“ADAPT…OR BECOME IRRELEVANT.”
A recent and very popular article about the failure of Nokia should be a bellwether to the senior housing industry, especially assisted living. Unheeded, a reader’s comment (shown above) may come true for many communities.
The assisted living industry markets itself as being almost exclusively a hospitality model. Indeed, assisted living marketing differs little from the marketing of hotels and vacation spas.
But this really misses the point, because consumers of assisted living “expect” hospitality, so hospitality is in no way a distinguishing feature.
Just as when you go to a grocery store, you expect (and take for granted) that the food will be fresh and appealing. Marketing among grocery stores that promotes one store’s food as fresher and more appealing than another store’s food doesn’t distinguish them. It rings hollow. “Of course I shop at your store because the food is fresh and appealing – that’s to be expected. Do you honestly think I would shop there because the food is old and rotten?”
But the unending clarion call in assisted living is that “our hospitality is better than your hospitality,” “our building is more beautiful than your building,” and “our lunch tastes better than your lunch.” Quite honestly – beyond a certain point, no matter how you phrase it – this is just not interesting. It’s boring, tiresome, worn out.
And a perseverance on hospitality ignores the origin of what drives residents to the assisted living setting in the first place – they need assistance managing their health. Weakening health in seniors who are overwhelmed with debilitating chronic health conditions is what drives them to this setting. It’s what causes their need for assistance with ‘activities of daily living’ (ADLs – which is about the only health amenity mentioned by this industry). People who don’t have weakening health are not found in assisted living.
Whether it’s admitted or not, coming to grips with managing resident health in a serious way is no longer an option for assisted living. And just as Nokia failed to adapt to a world that was changing around it, assisted living will face the same fate if it doesn’t similarly adapt to a changing world and renew its commitment to resident health – health that is increasingly complex and of higher acuity.
Most assisted living communities have a ‘schizophrenia’ when speaking about healthcare. On the one hand, many communities wish to recruit and care for residents of higher acuity – residents who ordinarily would be candidates for a nursing home – as assisted living could provide more-or-less equivalent care in a much less costly setting than occurs in nursing homes.
But on the other hand, assisted living has a paranoia about the negative comparisons to nursing homes, and so actively avoid discussions of healthcare in order to prevent this comparison.
THE NEW OPPORTUNITY – Embrace Resident Healthcare
But adapting to a world that is changing around assisted living is also The New Opportunity! And the new opportunity is to Embrace Resident Healthcare.
Here are 2 action steps assisted living can do to immediately take advantage of The New Opportunity:
Add healthcare professionals to positions of authority and leadership.
- The best model to embrace is an Integrated Care model in which your leadership is comprised of expertise from Real Estate, Hospitality, and Healthcare. These leaders will work cooperatively as a team to provide better management of your communities than when your team was incomplete.
Take control the dialogue.
- Don’t walk away from the healthcare dialogue – embrace it! And take control of it! Work with your healthcare leadership to use your own resident health data to customize resident–centered healthcare and to also construct a positive dialogue – a dialogue that showcases your quality care and that underpins and supports all your wonderful hospitality amenities.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost.” Words from a company whose failure to adapt to change around it caused it to be “removed the competition.”
Nokia started losing long before they were sold to Microsoft. But by the time they finally realized it, it was too late. Don’t let this happen to your assisted living community.
E-mail me with comments:
st**********@il*******************.com
Dr. Steven Fuller
Dr. Steven Fuller is a triple board certified physician/entrepreneur who develops programs in support of an Integrated Care model of senior housing. This model includes 3 equal, interactive, and mutually supportive team members: real estate, hospitality, and healthcare.
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