Technology for Enhanced Patient-Centered Care in Senior Living

If you’re running a senior living community, you’re well aware of the increasingly broad spectrum of residents seeking health and home care services, each with their unique circumstances and individual needs. 

From seniors needing a little daily assistance with ADLs, weekly nurse visits, or regular companionship care to Alzheimer’s patients requiring 24-hour supervision, there can be an extensive range of care requirements to be met – and these will be ever-changing as residents age.

To differentiate themselves from the competition and tackle these diverse demands head-on, smart senior living providers are adopting a patient-centered care strategy – going that extra mile to be more responsive to the individual needs, preferences, and values of each resident (and their families).

In this article, we explore the value that patient-centered care can bring to senior living, the challenges that implementation can pose, and how harnessing the right technology can support caregivers, residents, families, and office staff in delivering this type of care effectively.

What is patient-centered care?

Patient-centered care – also called ‘person-centered care’ – is a holistic approach usually found in medical settings but that transfers extremely well to senior living communities. 

It involves discovering and then responding to your senior residents’ individual circumstances, health issues, vulnerabilities, values, etc. – placing them at the very heart of their care plans. 

Through a patient-centered care approach, seniors are encouraged to play an active role in their own health and home care needs, voice their preferences, and share in decision-making. They are effectively part of their own care team, collaborating with their caregivers, nurses, doctors, and family members – which enables them to live their lives their way. 

Where seniors are no longer able to actively participate, their loved ones can step in as advocates for them to ensure their choices are honored.

Above all, patient-centered care takes into account the whole person – their mental and physical well-being, lifestyle preferences, and wider cultural and social backgrounds – not just a narrow focus on their medical symptoms or health conditions.

Catering to seniors’ personal care preferences, building relationships through compassionate communication, and ensuring they are involved in every step of their journey can significantly impact overall health and long-term well-being.

You can read our recent blog on how to implement best-practice, patient-centered care for more details.

Examples of patient-centered care in senior living communities

A patient-centered care approach is on the rise in senior living.  

How this looks can be difficult to define, given that customized plans are tailored to the needs of each and every individual resident in the community.

However, some practical examples include: 

• Seniors choose when they want to get up and go to bed based on what works best for them – fitting any health and home care services around their daily schedules.
• Providing choices in daily life, such as the food they want to eat, what they want to wear, and activities they want to get involved in. 
• Identifying aids/devices to help seniors be more independent around the home, such as a seat in the shower or handrails for moving around more freely.
• Supporting seniors in adding personal touches around their living space – encouraging self-expression and personalization.  
• Companionship care, particularly for those living alone, through careful matching with caregivers the senior likes and trusts.
• Health coaching or group education, for example, on pain management, lifestyle changes, alternative treatment options for specific health issues, etc. – to support and empower seniors to make better choices about their health. 
• Delivering any treatments required in the seniors’ homes, including flexible healthcare visits, if this is where they feel most comfortable.
• Offering tailored services and critical support through on-demand care options, which allows seniors to choose what they want and when they want it – including help with ADLs and IADLs, home deliveries, transportation, and pet care.

Re-framing what you currently do and making small shifts toward putting your residents’ preferences first can make a big difference in their experience of care, boosting seniors’ satisfaction and retention.

However you choose to integrate this approach in your senior living community, there are four key principles to keep front of mind (Health Foundation):

• It is personalized
• It is coordinated 
• It is enabling
• The person is treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.

Benefits that a patient-centered care approach can bring to senior living

In addition to the obvious ethical rationale behind patient-centered care, there are many benefits in adopting this approach to meet your senior residents’ unique needs and preferences.

Benefits include:

• Giving seniors control and agency, vital for their sense of independence and overall wellbeing
• Improving care quality, leading to better outcomes
• Delivering a better patient experience and higher levels of satisfaction with care
• Promoting an enhanced quality of life, by addressing physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing
• Reducing rehospitalizations and use of emergency services
• Increasing the likelihood of seniors sticking to their care plans, engaging in healthy behaviors, and taking medications correctly
• Offering better value for money
• Encouraging greater family involvement and engagement
• Increasing staff performance and morale 
• Reducing resident and caregiver turnover

Implementing patient-centered care in senior living – five main challenges, ONE SIMPLE SOLUTION

A patient-centered approach requires some time and effort to implement as you work towards building collaborative partnerships between caregivers, residents, residents’ families, and healthcare providers – placing each senior at the very center of their care planning and delivery – and it is not without its challenges.

So, what main challenges are you likely to face… and how can Aaniie help you overcome them?

Challenge 1:  Regular and effective communication

Clear, effective communication between all parties involved is at the heart of shared decision-making and top-quality care coordination. 

To achieve this and ensure continuity of care, you must involve your residents and their families in all care discussions, scheduling, progress reports, important updates, care plan reviews, health education, and much more – keeping your seniors at the center of all communications.

Without the right tech tools in place, this can be a major challenge.

