“If you are one of our many customers using smart home technology (Home Hub, motion light sensors) as the backbone of your Resident Check-in process, here are three keys to ensuring it works efficiently and accurately, achieving our target of <1% daily alert rate.”
During or prior to COVID-19, your community may have used dining delivery as your basis for resident welfare checks. However, as communities re-open, that might be challenging to capture both those who eat-in vs. come to the restaurants or cafes. There is a better way!
If you are one of our many customers using smart home technology (Home Hub, motion light sensors) as the backbone of your Resident Check-in process, here are three keys to ensuring it works efficiently and accurately, achieving our target of <1% daily alert rate.
Keep your daily Device Alert Report clear – Our most efficient communities monitor this report each day, often assigning one maintenance or IT technician to quickly resolve any device alerts. With unit turnover, an occasional Wifi or power outage, some devices may lose connection, so to gain the most value from your check-in process, it is critical to ensure these devices continue functioning properly. If you are a Worxhub user, we can help you electronically convert your alerts directly into a work request to further automate the process.
Keep your resident data updated – Along with your devices, the accuracy of your resident check-in process is only as good as the accuracy of your resident data. As you have move-ins/move-outs, residents on vacation, temporarily in skilled nursing or the hospital, updating resident records daily and marking their “away” time with expiration dates. Centralizing this effort with the person who already makes census or unit changes is ideal, and we recommend they routinely monitor the residents set as “away” through the resident check-in filtering feature.
Pick your Resident Check-in Alert resolution options carefully – At initial set-up, we let you customize your resolution option choices for clearing an alert. These options provide helpful data for continuous improvement. If you want to reach the <1% target alert rate, this is one tool that can help. Make sure your choices include at least a variation of a) Called resident-OK, b) Visited resident-OK, c) Visited resident-Not Home, d) Referred to Maintenance, and e) Other. Make sure to use the Note field for unique situations and especially when selecting “Other.” The goal is to provide useful data for later trend reports, and if “Other” is a frequent selection, consider adding another resolution option to better measure your process.
Bonus Tip #1: Did you know you can add a second window of time for daily motion checks? Especially during COVID, you can add this for all or a subset of resident units. Just reach your K4Support team at 855-876-9673 or support@k4connect.com to show you how.
Bonus Tip #2: Make use of the ability to clear alerts via mobile access. Especially when you might update an alert (SAVE) with an unsuccessful call, and staff makes a visit to check on resident, they can clear it right at the resident’s door (RESOLVED)!
One final note, if you do not currently have our Resident Check-in feature, we have developed a no visit – plug-n-play – smart home package that can be deployed this summer to prepare your community for any future COVID-19 isolation periods.
As always, we are here to make your job easier. If you have best practices to share or need K4Advisors for consulting help, email Cindy.Phillips@K4advisors.com. Check out the www.K4advisors.com site for previously published best practices. Keep getting smarter!
When K4Connect added information about Covid-19 to its support center, in-app guides were deployed through Pendo to point users toward them, ensuring they wouldn’t be missed.
By: Pendo
June 4, 2020
With senior living communities under strict lockdowns due to Covid-19, maintaining communication has become more difficult, yet more critical than ever.
K4Connect’s platform empowers residents and staff at the communities with technology to improve communication and connectedness, automate their lives, and entertain themselves. The company has experienced rapid growth that reflects the demand for a tool to address isolation and loneliness during this time. It’s now serving 800 communities, up from 125 two months ago.
K4Connect’s training and customer support traditionally includes a hands-on approach in addition to digital tools and resources, visiting communities in person to help get them up and running on the platform. But the restrictions have made that impossible. Over the last few months, they’ve found an entirely new use case for Pendo—automated in-app onboarding and support.
“Where we used to be boots-on-the-ground and able to go into a community and do training and onboard new residents and staff, we’re really having to think through how we do that differently,” says Diana Gore, a product manager on the caregiver experience team. Gore says Pendo’s in-app messaging capabilities allow K4Connect to offer the same level of support and communication they always have, but in a touchless format.
Improving onboarding and driving feature adoption
Pendo guides are proving to be the perfect, low-friction solution for onboarding busier-than-ever caregivers to K4Connect’s platform and introducing new capabilities.
