Improving Senior Living Care, Comfort, and Safety

Senior living communities are adopting more technologies to provide a comfortable, connected, and engaged experience for their residents, guests, and employees. Learn how a future-ready network can enable the technologies that are transforming senior living communities.

As Baby Boomers and Gen Xers age, the United States will need to build more than 2 million senior living housing units over the next 20 years to accommodate this growing senior population¹. With 90% of Gen Xers owning a smartphone and 86% using social media, this connected generation will bring their technology preferences with them to the senior living communities that they join.²

For senior living developments to attract and retain new residents, they will need to keep up with the increasing network demands and provide seamless connectivity experiences throughout their facilities.

Consider how technology is transforming the senior living experience:

►Keeping residents safer with fall prevention, security systems, location trackers, and wander management.

►Optimizing operations with smart lighting, leak detection, building management systems, access controls, alarms, and employee-to-employee communications.

►Improving resident care with telehealth, medicine management, infection-control sensors, wearable devices with preventative-care analytics, remote monitoring, and nurse calling.

►Providing a personalized lifestyle with video streaming, smart home devices, gaming, and campus-wide Wi-Fi to broadcast activity schedules, updates, and menus.

In order to enable these various IP applications at the edge, communities need a communications network that works behind the scenes to handle increasing demands and can adapt to meet unique application requirements.

As communities expand or adopt new technologies, standardizing around a flexible, future-ready network can reduce day-two costs and more easily accommodate evolving technology plans.

Typically, residents are responsible for coordinating their own connectivity service by choosing a provider and a service package. Each resident pays a monthly fee to an external service provider for their living unit. Senior living communities can simplify the move-in process and provide connectivity services directly to residents by owning and operating the network.

The option to own and operate the network provides a value-added service and delivers a consistent connectivity experience that can help streamline communications across the community. For example, residents with Internet Protocol televisions (IPTVs) in their living unit can be notified of upcoming activities, appointments, menu options, and other updates that enhance their experience.

If a senior living facility does not have the expertise or capacity to operate and manage its own network, it can still benefit from providing residents with a dedicated network by partnering with an experienced service provider who can help with day-to-day operations and support.

As a result, residents have the consistent and reliable connectivity that they expect. Communities also gain an additional revenue stream by being able to charge more for rent to include this technology service. Ultimately, network management and maintenance shifts from being a cost center to a profit center while enhancing quality of life for residents. It’s a win-win scenario.

The Corning team and our expert associates can help you build the unique, future-ready network that your community needs. Talk to your local Corning sales engineer to learn how to get started or visit corning.com/fiberdeep for more information.

¹Seniors Housing News, 2016
²PEW Research Center, 2019