Raising Tech is your guide to understanding the role technology plays in your community, where to invest to transform culture, and how to bring your team and residents along the journey. Tune in for tech trends, hot topics and meet the people behind the tech landscape in senior living to gain practical technology knowledge you can apply in your community today.
Powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner Exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome to Raising Tech podcast. I'm your host Amber Barden and today our guest is Sanjeev Shetty, who is the co-founder of HelloGard Robotics. Welcome to the show.
Sanjeev Shetty:Thank you Amber. Thanks for having me.
Amber Bardon:Let's start off with telling our audience who you are, what's your background? How did you come to be a co-founder of HelloGard?
Sanjeev Shetty:I spent 20 years in the telecom industry: AOL, Time Warner and Spectrum. After exiting Spectrum I wanted to get into healthcare because I decided that I wanted to do something completely different than telecom and I got into the senior living space working for providers and looking at various solutions such as aging in place for the state of Maryland. I was looking at all kinds of solutions related to falls, to safety, to engagement. After doing that for two years, I joined an engagement platform company and got to do that for two years, had a lot of fun and then decided that I wanted to get into the integration space. So I ran an integration platform as a service company. I did that for two years and then found my calling with robotics. I was always really passionate about it. I was passionate about AI and I saw the need for it and started HelloGard with my partner.
Amber Bardon:And when did you start the company?
Sanjeev Shetty:About a year and a half ago is when we started, but we really didn't start to take off until later this year.
Amber Bardon:I know that there are a lot of different types of robotics companies out there. It's definitely going to be something we're going to see more and more in the future. So tell me more specifically about HelloGard Robotics and what type of robots you have.
Sanjeev Shetty:We actually consider ourselves a workforce automation company and robots just happen to be in our toolkit. You are right, Amber. There's a lot of robotics companies out there. A lot of them are one trick ponies and others are trying to white label the robots that are out there. The way I see ourselves is we sort of start with the problem statement and then we apply robotics to it. So you know, the problem statement could be someone is down on the custodial staff and don't really have a solution for it. So we find them the best in breed solution to solve for that problem. And then the same thing goes for healthcare. We're building out a generative AI platform to solve for all the healthcare challenges that exist today in the market, such as outdated nurse call systems and not having 24/7 nurse call monitoring. And then the list goes on and on, right? You look at a nurse's day, she's spending 20-30% of her day doing note taking and things that are very mundane and tedious in nature. So we're actually building out a platform called VCare Companion to solve for that problem. And then there's a whole slew of other solutions we're building behind that to address some of the issues that the hospitality industry is facing as well. I really consider ourselves more of a workforce automation solution company that just happens to be selling robots.
Amber Bardon:Can you elaborate more on the nurse call solution? That's something that's really interesting to me because a lot of our clients are trying to find something more modern for that type of system.
Sanjeev Shetty:What we're building is really a digital twin. When you think about the nurse call system as it stands today, it's really what I call a dinosaur. It hasn't changed much in the last probably couple of decades, I should say. And there's a lot of difficulty and challenges that come with it. It's a very simple technology but doesn't do a whole lot more than just being able to call a nurse. What we're looking at is sort of a more comprehensive platform that can address all of the challenges that exist in a acute care setting or post-acute care setting, such as being a nurse's aide , providing that continuous digital monitoring, being able to detect a fall, being able to differentiate between what's truly an emergency and what's not. And then the list is really long, it just goes on and on. But the way we're building it is it's from the ground up. We're sort of working with partners that actually come up with the challenges and then we're building generative AI algorithms to solve for it. A lot of the solutions out there just kind of throws up at the wall and see if it sticks. But we're actually taking a very different approach to building out this platform and I think it's going to be truly transformational when we announce this because it's from the provider's perspective and we have someone that's running it that actually came from memory care and senior living has written several white papers on digital twins. So I'm even more excited to have that person run that company for me.
Amber Bardon:Yeah, I completely agree with you. I was helping one of our clients pick a nurse call system for their new construction building and she was really frustrated because from her point of view, you know, she said we're building this brand new building. It's modern, it's sleek looking and we're putting in technology that looks like it's from like 1960s with like the yellow pendants and the things on the wall. And so definitely that industry is really overdue for some major change and there is some small innovations happening in terms of some of the software and some of the tracking. But I think a lot of the hardware and a lot of the general concept of what those systems are has really not changed at all in years and years. Other hurdles or barriers around the regulatory or compliance side of that?
