniels, vice president of business development at Direct Supply. “There’s a general sense of fatigue when it comes to adopting technology.”
Advice on adding or switching technologies
Speakers discussed standards for using new technology and how to pilot it before implementing it across your portfolio. They also offered tips for adding platforms or switching partners to get user buy-in and make the transition smoother.
Chip Gabriel, partner at Senior Living Transformation Company, shared insights about using data dashboards to further value-based care partnerships, but also warned against moving too quickly.
“If you’re going to change technology, do it, train for it and practice it, but don’t try to change four things at once,” he said. “It’s overwhelming, and it’s hard to retain a good workforce anyway.”
Gabriel’s approach is to figure out how the technology will be used, by whom, and how the organization will leverage the data it collects before deploying it. Providers should also be mindful of technology overload and look for ways to minimize it, Gabriel said. For one, he recommended eliminating the hassle of repeated logins and creating a single login for staff who regularly work across multiple systems.
Panelists also discussed the importance of sharing insights with other operators who could broaden understanding of available solutions.
Jennifer McGarty, senior residential asset manager and director at AEW Capital Management, said her firm has begun surveying operators about what technology they are using, what they plan to add and what challenges they have experienced with implementation.
“Operators are increasingly wanting to know what’s going on in other parts of our portfolio, what’s working and what’s not,” she said. “We can provide that collaboration between operators, and I think that opens up an opportunity to have a system of technology.”
Avoid the traps
For Graphman, a standalone review meant looking at “every single part” of the company’s tech stack.
“A lot of operators I talk to say, ‘I already have a CRM[customer relationship management]I already have an EHR, I’m OK, I have the foundation in place,'” she says. “But what we did at Ascent was try to evaluate: Is this technology doing what we want it to do? Are we innovating with this technology? Is it integrated (i.e., are we ready to use this technology and not siloed within that system)? When we looked at our technology stack, the answer was a resounding no.”
They took the leap for the long-term benefit of better control over their data and outcomes.
Aric Morton, CEO of NIC MAP Vision, spoke about the potential that artificial intelligence technology can bring to healthcare professionals, saying that while AI will soon be able to help with life safety and fall prevention, its greater immediate impact will come from leveraging data that is still too scattered to be valuable.
For example, he said, large-scale language models could process survey results and match them to manager tenure to help evaluate job applicants.Whether these applications become reality will depend heavily on the vendor, he said.
And providers need to ask serious questions about AI to see if what they’re being sold is just a gimmick, or if other technologies can provide what the AI needs to work.
“Everybody talks about AI, but without a good technology stack to drive that AI, it’s just a buzzword,” Grafman said.
