Paul Revere made a famous ride through Boston - my hometown -  alerting the townspeople that the British were coming. Fast forward over 235 years and things have not changed much in senior living communities. Rather than alerting townspeople to get ready for battle, community staff are knocking on residents' doors to get them to activities, calling residents to dinner, updating families on the latest happenings in the community, calling additional staff members to ask for cover for call-outs, stuffing mailboxes with leaflets about maintenance activities, hanging calendars in elevators, and going door to door to make sure residents are updated about a particular emergency. This all takes resources that could be used for more productive tasks that never seem to get done or are not done correctly.

Recent studies indicate that communities spend 6.2 hours per day communicating with residents, family and staff – adding up to over 2,200 hours per year. If management could communicate more efficiently, they could reallocate staff time to more productive activities. Today, alternatives have been developed that enable communities to automate routine communications such as:

  • Resident activities and care plan reminders
  • Emergency and weather alerts
  • Staff call-ins and
  • Maintenance updates

These automated reminders can be sent to targeted residents, family and staff members' main or cell phones, email or text accounts. For seniors who are visually and cognitively impaired and for common areas in communities, solutions may offer devices that play all of the relevant messages with the touch of a button.

Research has shown that communities using one such automated solution — VoiceFriend — have been able to recoup many of the 2,000-plus hours that were previously used to communicate with residents, family and staff.  Additionally, results indicate that attendance at activities and resident satisfaction increase with the implementation of their automated solution.

If resources are tight in your community and you are tired of sending staff on Paul Revere missions, seek automated communications solutions, and reap the benefits.

Bruce Baron is CEO of VoiceFriend, LLC. For more information, contact VoiceFriend at 781-996-3123 or email sales@voicefriend.net.