When the team adds new features—like an updated dashboard, an enhanced “Family and Friends” communication tools, or a content library— step-by-step walkthroughs help teach the staff how to use them. The K4Connect team also highlights upcoming webinars using Pendo guides, and recently developed an onboarding guide in the Pendo Resource Center that provides a self-service avenue for community staff to learn how to use K4Connect’s key functionality.
That all takes the place of an in-person visit without sacrificing the quality of instruction or increasing the risk of spreading the coronavirus to an especially vulnerable population.
“In the past, our customer success managers would have tried to set up a call with them to really walk through the updates or they would have had a webinar,” Gore said. “Now, we’re really thinking through how we get that information to people so they can consume it in a way that works for their schedule.”
K4Connect also plans to roll out guides and walkthroughs for residents, teaching them how to use features of the app that let them control the temperature of their room or video chat with their families.
Already, they’re using in-app messaging to share K4Connect’s own response to Covid-19. When K4Connect added information about Covid-19 to its support center, in-app guides were deployed through Pendo to point users toward them, ensuring they wouldn’t be missed.
“We’re hitting them in the places where we know that they’re active to make sure that they stay up-to-date on what’s new,” says Natalie Jones, director of marketing and communications.
The Echo Dots will integrate with K4Community, K4Connect’s enterprise solution that provides “smart” products and features for residents and staff of senior living communities.
By: Kimberly Bonvissuto
June 3, 2020
K4Connect, a Raleigh, NC-based technology company, and Amazon are partnering to distribute more than 8,000 Echo Dots to more than 40 West Coast independent and assisted living communities affected by COVID-19.
The Echo Dots will integrate with K4Community, K4Connect’s enterprise solution that provides “smart” products and features for residents and staff of senior living communities. The devices will provide access to all of the benefits of Amazon Alexa, as well as content preloaded to the K4 online dashboard, including a community’s activity calendar, menus and community announcements. Residents also can use the device to call their families or the front desk of their community.
Senior living companies participating in the program include Eskaton, MBK Senior Living and Front Porch in California, as well as Era Living, Horizon House and Bayview in Washington.
“We found it a fantastic way to utilize technology to better serve residents and provide them with technology to enhance their lives and, ultimately, turn individual units into smart homes with features to turn on the lights or adjust the temperature,” Fischer said of the 2019 partnership with K4Connect. “The very first thing that attracted me to it was the ability to do a morning check-in to make sure our residents were up and safe.”
Fischer said all residences have a pendant or a pull cord for emergencies, but the Echo Dots provide an enhancement to safety protocols.
“A multi-channel communication strategy is nothing new, but in the chaos of COVID-19, it was easy to get scattered and start communicating in a very disconnected way.“
The K4Community Hotline is just what it sounds like – a recorded message line that keeps callers informed on the latest information in a community. The Hotline accomplishes two things that are critically important right now:
Informs residents, families, and staff about the latest COVID-19 information (for skilled nursing, that is now a C.M.S. regulatory requirement and may be for AL/MC); and
Offsets the time caregivers are spending fielding those repetitive calls (see previous article for examples of how to use Hotline for communication beyond COVID-19).
While the Hotline has been a simple and easy solution to implement during this unplanned COVID situation, communities now have time to ensure it fits into their overall, multi-channel communication strategy (see figure below).
A multi-channel communication strategy is nothing new, but in the chaos of COVID-19, it was easy to get scattered and start communicating in a very disconnected way.
Here are three steps to ensure your K4Community Hotline is part of a more integrated strategy:
It is essential to identify the key stakeholders you plan to reach and second, what are the best ways to reach them. Most of our communities set up two Hotline lines, one for internal audiences (residents and staff), and another, external Hotline for families, prospects, volunteers, etc. You can of course pull out any one of the audiences – for example, prospects, and customize the message specifically for them.
What I specifically like about the internal Hotline, along with digital signage or your TV insertion channel, is that it provides an easy way to reach low-tech residents, so that you can limit the amount of paper you have to send out. Another approach to simplifying access to a Hotline is deploying Amazon Alexa devices (via our K4Community Voice platform), allowing for residents to utter a simple voice command to listen to an updated Hotline message.
Content is the driving force in communication. In crisis, it must be created or assembled in a single place. Messaging must be tailored to the various stakeholder groups, and then distributed to each channel in a timely and consistent manner. But if the Hotline is not part of your overall communication strategy, or if you try to cover too many groups with a single message, you are likely to miss the mark. See our best practices videofor recording an effective Hotline message.