Sanjeev Shetty:I think there's always the HIPAA question, right? That's on everyone's mind and there's obviously certifications that need to be had. And so I think we're taking all of that into consideration. Amber, the truth is no one can do this alone, right? So we have partnered with the right folks who are a lot smarter than I am who are bringing all the pieces together and then the VCare companion is going to bring the AI layer on top of all these pieces that already exist in the market and bring a very cohesive, comprehensive solution that solves. So all the little nuances that are out there and makes it really affordable. If you look at it today, there's all kinds of solutions out there, but they're really unaffordable. There's not a lot of margin out there. People are surviving by the skin of their teeth, especially post covid reimbursements don't look the same anymore as you know. Everyone's moving to value-based care, everyone's looking at cutting operational costs. So we're finding creative ways for operators, providers to adopt this technology, make it affordable and yet show ROI . So that's really what VCare is all about.
Amber Bardon:One of our clients who is a bigger client, they have 35 communities, they have about 3000 employees in senior living. I met with their head of HR and he said something to me that I always think about. He said, there's 10% of our open positions that I will never fill, it's just not possible. The workforce is not there and they're out in California primarily so that's even more difficulty with labor shortages. And so he said robotics is going to be the answer to this. So can you walk me through, in a future environment, what would a Senior Living community look like with your robots in place? Which components would robotics be doing? Can you walk me through a vision of what that would look like?
Sanjeev Shetty:If you sort of distill the whole senior living industry, you can sort of break it into three buckets. You have your day-to-day operations, like your housekeeping, your grounds and all the stuff that keeps the community running, right? I call it the operations bucket. And then you got your dining bucket and usually that's like the number two thing on your p&l for any Senior Living community. And then you got the healthcare bucket, right? Especially as you go into assisted living and skilled nursing. In each of those buckets, we have a solution. So let's just take operations for instance. Everyone we speak to talks about the strain on the custodial staff. No one wants to go and do carpets 600,000 square feet of space. No one wants to go to the third floor and do it. They'd rather do more meaningful things like maybe disinfecting medical devices or doing laundry or something more meaningful like collecting data. So we actually just launched our first Senior Living community at Beacon Hill in Grand Rapids, Michigan this week. And Jeff, who's the CEO there, I mean we have this great testimonial from him where he was like, listen, we know it takes 20 minutes for our custodian to clean a thousand square feet of carpet. This robot does like 28,000 square feet an hour and by the way it works seven days a week and we don't have to pay overtime and it never calls in sick. My point is that the robots just take the operation space, it's not there to replace human labor, but it's there to reduce the strain fill jobs that are hard to find. And it's really there to make the staff really upskill them . Rather than having them vacuum carpets and scrub floors, you're now allowing them to sort of manage these bots and collect data and see how efficient they are and map the floors and it's more meaningful to the staff. You increase your staff retention, you don't need to go hire staff. The ROI is immediate. So that's the operations piece. Let's switch gears and go to the delivery piece. Same thing goes for delivery. If you just look at sort of the dining setting, no one wants to work the morning shift, no one wants to bus tables anymore. People are moving around. It's a revolving door in the dining space, our robots are very unique in the sense we have automatic door openers. They don't spill food. So we did a lot of due diligence and research before we pitched our wagon with the manufacturers. Beyond that we've also developed custom apps and gadgets that actually connect to the robot. So it makes it more efficient, like you know, click buttons and apps. We've integrated with POS systems, you really get a full service solution with our delivery robots. You were one of the first ones actually even integrate with the top three elevator companies. And if you talk to a lot of people, elevator integration is sort of key, right? Because the robots aren't going up and down floors, then it's really not as effective. So you know, that's on the delivery side. And by the way, we have also introduced outdoor delivery robots that actually work truly autonomously. So no one has to drive them. So for example, if you're in a setting and let's say you're in a cottage and you want something delivered late at night or some package delivered, we can deliver packages up to two miles away. So that talks to sort of the delivery aspect. And then of course we talked about vCare and how our robots are functioning in the vCare setting, providing that 24/7 monitoring, providing that peace of mind at night when no nurses around, especially in independent living when there's an emergency call, there's just a security guard. What do you do then? How do you bring a nurse in? We kind of address those three buckets. We've kind of found the best solutions for each of those areas.