The solution:

Aaniie’s comprehensive care platform revolutionizes how information is shared between all stakeholders, allowing for clearly separate personal and clinical communications and ensuring compliance and security.

Via a mobile app and family portal, all care team members – including the resident and their family – can stay in touch through secure messaging, real-time updates, alerts, notifications, and feedback tools. They can also easily view and modify schedules, review care plans, access centralized documentation, and more. 

Aaniie’s communication tools enhance collaboration between caregivers, residents, families, and healthcare providers, ensuring that everyone is fully engaged, informed, and on the same page from day one.

Challenge 2: Care coordination and management 

Creating and delivering more tailored, flexible, and effective care plans for each individual resident can be quite an ordeal to coordinate and manage. 

From caregiver-resident matching, care coordination, and running daily operations to flexible scheduling (possibly 24/7) that meets each resident’s desired hours – there are some big challenges here if you don’t have the right staffing levels and/or technology in place to help you effectively manage care plans and coordinate teams.

The solution:

Aaniie’s home care solution delivers the management tools you need to easily overcome these potential obstacles. From caregiver-resident matching, dynamic scheduling, integration with common senior living platforms (like PointClickCare), back-office automation, and mobile point-of-care app, you can easily streamline care coordination and management to deliver exceptional personalized care and achieve better outcomes.

The software even includes the ENGAGE Hiring Hub to guarantee you’ll always be able to recruit and hire the right staff to meet any care demands as they arise.

Challenge 3: Resident and family engagement

A crucial factor in the success of any patient-centered care approach is securing the full engagement of your residents and their families. The degree to which your seniors participate in their own care, openly express their preferences and needs, and adhere to their personalized care plan can make or break your efforts. 

Engagement can be challenging at the start, especially if your seniors have poor health literacy, limited trust, low self-confidence or simply lack of motivation – which will delay any progress you hope to make.

The solution:

Aaniie’s resident/family portal will get your residents and families on board from the get-go, helping to keep them fully informed, involved, and actively engaged. 

They can access all the information they need, including scheduling, up-to-date care notes, billing and payments, and augmented services – and keep in touch with their care team in real time. 

Feedback tools to track resident and family satisfaction, along with an option to upload photos to Aaniie’s Memories function, are just the icing on the cake.

Challenge 4:  Caregiver engagement and retention

In addition to having enough quality caregivers to deliver a personalized approach to senior care, it’s vital that you keep them continuously engaged and retained.

Staying on top of this from the recruitment and hiring stages through to onboarding and beyond – making sure you deliver an exceptional caregiver experience every step of the way – can be an uphill battle without innovative tech tools to support your efforts.

As long-term relationships between residents and their caregivers play a significant role in the success of any patient-centered care strategy, building trust and satisfaction, high staff turnover must be avoided at all costs!

The solution:

Aaniie’s award-winning toolset – including the ENGAGE Hiring Hub, caregiver/resident matching, and dynamic scheduling – is specifically designed to solve caregiver hiring, engagement, and retention challenges.

Tools also include an easy-to-use mobile app, which keeps your caregivers connected, supports effective collaboration, and reduces admin workload by up to 64%, allowing them to dedicate more time and energy to what they love best – delivering exceptional care to your senior residents.

Added incentives include Caregiver Rewards (an embedded loyalty system) and integrated training (providing career development opportunities), both of which will further boost your caregiver engagement, satisfaction, and retention rates. 

With an engaged, reliable, and satisfied workforce, your senior living community will be in a great position to deliver first-class, patient-centered care, and achieve steady, sustainable growth.  

Challenge 5:  Complex billing and payroll

When looking to move toward a more patient-centered care strategy, the thought of family and multi-payer billing, complex pay rates, and financial reports can, understandably, be an instant turn-off for many senior living providers.

This is one area that really needs advanced tech tools to automate processes if you’re going to keep on top of the financial complexities that offering such a flexible and personalized care service can bring.

The solution:

Automated billing and payment processing are made simple and seamless with Aaniie. In just a few simple clicks, you can generate and send accurate invoices electronically by email from your mobile, tablet, or desktop. Aaniie’s secure, cloud-based billing – which integrates with common senior living platforms – has been developed exclusively for home care and automates those tedious financial tasks to save you endless time.

Aaniie also makes non-standard payroll processes easy and error-free. With just a few clicks, you can run payroll reports, approve pay, and send them to the payroll provider of your choice. Those endless spreadsheet days are finally over!

Excel at patient-centered care in your senior living community with Aaniie 

While it’s possible to implement a patient-centered care strategy without the support of customizable tech tools, it is infinitely easier and more cost- and time-effective to invest in software that will do most of the heavy lifting for you and your teams.

Aaniie’s complete software platform has all the tools needed to transform your care delivery and excel at patient-centered care – whether you’re providing personal care services to your senior living community residents or managing multiple franchise sites… and everything in between! 

If you’re interested in adopting a patient-centered approach in your senior living community or have already done so but need the right tech tools to support your endeavors, please call the Aaniie team or request a no-obligation demo today.