Frequency is the final component. Communication (especially during times of fear and uncertainty) is most effective when it is predictable and at a regular cadence. If you are trying to reduce unproductive calls to staff, you must build a habit for your audience to check in regularly, knowing it will have new information on a specific day or time.
Making this Hotline part of the audience’s daily or weekly routine will increase usage. Not surprisingly, a review of our active Hotlines revealed the highest number of calls (per living unit) came from those updating it daily, or on a specific day of the week.
Additionally, publishing the Hotline number initially and including it as a reminder in subsequent communication, or alerting the community in a K4App notification are both best practices to increase effectiveness.
A mass notification tool like K4Connect’s Hotline can mean the difference between a crisis or incident that is controlled and one that threatens your community reputation, resident or staff morale, regulatory compliance, and your marketing and sales efforts. Having one is the first step but integrating it into your overall communication strategy is equally important.
K4Connect will distribute more than 8,000 Echo Dots programmed with K4Community to help meet the demand for more social interaction in senior living during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By: Seth Thomas Gulledge
May 29, 2020
A Triangle tech company already seeing a massive spike in demand during the pandemic has a new initiative alongside a global tech giant to roll out its product to thousands more seniors.
This week, Raleigh-based K4Connect, announced a new initiative supported by Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) to distribute more than 8,000 Echo Dots – Amazon’s smart speaker – to independent and assisted living centers along the West Coast that have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The devices will be loaded with the company’s K4Community program designed for residents and staff of senior-living communities.
“The opportunity to work with Amazon to serve older adults through this donation effort was obvious for us,” said the company’s CEO and founder Scott Moody in a prepared statement. “Covid-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast . . . people need relief now.”
The devices will go to more than 40 senior-living communities, adding to the already more than 800 communities the company is serving.
According to the company, the devices were donated by Amazon as part of a $5 million device-donations program created in response to the pandemic.
The company had previously integrated its platform into Amazon’s Alexa program, giving their customers access to a variety of social, educational and informational programs.
“Our enterprise solution allows us to deploy, manage and support these devices at scale and fully remote, meaning residents get the relief they need quickly and community staff teams are not burdened by installing or managing the technology,” Moody said.
Moody says the company’s goal during the pandemic is to use its technology to help fight isolation and loneliness for its customers – mostly older adults securely in the high-risk population being affected by the virus.
Earlier this year, the company expedited the release of its newest programming to encourage personal engagement with other users such as communicating and singing up for activities with each other.
Moody has previously stated the company is in conversations about how to incorporate telemedicine applications into the platform.
Covid-19 has been difficult for everyone, but particularly for people over the age of 65 who may spend months shut away from loved ones and the outside world.
By: Carla Heyworth
May 28, 2020
To help combat this, K4Connect and Amazon have announced an initiative to provide more support to senior living residents during the outbreak. The two companies will distribute more than 8,000 Echo Dots to independent living communities across the West Coast of the USA, which has been one of the worst hit regions in the USA.
Longevity.Technology: Health and social care have long had a push/pull attitude to one another. The impact on both the physical and mental health of Covid-19 patients could prove to be almost as bad as the virus itself.
The deployment will allow residents to use voice tech to stay more connected in isolation. They expect the program to help more than 40 senior living communities across the region.
The Dot devices will connect with K4Connect’s enterprise solution for staff and residents of communities. According to the company, which aims to create a smart OS for senior living with a single interface for all technologies, this means that homes can get started quickly; all they have to do is plug in the new Echo Dot devices and Amazon’s Alexa will be at their service along with a host of functions from K4Connect including their Call-My-Neighbor feature and voice dialling.
Derek Holt, EVP of Development & COO of K4Connect said “We are excited to bring the power of voice technology to thousands of older adults with Amazon and our community partners, especially during this time when keeping residents connected, entertained and inspired is so important … It’s truly an exciting initiative and we’re thrilled to help make an impact during these challenging times.”
K4Connect has been making great headway over the last few years as it seeks to give older people better access to technology which can improve their quality of life and boost independence.
Back in March, founder F Scott Moody, former CEO of AuthenTec which was acquired by Apple in 2012, explained how the platform grew into an operating system for senior living communities, designed to combine all sorts of different health services and applications into a single system.