Amber Bardon:I think that there's a huge opportunity, these are all needs that our clients are telling us that they have to be fulfilled through these types of solutions. But I'm curious, can you talk a little bit about what are some of the current barriers to some of these solutions? So for example, I've heard with the cleaning robots, if they can get stuck in a corner sometimes and no one's there to get them out. I've heard concerns from our clients about some of the lawn care robots with are they going to run over someone's cat or something like that. So what are some of the barriers and what are you doing to address those?
Sanjeev Shetty:Yeah, those are great questions, Amber. We've spent the last three months overcoming all of those barriers. In fact, a lot of our larger clients have tried just about every cleaning robot out there and they came back to us saying "we want to go with your solution just for that reason" because we made it a point to find the best of breed solutions and our robot actually has a 3D lidar. What that means is that it just is smarter. It can see dimensions in 3D. So if there's barriers, it doesn't get lost, it works in tighter spaces, it's got an Nvidia AI chip so it's more intelligent. You can remotely troubleshoot it. In fact, 85% of the issues can be remotely dealt with. No one has to be constantly coming on site . We take support and maintenance really, really seriously. So a lot of our technicians not just go on site and install it, but they want to make sure that you're realizing your ROI from day one. And you'll see that with a lot of our clients and their testimonials as they really like coming to us. Because of that, I can't tell you the number of times I've had clients come to me and say, "Hey Sanjeev, someone just dropped off this robot and literally I haven't heard from them again." It's like buying a car without a key, right? That doesn't work. So we have gone sort of the extra mile to make sure that every client of ours gets a care package, gets the white glove service and really sees us as that outsourced robotics as a service partner rather than just someone who dumps a robot on them .
Amber Bardon:Yeah, that's a really great point. Can you talk a little bit more about how you do provide that day-to-day support of these types of devices?
Sanjeev Shetty:This is still evolving Amber, but sort of my vision for support is proactive support. The best support you can find is when no one has to call you, when the phone's never ringing. Of course we want to answer the phone and help people out, but the best customer service is when your phone never rings. The way we're going do that is we're building a command center. So we can tell you when your robot goes down before you even call us, that's where we want to get to. We're not quite there yet, but we're looking for partners who can come along with us on this journey and help launch robots in senior living the next coming years. I think there's going to be unprecedented growth. We're already seeing it in the robotics space. We really need partners who share our vision, who can support us, who know the industry. Senior living is not the only industry we're in, we're in hospitality and healthcare as well. We really need partners such as yourself to help us along this journey.
Amber Bardon:Speaking of support, what kind of infrastructure or IT set up do communities need to have in order to use the robots effectively?
Sanjeev Shetty:If you think of technology as a pyramid, where the bottom of the pyramid is your basic infrastructure like wi-fi and wires. As you go up that pyramid, you have your nurse call systems, EHR systems and then at the very top you have things like AI and robotics, but everyone wants to get to the top without investing in the bottom. One thing we realized is that we have a very exhaustive, thorough checklist that goes out before any deployment. We want to make sure that your wi- fi is not just good but it's ubiquitous and it's strong everywhere. So we do things like we kind of had to do this heat maps and things of that nature, but to make sure that there's good continuous wi- fi throughout the space where the robots are functioning. That's real key. Then if you're doing things like elevator integration, there's another checklist against that because we have to work with elevator companies and a lot of these companies are... They're not cheap. We're dealing with labor unions. Depends on the setup and the configuration of what you're trying to do. For example, if you're in a kitchen setting, you may have doors that open and shut, you may need to have the robots communicate with those doors through what we call ADO's. So it really depends on the setting, the type of use case you're dealing with. But generally I would say having good wi- fi is sort of key. The other important ingredient is having a champion there, your lead on the site, boots on the ground to be our main point of contact.
Amber Bardon:I agree so much with everything you just said. It's something I talk about all the time. I actually talk about the technology pyramid with the infrastructure at the bottom and then building up to get to innovation. So I'm just curious, do your robotics rely on wi- fi or do they have their own network or how does that work?
Sanjeev Shetty:Well you have two options. Either you go the wi- fi route or you can go the LTE route. We can put a SIM card in and then you tap into this cellular network. Depends on how strong your wi- fi is. We have customers in very, very remote areas in New Mexico where it's a sprawling community and they don't have wi- fi everywhere. I mean they put repeaters and try to enhance the wi- fi, but in some areas we do need to put in that SIM card and provide LTE cellular service as well. So it just depends. Not every customer is the same. And that's the nice thing about us is either we can come out and do the heat map or get someone out to do a heat map.
