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The Occupancy Challenge (Part 2) – How to Evaluate Reporting Tools for your Retirement Home Community “What gets measured gets done” – Peter Drucker “An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” – Jack Welch A key factor critical to the success of any retirement home is management’s ability to generate, retrieve and act upon reliable and timely information. This is especially [...] | |
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Going online for fun and diversion – what’s that mean, anyway? Pew Research asks about the Internet and ‘fun’. New this month: The Internet as Diversion and Destination, offering the results of a survey about the use of the Internet, with answers by age to a question: “Did you go ever go online for no particular reason, just for fun, or to pass the time?” They also [...] |
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The Occupancy Challenge Occupancy is a major challenge for the retirement home industry so you need to find the structured lead management practice that is right for your community. Consider the following five steps in order to define your community’s unique sales process. |
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Changes in longevity, health, housing must drive bundling of tech solutions Elder care, housing and aging – the present is not like the past. We are entering the patchwork quilt era of senior housing that reflects lengthening life expectancy and a stretched economy: steady-state occupancy in assisted living at around 2.1 million for- and non-profit, a lot (1000) fewer nursing homes in the last decade. So [...] |
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Does today’s tech alienate the elderly? Laurie M. Orlov, a tech industry veteran, writer, speaker, and certified long-term care ombudsman, is founder of Aging in Place Technology Watch, covering technologies and related services that enable boomers and seniors to remain longer in their home of choice. Listening to professors talk about computers and the elderly. For the past [...] |
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Web Watch 2011 Here is a round-up of some of the online seniors’ news sources we check regularly. Get in touch and let us know what sites you consult so that we can share these excellent resources with others in the industry. editor@dialogueplus.ca www.newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com The New Old Age blog from the New York Times is always a good [...] |
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Research opens doors for seniors Great things are afoot in Waterloo, Ont. Under the direction of Dr. Mike Sharratt, the Research Institute for Aging (RIA), an independent institute affiliated with the University of Waterloo (UW), is doing some very progressive work in seniors’ care. The institute receives generous funding support from Ron Schlegel, owner and operator of retirement and long-term [...] |
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Smart technology eases aging in place Good news for seniors who want to stay on in their residences even though their health is declining Exactly where is the “place” in the oft-repeated phrase “aging in place”? Depends on who is using the word. To the federal government, it means a person’s home. For some provinces, the “place” is their community. Ontario’s [...] |
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Switching on brain and body to slow aging Brain Gym and More program shows benefits quickly as residents see themselves improving You can tell as you enter the recreation room that the residents are having fun. It’s not just their bodies they’re exercising but their brains too. Balloons are flying through the air, batted about by seniors armed with rackets made from wire [...] |
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Seven questions to ask before buying software for seniors There’s a pervasive notion that older people can’t, or don’t want to, use computers. Facebook fan pages, the Lifestyle section of many newspapers and guests at cocktail parties can all be counted on for stories of a senior messing up online. The reality, however, isn’t so clear-cut. Given the opportunity, seniors can and do use [...] |
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Microcasting TV Systems Get ready for your close-up! Microcasting, broadcasting customized content on a dedicated TV channel within your residence, is an easy-to-use technology that promises to improve resident satisfaction, free staff time and generate revenue. As the Internet makes it possible to deliver content via the web and vendors offer near turn-key solutions that make technical requirements [...] |
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How to buy a walk-in bathtub Walk-in bathtubs are becoming common and for those who still have the ability to walk into a bathtub, they are the “cat’s meow”. Nothing feels better than having a relaxing bath. It is more than getting clean; it relaxes the mind, soothes the muscles and offers relief. For those whose mobility is poor, bathing makes [...] |
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Poling walkers coming Come spring, don’t be surprised to see long lines of seniors heading along streets, river trails or country roads with walking poles in their hands. It appears an urban walking-pole craze is building up inside as well as outside retirement residences. Origin Active Lifestyle Communities are working with Urban Poling Inc. to train and certify [...] |
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Web watch The following websites provide information, ideas and fun, sometimes all three at the same time What’s Cooking Grandma? A celebration of grandmothers’ cooking, this site takes you into the kitchen with a series of grandmas each making favourite recipes. For instance, Gran Hilda, 92, makes parkin, a traditional Lancashire bonfire-night sweet, on her nearly [...] |
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Online connectivity tools improve your bottom line “Assisted living facilities are small; you don’t have a lot of staff. So if I have one Life Enrichment Coordinator, how is that one person going to reach every single person in this building and try to meet their needs?” asks Patty Kruger, Executive Director at Elder Homestead. Kruger is speaking in a video for [...] |
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Seniors’ Driving Tests The retirement residence shuttle bus may become a key marketing draw if The Canadian Medical Association Journal’s recommendations about tighter driving regulations for seniors are followed. A question about transportation arises at most tours of retirement residences. Maybe it comes from prospect’s grown children wondering if a shuttle bus is available to provide transportation to [...] |
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A SoftShell Approach Internet-savvy seniors are often the computer’s most enthusiastic salespeople: they e-mail family who live across the country or overseas; new photos of grandchildren regularly show up on their screens; they browse the Internet for daily news when they want it; and they can play games and solve puzzles that keep their brains active. The problem [...] |
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Cerebral calisthenics: a look at brain fitness for seniors It’s not too late to retrain your brain, but listen to these researchers first. The real revolution rolling out toward retirement residences, the most life-altering shift for seniors, may not have much to do with architecture or amenities. It may depend more on how quickly we apply new research findings that suggest a way to [...] |
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Superior service through technology Many of us remember a time when all that was required to run our retirement industry business was a sharp pencil, some well-organized binders and a fax machine. Now many of our companies have gone electric. The debate about going electric rages on, as it has since July 1965 when Bob Dylan first “plugged in“ [...] |