“Our mission is to make their lives better, right? We do that,” he said. “And we do it for a demographic that is generally very, very underserved by technology. We provide utility in their lives, whether it’s home automation, whether it’s communication, whether it’s engagement.”
At the best of times isolation is a challenge for the older generations. During the current crisis, the problem is even worse with studies suggesting people can struggle with relapsed symptoms and heightened anxiety [1].
Technology has enormous potential to improve the lives of people in supported living environments. However, it has struggled to take hold for two reasons: organisations often have limited IT departments which makes it difficult to successfully adopt technology, and users are put off by poor software.
Back in December 2019, Apple, Google, Amazon, and the Zigbee Alliance announced that they had decided to “play nice” by working together in a bid to make home technology devices compatible with different smartphones and voice assistants – we continue to see this as a growing opportunity; combating loneliness is a key challenge. King’s College’s Richard Siow told us that he sees AI as being a major contributor to addressing this growing issue.
Today more than ever, senior living organizations are turning to technology to enhance communications in their communities with all constituencies, whether residents, staff or family members. As part of our continuing effort to help provide community leadership with information on the options available to them during these times of physical distancing, we invited Natalie Jones of K4Connect to contribute this blog. K4Connect has just announced free access to and fully remote installation of its new communications solution, K4Community Plus. If you would like more information on any of the ideas expressed here, please feel free to reach out directly to Natalie. We hope these insights are helpful to you!
– Rob Love, President/CEO, Love & Company
Guest article by Natalie Jones, Director of Marketing + Communications, K4Connect
May 28, 2020
COVID-19 has affected nearly every aspect of senior living operations and resident life in communities around the world. Now more than ever, technology is emerging as an essential part of daily operations as operators quickly turn to digital platforms and tools to provide alternative routes to maintain resident and family communication, staff-to-resident connection, resident-to-resident engagement, virtual activities and more.
Dining halls are closing, group programming has all but halted entirely and most unfortunate, in order to protect them from this virus, visitation restrictions are keeping residents from seeing their loved ones. As senior living communities focus on keeping residents safe, the impact on resident life in quarantine is mounting and communities need to be able to solve these new challenges quickly.
At K4Connect, our belief is that technology is only meaningful when it improves the quality of everyday life—we like to say, making life Simpler, Healthier and Happier. From resident engagement features and tools that keep families, staff and residents connected, to staff resources that streamline workflows, technology has the ability to truly transform senior living in a positive way. Right now, as senior living communities are experiencing the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19, digital communication is critical to successfully overcoming some of the biggest challenges our community partners are facing.
Here, we’ve detailed three key reasons why senior living communities need to prioritize digital communications, plus a variety of mediums, tools and resources communities can implement today. It’s important to also note that these observations are not simply theoretical; rather, they are rooted in what we are seeing from many of the 800+ communities we serve across the country.
Keeping residents informed and connected
As residents remain in their residences with daily activities and group dining severely restricted—or most often, canceled entirely—staying up to date on the latest information can be difficult and confusing. Communities are implementing a number of manual practices to keep residents informed like printed notices slipped under the door or into their meal deliveries, or posting announcements to the community website. Digitizing how residents can receive information enables communities to not only cover more ground, but allows the resident to stay up to date in ways that are most comfortable for them and the easiest to access. Examples include:
Television Insertion Channel: Insertion channels give communities the ability to reach residents directly in their homes with customized static content and information that displays on television monitors, much like the “home” channel seen in hotel rooms. Residents can continue to refer to this channel for important community updates like quarantine safety guidance, visitation policies or daily menus (an important part of a resident’s daily routine). Staff can update this content daily or on an even more frequent schedule depending on what residents need to know.
Resident Application: Resident mobile applications operate just like the applications on your personal smart device. With a user interface, content, and functionality optimized for older adults (e.g., contrast, readability, touch sensitivity), these applications operate in ways that fit the lifestyle and acuity of most residents. Applications can range from point solutions like communication (messaging, voice calling) and information sharing, to more comprehensive solutions that fully integrate with community services and tools. Finally, some enable family connections as well, such as K4Connect’s K4Community solution. This type of tool brings everything a resident needs to know right to their fingertips.