Amber Bardon:Yeah, and the wi- fi crisis is something I talk about a lot as well is that so many communities are not prepared because the use case for wi-fi design is not what it is today. When wi- fi was usually installed a few years ago and our rule of thumb estimate is $2 a square foot to upgrade your wi- fi to wall to wall . So you know, it's something a lot of communities have to figure out. How are they going to get there and pay for that in the next few years?
Sanjeev Shetty:It is positive to see, I was reading a report recently from McKnights about how IT budgets are being increased to like 10%, the overall budget from like two to 5%. Almost half of the communities are putting in money for robotics next year. So that's really a breath of fresh air for me being in the robotics and AI business. We're really looking forward to asserting these communities next year.
Amber Bardon:Is there anything that you haven't shared yet that you think our listeners should know about what's coming in the future or pieces of advice you would like to offer?
Sanjeev Shetty:When it comes to robotics, you kind of want to walk before you run because you have a lot of communities that want to do it all. And I would say start small and then grow and learn from those lessons. Obviously I want to sell , every one of my 20 + robots to everyone. I also am a realist and want to make sure that people are successful when they deploy our solutions. So I would say start with a very simple use case. Simplest use case is the housekeeping and the cleaning. Everyone needs to clean their carpets and their floors, right? Everyone has a need and the ROIs very simple. Our robots do about 80% of our custodial staff's duties when it comes to cleaning. We have a very simple ROI calculator. Maybe start there and then look at delivery, both indoors and outdoors. Then start looking at things like our virtual care companion for healthcare. Maybe that's the depth you can take if you start want to start small. That would be my advice for people who want to consider robotics. Start with a simple use case. Prove out the ROI because these robots aren't cheap. Average cleaning robot is anywhere between 30 and 40 grand and you've got the service package that comes with it too . So these are not items, you're not buying a computer here. Generally people have to see an ROI and we help them realize the ROI , not only do we build that ROI calculator, but then we ensure that they see it. So as part of our HelloGard care package, we do outbound calls, we make sure they're seeing the ROI , they're using it. We show them how to look at reporting and analytics. So they're really, really getting the best use out of it and we make it affordable. So let's say you're one of those communities that don't want to put out 40 grand for a robot, right? We can look at leasing options. We have a great financing company that can look at very low cost leasing options and you can do a robotics as a service or machine as a service model, right? So there's so many different ways to adopt robotics without having to break the bank , so to speak.
Amber Bardon:That's really interesting. I haven't heard of it approached from that perspective as a service. I'm glad you mentioned that for our listeners. Sanjeev, this has been such an interesting episode. I definitely learned a lot. We have had other robotics companies come on, but no one has been able to speak from this perspective on so many different aspects of robotics. So really enjoy the conversation. I want to thank you for coming.
Sanjeev Shetty:Thanks for having me, Amber. It was a great conversation.
Amber Bardon:Sanjeev , can you let our listeners know where can they find more information if they are interested in learning more?
Sanjeev Shetty:Easiest way to find out more about us and our products is go to HelloGard.com. There's links in there where you can reach us directly. They can also dm me directly. Depending on what they want, I'll point them in the right direction.
Amber Bardon:Thank you so much. And listeners, you can find all of our episodes at raisingtechpodcast.com. You can find us on social media at Raising Tech. And if you'd like to submit feedback on this episode or future ideas for an episode, please reach out to us on any of those platforms. And as always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Amber Bardon, has a fascinating conversation with Sanjeev Shetty, Co-Founder of HelloGard Robotics, about how HelloGard Robotics is addressing staffing challenges in Senior Living communities by utilizing interactive, delivery and cleaning robots.
HelloGard's robotic vacuum and scrubber robots are specifically designed to provide hands-free cleaning for Senior Living communities. Meanwhile, their user-friendly delivery robots are the perfect solution for delivering meals, medications and other essentials to both Senior Living staff & residents. On this episode, you'll have the chance to learn more about HelloGard's Virtual Care (vCare) Companion and also get a sneak peak about their latest product!
