The goal of any senior housing, assisted living, or skilled nursing facility is to provide effective care. The challenges of the past few years have made that increasingly challenging. It’s showing up in many ways.
Workflow
It’s challenging to ensure all levels are operating efficiently. Does the admin understand the daily roles of CNAs? Do executives tap into a nurse’s daily role? Where do housekeeping and kitchen services fit in?
Staffing
Staffing challenges show up in every way. Has the pool of qualified hires shrunk? How do you balance reduced staffing? How do you replace employees as they leave? This can be incredibly challenging outside urban areas. Burnout has also become a significant problem, lowering the prospect pool.
Residents
Waitlists are at an all-time high. It’s a careful balance between having enough residents to fund the facility while staffing it for excellent service.
Fortunately, technology is changing every aspect of facility operations. Getting the biggest bang for your buck today is by looking at automation. Different tools are available in all areas, effectively reducing the strain. They can help with inefficiencies, and impact the entire organization as it optimizes time spent on various tasks.
It often starts by asking better questions:
- How can we improve our facility to remove limitations?
- What equipment can we invest in to improve processes throughout the facility?
- What technology will enhance our business model?
- How can we change our operational model to better suit our residents' needs?
An outsider's perspective may be just what you need. A technology partner can view facility operations without insider biases. They also have knowledge and an expert background to make them valuable in making recommendations.
They can help when:
- Your current system has backlogs and workarounds that prevent you from being efficient.
- You are concerned about the reliability and security of your entire computer network.
- Your employees have trouble doing the jobs they were hired for, and often crossover and do other tasks to get the job done. It’s a waste of time for everyone involved.
Technology is ever-changing, ever-growing. We often hear of technological advances like AI or machine learning and instantly worry about the human workforce shrinking. Automation is designed for efficiency, not to take away people. It helps you do more of what you love in a way that gives back more to the community.
Automation enhances the human workforce
There’s an underlying fear that automation and AI will be replacing humans. It’s not true. Instead, it automates certain skills in individual jobs that grow efficiency. AI mimics human behavior while automation streamlines repetitive tasks.
Combined, it allows people to refine skills that can’t be performed with technology - empathy, creativity, judgment, and critical thinking. But this starts by enhancing technology first.
Working with experts allows you to narrow down the two different skill sets, offloading mechanical tasks to technology, while freeing up time for employees to do better at what they truly were hired to do.
Automation enhances the customer experience
What people love most about small businesses is the customer experience. But you can achieve that at any level of business by utilizing automation. Certain aspects of customer service are repetitive, and can be outsourced to technology. Of course, you need the right technology in place to increase efficiency.
Again, it starts by analyzing your current systems and building a strategy that allows you to automate more of your everyday tasks, freeing up time to do what’s truly important. Automation has the ability to make every aspect of the customer experience faster, more convenient, and more enjoyable. No matter where the customer is in your service chain.
How can you automate your facility this year?
Hardware, software, and cloud resources are evolving faster than ever before. Without a strong IT infrastructure in place, every task can become increasingly more complex.
Instead of waiting for new tech and processes, it’s time to build a strategic plan that aligns with your goals. Our IT services provide you with the advantage of having a fully optimized support system in place without adding the high cost of an IT team.
For IT Strategy, Cloud Conversion, or Help Desk Services reach out to us at Silver Linings Technology 360-450-4759.