Voice Technology: Voice technology is quickly becoming more popular with older adults, and senior living has begun to harness voice as a powerful tool to support residents in a variety of ways. As an information resource, for example, with Amazon’s Alexa, residents can simply ask Alexa and immediately access community information, music, news and even current COVID-19 information sourced from credible health organization sources. With enterprise support, for example, we are currently deploying, along with our community partners, pre-provisioned Alexa devices in communities all across the country in a completely touch-free manner. Residents simply get their device, unbox it, plug it in and they are up and running with no setup or downloads required.
Building and maintaining family connections
Severe quarantine measures in senior living are keeping residents and loved ones apart. By now, we’ve all seen the viral pictures of grandparents meeting new grandchildren through windows or even impromptu outdoor performances for quarantined residents. This extended separation causes stress for residents, their families who aren’t able to come see them, and in turn, the community teams trying to foster social connections alongside the realities of their daily responsibilities.
Digital tools and platforms can rebuild these connections, providing residents other ways of staying in touch and giving communities new outlets to reassure families their loved ones are being cared for during this unsettling time.
Video Calling: The ability to see the face of a loved one or scenes from home is a powerful way to feel closer to one another. As the workforce turns to video conferencing tools to stay in touch and organized, communities can leverage these same avenues to connect residents with their families. Communities can guide residents on how to leverage native smartphone tools like FaceTime, or free options that many providers are offering to help keep people connected during quarantine such as Google Hangouts, Zoom, Skype and WhatsApp. As some residents may not have personal devices with video capabilities, communities can turn their community devices (such as tablets used for surveys) into shared resources (of course, with proper sanitation procedures) for those residents that don’t have a device, or for those who may need more assistance with the technology.
Integrated Family Features: Much like the resident application, senior living communities can also extend those benefits to resident family members outside of the community. With a dedicated family application, communities can keep them up to date with COVID-19 news and information, and foster secure resident-to-family communication through chat, voice and video functions. While open platforms like Zoom and FaceTime are of course extremely useful, they do have device limitations and require personal information (like an email address) that poses higher privacy risks. Working with a trusted technology partner that focuses both on enterprise technology and senior living is critical both now and into the future.
Social Media: Today, 40 percent of older adults (65+) are actively using social media. Platforms like Facebook are great free tools for messaging and chatting with people outside of a senior living community. It is familiar, simple to set up and available 24/7. A best practice we’ve seen recently is a community creating a community profile for residents without personal accounts and allowing residents to add family members and schedule times to chat directly. These platforms are also providing outlets for communities to easily share resident photos, videos and updates with family members who follow their accounts.
Recorded Hotlines: While picking up the phone and making a call may not be the most high tech of solutions, the “old fashioned way” is often a great place to start. Across the country we have seen communities look to provide daily recorded updates for residents, staff and family (often different lines to target the messaging) to keep everyone informed without overwhelming the switchboard or front desk. Community hotline numbers are a low-cost, low-effort way to empower all audiences to stay up to date, connected, and informed.
Battling the impacts of resident social isolation
Social isolation is not new to senior living, but it is a heightened concern now as communities are on lockdown with strict quarantine protocols that keep residents isolated in their rooms for long periods of time. In many ways, the need to socially distance to stay safe and “flatten the curve” is a bit of a Catch-22 for older adults. It is of course necessary, but we also have to recognize that social isolation has extreme mental and health impacts. Maintaining digital connection and stimulation throughout the day is essential to mental and emotional well-being.
Technology provides myriad opportunities for communities to continue to deliver this type of programming directly to residents in their homes.
YouTube Content: From walking museum tours from around the world to easy fitness routines and thousands of do-it-yourself activities, YouTube content is a great way to keep residents engaged. In addition to their personal devices, residents can access YouTube through Smart TVs or in-room insertion channels that allow communities to curate and push content directly to them. Communities can curate content by theme, schedule “events” where residents watch or partake in activities at the same time, or gamify content with post-activity prizes that build friendly competition among residents.
Fun & Companionship with Alexa: In addition to the utility voice technology brings older adults, the entertainment and socialization elements can be especially useful to combat loneliness during isolation. Interacting with another voice fosters conversation and even companionship for older adults who live alone. With a nearly endless library of free games, music and trivia, residents can choose a different adventure every day. We’ve also seen communities getting truly creative with socially distanced group events using Alexas, like hallway happy hours and doorway sing-alongs!