You can find Sanjeev here:
Website or on LinkedIn
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome to Raising Tech podcast. I'm your host, Amber Barden, and our guest today is Jim Murphy, who is the SVP of Healthcare at Ageless Innovation. Ageless Innovation is best known for being the makers of the Joy for All Companion Pets. Welcome to the show, Jim.
Jim Murphy:Thanks so much for having me, Amber.
Amber Bardon:So Jim, tell me who are you, how did you come to work at Ageless Innovation? What's your story? And then let's talk a little bit about what is Ageless Innovation?
Jim Murphy:My background is I actually spent about 15 years in the Medicare Advantage Arena, beginning with special needs plans , so focused on folks with chronic special needs, chronic conditions for those that were both eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Traditionally, a marketing communications background. Found my way to UnitedHealthcare in the Medicare arena. Had a number of different roles there. Everything from marketing to product to ultimately innovation the last few years that I was at United. So I was the innovation lead with our biggest partner, which was AARP. Wherever there was joint interest between AARP and UnitedHealthcare's Medicare business, and it was innovation related , we got to work on it. As a lot of my coworkers used to say, I got to work on all the fun cool stuff. And it was everything from family caregiving to in-home non-medical care, looking at different ways to combat social isolation and loneliness. That innovation role is actually how I first learned about the Joy for All Companion Pets. It was shortly after their launch at the time within the walls of Hasbro and then I ultimately joined the company three and a half years ago to lead the healthcare business.
Amber Bardon:So Ageless Innovation is primarily associated with the Companion Pet, which are robots. What else does the company do before we dive into that topic a little bit more?
Jim Murphy:We are really well known for our flagship product, which is the Joy for All Companion Pets. They were birthed within the walls of Hasbro back in 2015. The brand grew within the walls of Hasbro and then there was a friendly spinoff back in 2018 where basically Ageless Innovation was formed. We took the Joy for All brand with us and it's really continued to be our focus- the Companion Pets, the cats and dogs. More recently, we have expanded our offerings, so we introduced a new Joy for All Companion Pet, a pet bird called the Walker Squawker. I think you'll really love the inventor story. Then more recently we reconnected with our friends from Hasbro about a year ago, and they really highlighted for us the growing interest in older adults and playing board games. We recently become the exclusive licensee of Hasbro's Library of Games relative to reimagining for older adults. Our umbrella that we work within is to reimagine how we positively live in age together by unleashing the Power of Play. So if it falls within that realm and it can help older adults and their family caregivers, their family members, that's where we feel like we're uniquely qualified to serve those individuals.
Amber Bardon:Are you in primarily the senior living space or are you in other industries as well?
Jim Murphy:Lots of different segments within healthcare. To take it back to the beginning of the launch of Joy for All , as you can imagine within the walls of Hasbro, a lot of the focus was retail and direct to consumer. The first few years were primarily distribution of Joy for All Companion Pets through retail partners. It was really within that timeframe that it garnered the interest of a lot of different healthcare and academic organizations. That was the time that I was at United and it really caught my attention from a healthcare perspective. There were some early adopters in the senior living long-term care space, primarily nursing homes, assisted living and memory care. We continue to work with many of those organizations domestically and internationally today. We've grown a lot of different lanes within healthcare as well. We have some Medicare advantage organizations that offer our Companion Pets as a supplemental benefit. We have some Medicaid organizations that offer it as assistive technology. We have a huge variety of different providers that provide our C ompanion Pets. Everyone from hospice and palliative care organizations t o VA medical centers to different hospital settings. A lot of different segments of healthcare are utilizing our Companion Pets.
Amber Bardon:It's so interesting that the senior living industry actually came to you to see how they could use your products in their communities. So tell me more about that. What is the use case in a senior living community for the Joy for All Companion Pets?
Jim Murphy:Use cases within senior living are pretty typical of the use cases in general, the two primary use cases and that's really where the most utilization and the most research has been done as it relates to our Companion Pets. One is combating social isolation and loneliness, and the other one is Alzheimer's and related dementias. Those are two big kind of hairy bird's nest of problems as it relates to senior care and supporting older adults. There's certainly a lot of overlap and comorbidity between the two, right? We know that people who are socially isolated and lonely are at higher risk for Alzheimer's or related dementia. And we also know that social isolation, loneliness, and depression are certainly at a higher prevalence for people with Alzheimer's and related dementia. When you look at the overlap of the two, it's tens of millions of individuals across the US. Our two primary use cases from the early days and still to this day are folks with Alzheimer's and related dementia, and then individuals who are suffering from social isolation and loneliness.
