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Negotiating contracts. Safeguarding data. How much to invest and when to pilot. These are just a few of the issues senior living operators face when implementing new technology.
As more technology and software vendors bring important solutions to the industry, operators must navigate a maze of options from a multitude of vendors, all of which carry promises of solving roadblocks in operations, from dining services to care delivery.
But as many operators who have explored the world of new technology can tell you, one big pitfall is choosing the wrong partner. According to Chris Hyatt, co-CEO of Minnetonka, Minnesota-based New Perspective, there are a growing number of vendors marketing their services and products to senior living operators without a good understanding of the industry or its operational complexities.
“One major challenge is cutting through the noise,” said New Perspective Co-CEO Chris Hyatt. “A polished demo or buzzwords like ‘AI-driven’ aren’t enough, we need to see how the technology actually fits into real-world senior living operations.”
Hyatt and tech leaders of other operators, including Agemark Senior Living, Ascent Living Communities, Erickson Senior Living, Insight Living, Jaybird Senior Living, Juniper Communities, Phoenix Senior Living, and Sonida Senior Living (NYSE: SNDA) believe clear expectations, contract negotiation and closely vetting new tools are the keys to success when it comes to implementing new services or devices.
‘Cutting through the noise’
Many operators rely on a range of tech solutions to handle customer relationship management (CRM), electronic health records and point-of-sale systems. Senior living companies desire data that is portable, easily digestible and able to “talk” to multiple systems used across all departments at the community level. They also typically want to implement tech and services that boost staffing efficiency, resident engagement and ultimately improve occupancy and net operating income (NOI) margins.
Getting those outcomes is not always easy. Although senior living tech vendors often promise a holistic range of services, it’s not uncommon for operators to pick and choose among different options, including ones from multiple vendors.
Senior living operators are in 2025 still trying to find the right products, platforms and solutions to help them grow in the future. New Perspective, which operates 40 communities in eight states, swapped out its resident move-in digital documentation process and CRM to improve usability and anticipate future needs within operations.
Last year, Sonida Senior Living (NYSE: SNDA) swapped its electronic health record (EHR) provider to ensure the company’s clinicians had a “strong solution for maintaining our clinical data and analytics related to the care needs of our residents,” according to Sonida CEO Brandon Ribar. He added that the biggest challenge for operators like Sonida choosing tech partners is scalability.
“There are solutions that look great, but are they able to support 100 communities?” Ribar said.
Sonida ran a 90-day, 10-community pilot with three tech vendors to determine its new EHR provider. The Dallas, Texas-based operator ended up choosing a provider’s platform that was easy to use by staff at the community level, and is rolling out a new EHR platform across its portfolio of 100 senior living communities, Ribar said.
Juniper Communities Chief Operating Officer-Chief Technology Officer Don Breneman said that he believes the industry is in a new and evolving technological age, and that means operators must “make sure we are ahead in terms of yielding what will be best for the resident experience.”
“In the past, [vendors] were not necessarily always focused on wellness and that’s starting to change as we’re interested in resident experience and how technology will support and transform the industry overall,” Breneman said.
Breneman noted a “sharp learning curve” in finding the right partners finding the right tech companies to partner with, specifically in adapting contracts to protect data integration and porting data after a contract ends. Another challenge is the fact that tech companies are often growing quickly with employee turnover and the potential to change hands to a new owner. Senior living operators and their tech partners also often have different strategic timelines.
“You have to spell out secondary measures for data transformation because the vendor may have promised something in the beginning, and that is not what the data looks like anymore as the company changes, and you’re left with a hot mess,” Breneman said.
Bloomfield, New Jersey-based Juniper Communities operates 28 communities in four states.
Erickson Senior Living recently implemented a new time and attendance platform for human resources-related tasks. The company sorted multiple technology partners to find the right firm that was “positioned to grow,” while also evaluating the vendor’s roadmap and financial stability, according to Chief Information Officer Hans Keller.
Vetting a tech partner and its capabilities and long-term business plans should also include how operators view their long-standing vendor relationships, not to mistake a strong relationship with a long-standing vendor for having the most advanced technology.
“What we learned is that even with trusted partners, it’s important to separate the strength of the relationship from the readiness of a new product,” Keller added.
Baltimore, Maryland-based Erickson Senior Living operates 20 communities in 11 states.
