This text is sponsored by PointClickCare. On this Voices interview, Senior Housing Information connects with Kristy Yoskey, VP Market Chief of Senior Residing at PointClickCare, to debate how the senior dwelling expertise is evolving on the intersection of healthcare, hospitality, and expertise. Drawing on her background as an occupational therapist and her present position in healthcare tech, Yoskey shares insights on personalization, workforce enablement, and the position of AI in strengthening care groups. She additionally explores how seamless knowledge assortment and rising client expectations are shaping the following evolution of getting old in place.
Senior Housing Information: What life or profession experiences have most formed your method to the work you’re doing right now?
Kristy Yoskey: It would sound cliché, however all of my experiences have formed the method I carry to my work right now. I began out in healthcare as an occupational therapist, and I’ve actually executed a little bit of every part — medical work, constructing packages from the bottom up for long-term care, senior dwelling, dwelling well being, even pediatrics. I’ve all the time been extra drawn to older adults and the aging-in-place aspect of care.
I’ve additionally labored in consulting and operations, which I completely love. Something that permits me to influence extra people who find themselves serving older adults is the place I discover essentially the most objective, and it’s the place I’ve discovered essentially the most.
That stated, two issues have actually formed the place I’m right now: first, working in healthcare gross sales, and second, consulting throughout the complete care continuum. These experiences helped me transition into the expertise area, which I’d name healthcare-adjacent, however nonetheless rooted in the identical mission of supporting higher take care of older adults.
You’ve labored in senior dwelling as an occupational therapist and now in healthcare tech. How did these experiences form your perspective on right now’s senior care panorama and the traits you’re seeing?
The transition from being an occupational remedy govt to working in healthcare tech was in all probability the simplest profession transfer I’ve ever made. I met Murry Mercier, who’s been with PointClickCare for over a decade on the senior dwelling aspect. On the time, I used to be constructing out senior dwelling consulting companies targeted on well being and wellness and real-time service coordination.
In occupational remedy, my objectives shifted relying on the setting. In expert nursing, it was about reducing size of keep and serving to folks get dwelling. In senior dwelling, it was the alternative — improve size of keep, hold residents engaged, and help them in dwelling properly. In dwelling well being, it was once more about lowering time in care however serving to folks stay properly of their houses. I used to be working throughout all these environments after I met Murry.
By that connection, I began studying extra about what PointClickCare was doing with expertise on this area, and it actually clicked for me. I spotted I might make a much wider influence. That mix of consulting, instructing wellness lessons in senior dwelling communities, and seeing firsthand the facility of tech to scale care—that’s what formed my perspective and finally pulled me into this world.
Now we’re having large conversations about the way forward for senior care, particularly in senior dwelling. What occurs when communities are full? We’re not seeing plenty of new buildings going up, so how can we carry the identical companies exterior the 4 partitions of assisted and unbiased dwelling and prolong them into the broader neighborhood?
Know-how is essential to creating that potential. For somebody like me, with my path and background, it’s a extremely thrilling area to be in proper now.
How is the mixing of healthcare and hospitality redefining the getting old expertise in senior dwelling? What modifications are wanted to satisfy trendy client expectations?
I moderated a panel at PointClickCare’s healthcare expertise convention, SUMMIT , again in April alongside some unimaginable voices within the trade — Bob Kramer, James Balda, Dianne Munevar. I used to be so fortunate to share the stage with them. Bob stated one thing that actually caught with me. He identified that there’s now not a debate about healthcare versus hospitality in senior dwelling — COVID wiped that line away. What we’re seeing now could be the emergence of a “wellcare” area, the place we’re targeted on serving to older adults keep properly and obtain proactive care, even when that’s delivered via third-party most popular partnerships.
Whereas we nonetheless speak concerning the evolving hospitality mannequin, it’s clear that senior dwelling has essentially shifted since 2019. It’s exhausting to imagine it’s arising on six years since COVID, however in that point, the infant boomer technology has continued to redefine what getting old and retirement seem like.
I shared a video on LinkedIn just lately of an older grownup who’s completely thriving in retirement. She and her accomplice dwell in London, and she or he’s a DJ utilizing pots and pans on TikTok. She’s a creator, she’s vibrant, and she or he’s completely breaking the mould of what retirement “ought to” seem like. If that’s not the brand new face of getting old, I don’t know what’s.
We should evolve with that. Growing old right now isn’t nearly sitting in a wheelchair rising outdated and remoted. It’s about creativity, expression, connection. We’re speaking about serving people who find themselves deeply engaged on this planet as TikTok creators, writers, grandparents who need to be surrounded by household. That’s the fact we’re constructing for now.
It’s an enormous alternative, particularly for these of us in tech, to help and form what comes subsequent. We have to hold innovating and discovering methods to mix hospitality and wellcare in ways in which actually match how folks need to age right now. The expectations are altering, and we get to assist meet them.
The place do you see the largest alternative for expertise to boost the senior dwelling expertise and allow a extra personalised wellness expertise?
At PointClickCare, once we take into consideration designing expertise, it all the time comes down to at least one core query: how can we empower frontline workers to spice up velocity, confidence, and connection?