Amber Bardon:When a community is making a purchase, are the pets primarily used in like a group setting, like a shared type of resource, or are they individual for each of the seniors?
Jim Murphy:I think that's a really important point of differentiation for us compared to some of the previous robotic Companion Pets that were out there in senior living. It's early as the early 2000's, right, where you talk about 1 to many utilization of PARO, the robotic seal, as an example. We really designed the Companion Pets, which were an enhanced and rebranded version of an existing Hasbro product. This was really input from older adults and their, and their family members. So 1 is make it as lifelike as possible, but balance that with affordability. And that's been the balancing act for many years now. So they're very, very intentionally designed to be a one-to-one utilization relative to residents. One aspect of that wasn't evident early on by the input that we got from older adults, but it's really evidenced itself every day, frankly, for many years now, is this idea of pet ownership, right? It's not just a cat or a dog, it's my cat or my dog, and they've named it and they take ownership of it. So whether you're talking about within the senior living community or whether you're talking about an older adult who happens to live with their extended family, for example, in a variety of different settings, the idea of pet ownership is really important.
Amber Bardon:I'm really curious, are there any studies or any specific outcomes or trends that you can share as a result of someone living with Alzheimer's having a Companion Pet?
Jim Murphy:There are over 15 studies that have been conducted with our Companion Pets in a variety of different settings. Some of them focused on individuals who have Alzheimer's or related dementia, others where individuals didn't have a diagnosis as it related to cognitive decline, but instead were just socially isolated or lonely. And that was the nature of the study that I proposed and led within United Healthcare in conjunction with AARP. The Alzheimer's dementia related use case was one where it was pretty self-evident and I knew that others were studying it as well. The social isolation and loneliness and this notion of an individual who is perhaps moderate to severely lonely but cognitively intact, do they know it's a robot or not a robot? How do they interact with it and do they really even care if it is a robot? That was a really interesting dynamic for me. So getting back to your question, the common set of psychosocial benefits that have been evidenced through these variety of different studies really go to at the highest level, whether an individual has dementia or not, improvements in the quality of life, such as reduction in social isolation and loneliness, improved sense of purpose, resilience, and then really specific to Alzheimer's and related dementia. It's kind of the additional layers of being able to reduce cognitive decline or the evidence from these variety of studies as it pertains to individuals with Alzheimer's or related dementia. It wasn't just the reduction of social isolation and loneliness, increased sense of purpose, resilience, things like that. It was also about reduction in behaviors such as agitation. There were a few studies that actually had indications of being able to reduce the administering of psychotropic medication, which if proved out at scale, these are smaller scale studies, but if proved out at scale we know could be really meaningful to Senior Living communities. And so those have really been the primary findings of these variety of different studies, some of which were in Senior Living communities, others of which involved community dwelling older adults.
Amber Bardon:I'm interested if you can share on the procurement side. If a community would like to move forward with the Companion Pets for their residents, is it typically something that the family members are purchasing or is it something the community's purchasing on behalf, or is it mixed?
Jim Murphy:Yeah, it's really a mixed model. So there's a variety of different ways that we work with senior living communities. In some cases they're blended as to how they approach it. In some instances it's where, for example, folks within specific roles such as an activities director may have discretionary budget where they see the impact of our Companion Pets and feel compelled to use that budget to be able to purchase our Companion Pets. It's usually for select folks within a community, right? Individuals with Alzheimer's or dementia, or perhaps they've done health risk assessments and found individuals that are profoundly lonely might be their focus. So in some instances, they're paying for them outright. In other instances, they are putting the Companion Pets in front of family members to be able to explain to them what the benefits are of the Companion Pets so that they see, for roughly 125 to $150, that they can profoundly change their loved one's life and their quality of life by providing a pet for them. In some instances, it's kind of a mixed model. So where we're providing content to a Senior Living community to be able to help them explain to those family members the value of a Companion Pet and helping staff understand it as well. So as much as we've been around for 8 years now and 5 years as Ageless Innovation, we know the brand is discovered every day by folks in the industry where they're saying, "I didn't know that this type of thing existed." So being able to help folks, staff within Senior Living communities be able to explain the value to those family members so that they could positively impact their loved ones.