Resident-to-Resident Connection: Maintaining connections between residents is another important part of normalcy that digital communications can assist with. A resident application allows residents to instantly voice dial other residents, or to share messages or photos with one another directly from their phone, tablet or PC. Enterprise voice technology through Alexa can also keep residents connected with voice dialing—a particularly useful tool for residents with visual or mobility challenges.
For additional recommendations, K4Connect recently dedicated a blog post to 11 ways senior living communities can battle social isolation during COVID-19, which can be viewed here.
As senior living communities continue to face the growing challenges of COVID-19, the marriage of manual and digital communications enables staff teams to accelerate and scale those critical categories of communication, engagement and connection. Ultimately, these short-term needs are pathways to establishing a longer-term technology strategy that can better support operators, staff and residents well into the future. For communities that are only just beginning to consider digital tools, many providers, like K4Connect, are currently offering fully remote activations as well as discounted and free products to support senior living organizations through COVID-19.
For more useful information to help senior living organizations navigate the challenges presented by COVID-19, visit the Love & Company blog for in-depth articles and resources. To learn more about how Love & Company can help your organization maintain its marketing and sales efforts during this time, contact Tim Bracken at 410-207-0013 or tbracken@loveandcompany.com.
“COVID-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast – people need relief now,” said K4Connect CEO and co-founder Scott Moody, in a statement.
By: WRAL TechWire
May 27, 2020
RALEIGH — Older adults are one of the most vulnerable and isolated populations during this pandemic. But one local startup is stepping up to make sure that they’re safe.
K4Connect, which creates technology solutions centered to help older adults and individuals with disabilities, has teamed up with Amazon to distribute over 8,000 Echo Dots to more than 40 independent and assisted living communities in West Coast regions highly affected by COVID-19.
Those residents will now be able to use voice technology to stay more connected, while also gaining access to K4Connect’s flagship solution called K4Community. It brings together all the aspects of a senior living community: menus, event calendars, smart home automation, community management and analytics in an application that can be accessed on mobile devices or desktop computers.
“The opportunity to work with Amazon to serve older adults through this donation effort was obvious for us. COVID-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast – people need relief now,” said K4Connect CEO and co-founder Scott Moody, in a statement. “Our enterprise solution allows us to deploy, manage, and support these devices at scale and fully remote, meaning residents get the relief they need quickly and community staff teams are not burdened by installing or managing the technology.”
With the K4Community Voice integration with Amazon Alexa, residents can access information (announcements, daily menus), create new means of connection through voice-dialing with K4Community’s “Call My Neighbor” feature, and even reimage daily activities with socially distanced or virtual events like Hallway Sing-a-Longs with Alexa.
K4Connect also recently released the K4Community Hotline, a recorded phone message feature that allows community staff to keep residents and families constantly updated while relieving high inbound call volumes. This feature is also easily accessible for residents via voice through Amazon Alexa.
Amazon, meanwhile, donated the devices as part of its $5 million device donations program created in response to COVID-19.
The program will reach over 40 senior living communities, including Eskaton, MBK Senior Living (MBK), and Front Porch headquartered in California, as well as Era Living, Horizon House, and Bayview in Washington.
In late 2019, MBK teamed with K4Connect to lead its technology transformation through the K4Community solution which will support 3,400 residents and staff.
“Bringing K4Connect on as our technology partner allows us to uniquely deliver on our mission of providing quality programming and outstanding care for our residents,” MBK president Jeff Fischer said. “Our K4Community Voice pilots in 2019 were so successful that we immediately jumped at the opportunity to accelerate and extend that resource during COVID-19 and beyond.”
In recent years, K4Connect has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the Triangle.
It currently serves tens of thousands of residents at over 800 continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the nation.
Amazon collaborates with senior living enterprise technology leader on COVID-19 initiative. K4Community software will bring community information, services, and communication just an “Alexa” request away.
RALEIGH, N.C., May 27, 2020 — K4Connect, a mission-driven technology company that creates solutions that serve and empower older adults and individuals living with disabilities, announced a new initiative with Amazon to support senior living residents during COVID-19. K4Connect is distributing over 8,000 Echo Dots to more than 40 independent and assisted living communities in West Coast regions highly affected by COVID-19, allowing residents to use voice technology to stay more connected while in isolation. Devices were donated by Amazon as part of a $5 million device donations program created in response to COVID-19, and will integrate with K4Community, K4Connect’s advanced enterprise solution designed for the residents and staff of senior living communities. The experience allows residents to immediately begin their voice experience with minimal involvement from community staff. Communities simply plug in the Echo devices and start enjoying all the benefits of Amazon Alexa, as well as various new capabilities from K4Connect that make community information, services, and communication just an “Alexa” request away.