The aim is to present workers the instruments they should full their duties shortly and precisely in order that they’re not caught in entrance of an EHR all day, and might as an alternative spend extra significant time with residents offering wellcare. Whether or not it’s figuring out a change in situation, reaching out to a most popular supplier, connecting with a member of the family, or partaking immediately with the resident, the expertise ought to help that human connection — not substitute it.
One of many largest areas we’ve invested in is synthetic intelligence. We’ve been utilizing AI fashions for a while now throughout a number of markets we serve. Trusted AI can assist construct that confidence clinicians want since they’ve bought the fitting insights at their fingertips, the information they’re working with is correct, they usually could make knowledgeable choices shortly and confidently.
But it surely’s not nearly insights, it’s additionally about integration. Know-how has a giant alternative to attach seamlessly with different programs and supply real-time knowledge that helps frontline groups, and people supporting them work extra successfully and effectively.
On the finish of the day, it’s about getting the knowledge proper, getting it quick, after which transferring on to what actually issues: spending time with the folks they’re caring for. That’s what we’re striving for: creating expertise that works within the background so caregivers can keep targeted on care.
There’s plenty of concern round AI, particularly in terms of changing frontline workers and caregivers. With the actual alternative being strengthening and supporting the frontline, how do you see AI serving to senior dwelling workers turn into extra environment friendly and empowered of their day-to-day?
At the beginning, we’re targeted on accountable AI. Meaning utilizing the fitting software to resolve the fitting downside—not changing the human contact. We’re in a human-centered area, whether or not it’s senior dwelling, expert nursing, hospitals, payers, or doctor practices. Throughout that continuum, the folks utilizing these instruments are frontline workers, and we all know that human connection and medical decision-making can’t get replaced.
What AI can do is deal with routine duties and floor necessary info to these clinicians and frontline employees—in order that they’re not spending beneficial time digging via information or knowledge. If we are able to streamline that course of and provides them the insights they should make quick, knowledgeable choices, that’s a win. It permits them to remain targeted on the resident moderately than on the display.
At PointClickCare, we’ve been testing and leveraging AI fashions throughout the care spectrum for years. We’re working carefully with companions to remain in step round compliance, coverage, and greatest practices—so everybody’s aligned on how AI is getting used and what’s coming subsequent.
One other issue we are able to’t ignore is the workforce scarcity. Immigration coverage issues are affecting labor availability, and we’ve got tens of hundreds of older adults reaching retirement age daily. We merely don’t have the workers to satisfy that stage of demand with out leveraging expertise.
AI is a part of the answer, however it must be launched in a means that helps, not replaces, the folks offering care. That’s our method: ensuring our purchasers are prepared, constructing instruments that empower workers, and transferring ahead along with the fitting stability of innovation and humanity.
If hospitality and healthcare have gotten intertwined and we’re in a position to gather knowledge seamlessly within the background, what’s the following evolution for senior dwelling? How can this fusion drive actual change throughout the trade?
This goes again to what I discussed earlier from Bob Kramer about how healthcare and hospitality are already intertwined. The following evolution is what we name wellcare, which shifts the mindset in senior dwelling towards proactive wellness.
Senior dwelling holds a singular seat on the desk as a result of we’re not a care setting; we’re somebody’s dwelling the place care and companies are supplied. If you take a look at upstream value-based care fashions like ACOs in hospitals or downstream doctor teams like Curana in ACO REACH or SNPs, senior dwelling is in a first-rate place to help these efforts. We can assist residents age in place and, extra importantly, have interaction in place—not simply via actions or life enrichment, however via a full, complete digital document that gives a deep understanding of every particular person.
It begins with making a significant service plan, understanding a resident’s baseline, and serving to them keep there and even thrive. Then, when one thing modifications, we are able to act early. Possibly the information exhibits that somebody isn’t coming right down to the eating room anymore and is consuming meals of their room. That’s a sign. Possibly it’s melancholy. Possibly it’s decrease again ache. However that one change might result in decreased mobility, a fall, a hospitalization, wounds, and finally a better stage of care and diminished high quality of life.
If we are able to catch these modifications early earlier than they escalate, we are able to intervene via our medical companions, herald remedy, pharmacy, physicians, and actually help that resident holistically. We not solely enhance their high quality of life, however we additionally prolong their time within the present stage of care, scale back hospital visits, and help higher outcomes throughout the board.
That’s the place this fusion of healthcare, hospitality, and expertise can drive actual change. After we align programs and workflows to help thoughts, physique, spirit, and neighborhood—one thing I borrow from Stephanie Boreale at Watermark as a result of I feel it’s such a fantastic framework—we create an surroundings the place folks can actually dwell properly.
This is similar downside I used to be attempting to resolve again in expert nursing in 2014. Now we’re tackling it in assisted dwelling, within the dwelling, in dwelling well being. We’re seeing progress in hospital-at-home fashions and physician-at-home companies like DispatchHealth. However for many individuals, dwelling is senior dwelling, and that’s the place we’ve got the chance to alter the narrative from reactive to proactive care.
Within the senior dwelling trade, 2025 is being outlined by…
…a decisive shift towards clever, integrative, and individualized wellcare. Know-how is now not simply supporting operations; it’s actively driving wellness, personalization, and value-based outcomes for residents.
Editor’s notice: This interview has been edited for size and readability.
To be taught extra about PointClickCare’s Senior Residing options, go to pointclickcare.com
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