Amber Bardon:Yeah, it's really interesting how we're entering the age of automation and robotics in so many different aspects, but this in a way is almost the most simple of robotics that are out there compared to these dining robots and serving robots and lawnmower robots and things like that.
Jim Murphy:You're exactly right. That's something that we talk about all the time, which is there's complex robotics within the Companion Cat or within the Companion Dog. It's secret sauce is that it is simple to use and it's so simple and intuitive that there isn't a big barrier from a technology perspective.
Amber Bardon:So along those lines, describe for me what is the experience with a Companion Pet? Let's just pick a dog because I'm a dog person. So what does the Companion Pet Dog do?
Jim Murphy:That's a really important aspect of it too, which is whether you're talking about a Senior Living community or a different environment, is to be able to understand the interest level of someone who is eligible and would benefit from a Companion Pet, and then be able to have them make their choice relative to dog versus cat. I mean, we joke about that all the time. There's dog people in this world. There's cat people in this world. There's some that are both, and there are very few that are neither. It's the type of thing where giving someone that choice is paramount to the bond that is developed. And like you, I would inherently bond more with a dog. I've grown pretty fond of our cats as well. We have a caregiver guide to be able to help people understand this. For folks in the industry, it's pretty intuitive. Individuals who may not be familiar with that, or a family member who's looking to explore it, it's really a matter of exposing that individual to the idea of a robotic Companion Pet. Sometimes that's sharing a video, sometimes it's sharing of a collateral. In some instances, a Senior Living community might have a sample cat or a sample dog that they demonstrate and share with individuals. It's using that kind of neutral language to be able to let them define, do they like this idea? Do they have an affinity for animals? Would they want one of these? And overwhelmingly, we hear the answer is yes, even for people who weren't previously pet owners. That was something I was really curious about years ago, which is people who are previously pet owners, especially if they can't have a pet at this point, are very keen on the idea. But we've also heard many stories of people who weren't previous pet owners, but just have an affinity for animals and want to take care of something where they've adopted a cat or a pup and grown a strong bond with it. It's that neutral introduction and letting them define, is this something that they're gonna have an affinity for? And usually if they express that from the beginning, the bond grows over time. Similar to a live animal. You know , we've had a number of studies, the Alabama Department of Senior Services did a study a couple of years ago where they tracked 75, 80 users over the course of a year. They were looking to understand is there a novelty effect, and they found just the opposite, which is pretty amazing and really parallels a relationship with a live animal. Usually the longer you own one, the more attached you grow.
Amber Bardon:Is your company an international company? If so, have you seen more adoption in other countries that have perhaps had more robotics in their culture such as Japan?
Jim Murphy:We are primarily US focused in the sense that that's where we've done the most business to date. You know, the years within Hasbro , and then as Ageless innovation. That being said, we do make our Companion Pets available in over 30 countries outside the US now. And so we've seen a good deal of adoption both through public health as well as private payers. We've seen a good deal of distribution through retail channels, so to individual consumers out there in these variety of different countries. Interestingly, we haven't seen that dynamic that you described where I think Japan has an incredible history of development of robotics, especially as it relates to their use of humanoid robots. We've really not seen that much adoption there, and I'll say we haven't focused on it as an international market as much as we could. So most of our adoption outside the US has been Canada, the UK, and throughout Europe.
Amber Bardon:Are there any other products that Ageless Innovation offers, or is there something you're working on coming in the future that you can share?
