Senior residing operator Merrill Gardens is adopting new expertise and discovering new methods to interact residents, all in service of constructing assisted residing extra hospitality-focused.
That’s in keeping with Chief Working Officer Jason Childers, who instructed Senior Housing Information the Seattle-based firm is working to ship “the best hospitality ever proven” to its residents at each contact level alongside their senior residing expertise.
Assisted residing has developed over time from a “social mannequin of congregate residing” to raised meet the care wants of residents, Childers mentioned. It’s a standard chorus in senior residing that right now’s assisted residing is yesterday’s expert nursing. However the child boomers don’t need overly scientific settings, even once they do want the next stage of care.
The corporate believes that residents and members of the family want distinctive experiences tailor-made to their desires and desires. That’s the reason the corporate is specializing in “little further steps” that make residents really feel particular. Examples embrace utilizing expertise to gather extra info on residents and their households to offer them distinctive presents and having a chef make and ship a shock birthday cake for a resident.
“That’s an enormous focus for this yr,” Childers mentioned.
Merrill Gardens is powering its hospitality focus with platforms comparable to TSO Life, Icon and LifeLoop by way of pilots in a handful of communities.
“We need to be part of the hospitality economic system and actually ship on that,” Childers mentioned. “We predict that that may be a differentiator for us on this business, of being recognized for going above and past in each facet of what we do.”
Rising engagement by way of expertise
Merrill Gardens has three tech pilots underway in a number of of its 61 communities, together with interviewing and transcribing resident profiles to align residents with related pursuits.
The operator is thru its tech pilots gaining visibility into what engages residents, in keeping with Childers. The operator is also utilizing sure tech to streamline the efforts of actions administrators and increase effectivity amongst staffers.
For instance, the operator is utilizing TSO Life to file and transcribe new resident interviews with AI that additionally creates a profile for them. Actions administrators can use the data to construct programming calendars based mostly on resident pursuits.
“It helps you establish the place pursuits are altering in your neighborhood,” Childers mentioned.
The tech platform additionally helps the corporate’s division heads share info with each other. By executing on expertise like this, the hope is to assist broaden on Merrill Gardens’ idea of “unreasonable hospitality” by paying higher consideration to their desires and desires by way of custom-made experiences which can be “outdoors of the odd.”
“The higher we all know our residents and their likes and desires and desires, and the extra that we are able to share that info throughout the neighborhood, the extra alternatives now we have to create some actually custom-made experiences for folks,” Childers added.
Merrill Gardens is piloting the three tech applications throughout a number of communities. Later in June, the operator will select one of many pilots and roll the product out throughout its complete portfolio, with plans to make use of it to tell the corporate’s wider operations.
Merrill Gardens has been considerably restricted in its AI use outdoors of fall detection techniques and using Microsoft Copilot to make coverage and handbook info straightforward to entry by way of a searchable operate. The principle problem the corporate faces with adopting AI expertise is just how briskly it’s altering and rising.
As an alternative of including in new AI choices, the eye is popping to its companywide intranet performance to be “the most recent and best” so info is well accessible for workers.
“I feel we’re simply on the very starting levels of attempting to determine find out how to implement this into our operations,” Childers mentioned.
Portfolio-wide, Merrill Gardens is sitting at simply over a 90% occupancy fee, together with in new lease-up communities, Childers mentioned. Now, the corporate is in search of to maintain that momentum up this yr as occupancy and income rise.
“We had actually good motion on our market-rate and inner will increase,” Childers mentioned. “[We] can simply proceed to complete out the yr robust in these areas.”
Moreover, the corporate continues to widen its footprint. In Could, it introduced three new communities had been added in Oregon by way of a mixture of acquisitions and improvement with Merrill Gardens at Cedar Mill in Portland; Merrill Gardens at Sherwood in Sherwood; and Merrill Gardens at Hillsboro in Hillsboro. The corporate is performing because the supervisor for all three of the acquisitions as effectively.