Using tech for support, not as a solution
Senior living operators can tell you that technology itself is not a silver bullet.
“The way we interact with technology, it has to be a support to navigate a problem we’re having in our operations, but it’s not going to solve everything for you,” Phoenix Senior Living CEO Jesse Marinko said.
This was evident for Phoenix leaders after the company looked into finding a new nurse call system in 2024. A new technology provider offered to install a new system for far less than what the company was paying its current nurse call vendor. But rather than switching, Phoenix worked with its current partner to provide a similar service by adapting a current platform and adding iPhones for staff to use, saving “unnecessary reinvestment.”
The company also recently selected a new electronic menu platform for resident dining. The company chose a cloud-based partner that was able to share data with the company’s existing CRM platform with an option to conduct “country club-style” billing, Marinko noted.
“Our goal was to drive greater ancillary revenue and improve our inventory control and we addressed a common problem of tracking our inventory,” Marinko said.
The Roswell, Georgia-based Phoenix Senior Living operates 45 communities in nine states.
A driving factor in senior living providers swapping out their technology partners is the inability of an operating system to pull data from multiple sources and distribute that data into digestible summaries for staff to use across departments. This lack of real-time and trailing data is forcing operators to reevaluate their needs on technology.
This was the case for Ascent Living Communities. The Centennial, Colorado-based senior living provider that operates six communities in the Centennial State and overhauled its technology platforms to become “institutional in our execution,” Co-Founder Tom Finley told SHN. Community-level staff have access to data from as recent as the day prior, which has resulted in a 7% increase in operating margin in 2024.
“When we started to evaluate vendors, there were two overarching themes: to be user-friendly on the front-end and to be data-friendly on the back end,” said Ascent Living Communities Director of Business Intelligence Morgan Graphman.
But simply gathering data can’t be an end goal, and new tech partners must be able to help provide data that gives staff “actionable insights,” according to Jaybird Senior Living President Justin Wray. Jaybird recently swapped out its resident engagement software and added ambient fall monitoring technology to improve resident care.
“Technology is evolving so quickly and so there’s a responsibility by myself and the organization to make sure we’re not just staying with the status quo,” Wray said. “Complacency is a real thing and sometimes you have to push against that and continue evolving.”
Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Jaybird Senior Living operates 38 communities in six states.
As they weigh the benefits of implementing new tech, operators must also consider whether or not a system is capable of interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) tools, according to Insight Living Principal Bryan Ziebart.
The Brea, California-based provider operates 23 communities and recently partnered with the Johns Hopkins University’s AI and Technology Collaboratory for Aging Research and Stanford University’s Longevity Clinic to develop AI models tied toimproving resident health and using anonymized resident health data in the name of improving care delivery in the future.
improving resident health and using anonymized resident health data
Operators also are moving away from some of the “dumb tools” used in the industry today that are unable to share data across multiple systems, Ziebart said. Still, many technology platforms in senior living aren’t “built to be consumer grade.” This requires operators to spend more time than necessary training staff on using a new system or lead to low team member adoption of a new platform.
“Technology in every industry should be positioned to be touched by AI in the future,” Ziebart said. “A fundamental industry problem is that our customers don’t hear from us unless something is wrong.”
Facilitating that “seamless rollout” is the most important factor, according to Agemark Co-CEO Michael Pittore. Regardless of a new technology platform’s ability, the success and use of the tool hinges on promoting buy-in from staff at the community level.
“No matter how advanced or easy to use something seems, if we don’t effectively communicate the change, find champions within our company, get buy-in from the team, and properly explain the ‘why,’ we face significant challenges in usage and effectiveness. Facilitating small-scale pilots and then finding internal champions is key.”
Omaha, Nebraska-based Agemark Senior Living operates 28 communities across six states.
As a general rule, Juniper Communities CEO Lynne Katzmann urged other operators to identify their needs from potential technology partners in making informed decisions on new vendors.
“Don’t let the software define your needs,” Katzmann said. “Find a software that works for your operations or to move your operations forward.”
This comes as the industry moves from adopting the latest “shiny object” in technology, and instead aim greater sophistication to the business model, Keller said.
“There’s a greater emphasis now on real-world impact, integration across systems, and long-term value creation,” Keller said.