Older adults are one of the most vulnerable and isolated populations experiencing this crisis. Senior living communities are working hard to keep residents safe and engaged while managing the impacts the virus has had on daily operations and the resident experience. Technology has quickly emerged as another avenue to manage this, keeping residents connected (with the community, each other and their families), informed, and engaged during periods of quarantine, and voice technologies like Alexa are making this even more accessible. The natural interface means the resident experience is as easy as talking and allows community staff to easily reach hundreds of residents in an instant.
With the K4Community Voice integration with Amazon Alexa, communities are diversifying how residents access information (announcements, daily menus), creating new means of connection through voice-dialing with K4Community’s “Call My Neighbor” feature, and even reimagining daily activities with socially distanced or virtual events like Hallway Sing-a-Longs with Alexa. K4Connect also recently released the K4Community Hotline, a recorded phone message feature that allows community staff to keep residents and families constantly updated while relieving high inbound call volumes. This feature is also easily accessible for residents via voice through Amazon Alexa.
“The opportunity to work with Amazon to serve older adults through this donation effort was obvious for us. COVID-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast – people need relief now,” said K4Connect CEO and Co-Founder, Scott Moody. “Our enterprise solution allows us to deploy, manage, and support these devices at scale and fully remote, meaning residents get the relief they need quickly and community staff teams are not burdened by installing or managing the technology.”
The program will reach over 40 senior living communities, including Eskaton, MBK Senior Living (MBK), and Front Porch headquartered in California, as well as Era Living, Horizon House, and Bayview in Washington. In late 2019, MBKteamed with K4Connect to lead its technology transformation through the K4Community solution which will support 3,400 residents and staff. As MBK President Jeff Fischer said, “Bringing K4Connect on as our technology partner allows us to uniquely deliver on our mission of providing quality programming and outstanding care for our residents. Our K4Community Voice pilots in 2019 were so successful that we immediately jumped at the opportunity to accelerate and extend that resource during COVID-19 and beyond.”
Eskaton, a K4Connect community partner since early 2018 and a leading not-for-profit senior living operator, is building upon its current K4Community voice implementation that is already seeing 80% daily resident usage. “Eskaton believes in creating adaptive living environments that empower the independence and well-being of all residents, regardless of age and ability. This mission is especially critical now as we face the continued challenges of the Coronavirus. We have long seen the value of voice for our residents through K4Community and this partnership has enabled us to seamlessly expand that quickly and at scale,” said Eskaton Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Sheri Peifer.
K4Connect is the leading provider of enterprise-grade technologies for senior living communities, currently serving tens of thousands of residents at over 800 premier continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the nation. The company’s flagship solution, K4Community, brings together the best in technology to serve residents, staff and operators alike.
About K4Connect: K4Connect is a mission-driven technology company that creates solutions that serve and empower older adults and individuals living with disabilities, together with the people, communities and organizations that also serve them. We believe the future of senior living is in enabling Smart Senior Living Communities through tech-based solutions that truly impact the lives of older adults, wherever they live. Our premier solution, K4Community, provides smart products and features across Home, Wellness, and Engagement for residents, and Productivity, Building, and Insight for staff and operators.
Based in Raleigh, N.C., K4Connect is currently serving tens of thousands of senior living residents and staff at over 800 continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the nation. For more information, please visit www.K4Connect.com.
As part of its $5 million pandemic response, Amazon is placing more than 8,000 of its Echo Dot devices across dozens of senior-living facilities in parts of California and Washington state hit hard by the pandemic.
By: Dave Pearson
May 27, 2020
The Big Tech giant has donated the smart speakers as part of a partnership with K4Connect, an elder-care tech company, to help COVID-isolated residents feel more connected via Alexa voice-command capabilities.
Along with supplying standard Alexa voice-command capabilities, the devices will dispense community information, facility-specific communications and access to onsite services.
In announcing the program, K4Connect says the experience is designed to let residents take to the experience with little involvement from staff.
The company’s CEO and co-founder, Scott Moody, comments that the chance to work with Amazon in helping older adults “was obvious for us. COVID-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast—people need relief now.”