Jim Murphy:The Companion Pets, we see a long runway for those in the sense that unfortunately, we all know that a cure for Alzheimer's or related dementia is a long way off. We also know that social isolation and loneliness where the epidemic that was with us before, the pandemic got greatly exacerbated because of the pandemic and is going to be with us in a very large way for a very long time. We know that our Companion Pets are going to be able to continue to address those. We have recently launched the newest member of the Companion Pet family, which was a Walker Squawker. It's the Companion Pet Bird that I mentioned earlier. The inventor story is really cool. A woman who's in her 90s, her name's Rita Malone, she was very familiar with our existing Companion Pets in the team because her daughter used to work with the team years ago while they were at Hasbro. Rita was supposed to start using a walker a few years back. It sat in the corner, as it often does, got grief from family members. She thought about how can I change the dynamic with my walker where I actually want to use it, thought of our Companion Pets, which she knew well and thought of the social interaction that they often create. Came to us and said, "what if we perched a bird on my walker? It would create the social interaction. It would probably change the way I think and feel about my walker and I'd actually maybe want to use it." We thought that was a brilliant idea and spent the last year and a half developing it and launched it late last year. It'll be a long runway to prove out that it actually does get folks to use their walkers more frequently and potentially through many studies to be able to prove out that it could potentially reduce falls. For now it's just kind of one more companion animal that hopefully gets folks to think and feel about their walkers differently and to use them more frequently. As it relates to the pets, I think that we also have a connected version on our roadmaps . So right now, the Companion Pets are very much of an island from a technology perspective. They're very interactive based upon the way that you respond to light touch and sound. So they're going interact based upon the way that you interact with them. But from a technology perspective, they're not recording anything and they're not connected to anything. We do have on our roadmap , a connected version of it where you can kind of think of the expanded value proposition that might occur relative to a connected version of the pet. You know, passive monitoring to be able to understand utilization trends and breaks in utilization trends. As an example, being able to have authorized parties such as family caregivers, professional caregivers, health plans, or other parties, to be able to gather that data once again in a passive manner, in a way that respects the pet owner. That's paramount to us. We never want to break the trust with the pet owner, but to be able to have a connected version that has this expanded value proposition beyond the psychosocial benefit that one would get from owning a pet is something that's on our roadmap . And once again, we realize it'll take a considerable amount of time to be able to prove out that expanded value proposition. The most recent product expansion for us in general, still within this world of fun and joy and play and still within this world of combating social isolation, loneliness is the rollout of the Joy for All games, which were really the reimagined Hasbro games that we've licensed. And the first three out of the gate were Trivial Pursuit Generations, Game of Life Generations, Scrabble Bingo, which is actually a three in one version of Scrabble. And so while these aren't as tech focused , obviously as our Companion Pets are, they really are still within that umbrella of our purpose or mission of creating social connections through the power of play. We've had folks ask, "Are there going to be online versions of these games?" Right, because they are beloved games. And that's something that we're exploring right now as we look at rolling out 3-5 new games every year, which ones would really lend themselves for multi-generational online play or peer-to-peer online play, as an example or through an app. So those are things that we're looking at as it relates to Joy for All games.
Amber Bardon:That's really interesting. The passive monitoring piece is especially interesting because there's so many different ways that different companies are figuring out how to do that today. Jim, I really enjoyed learning more about your company and your product. It's a topic that I think is just really fascinating in general. So I really enjoyed our conversation. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know that you haven't yet shared?
Jim Murphy:If there are any family caregivers out there, I think that thinking about the impact that they can make for a loved one, we provide our Companion Pets through not just healthcare channels to end users such as residents or health plan members, but also through a lot of different authorized resellers. Everyone from Amazon to Best Buy to Walmart , to Walgreens. When you think about what to get an older loved one who maybe had to give up a pet or is showing signs of Alzheimer's or dementia, people often struggle with those decisions. I know plenty of people that have personally struggled with those decisions, right? What can I do to help my mom or my dad or my aunt or uncle from a quality of life perspective. I would just share that there's so many family caregivers that struggle with how to support their loved ones, and this is a relatively low cost item to be able to positively impact them .
Amber Bardon:So Jim, where can our listeners find out more about Ageless Innovation and the Joy for All Companion Pets if they're interested in learning more?
Jim Murphy:If you're interested in learning more about Ageless and how we work with different healthcare organizations, agelessinnovation.com, our corporate site and the one that's more product focused and more direct to consumer is joyforall .com .
Amber Bardon:Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you taking time.
Jim Murphy:Thank you, Amber. It was a pleasure.
Amber Bardon:Listeners, if you'd like to find more episodes of Raising Tech podcasts or you have an idea to submit, or you'd like to give us feedback on this episode, you can find us online at raisingtechpodcast.com. As always, thank you for listening.
Join our Founder & CEO, Amber Bardon, on an exciting episode of Raising Tech, where she has a thought-inspiring chat with Jim Murphy, Senior Vice President of Healthcare for Ageless Innovation. Ageless Innovation, known for their Joy for All robotic companion pets, offers innovative products to help reduce social isolation, loneliness and cognitive decline resulting in enhanced quality of life for seniors and Senior Living residents.
Tune in to discover how Ageless Innovation's robotic companion pets are helping spark meaningful connections and strengthening communication among everyone who has the opportunity to enjoy them, especially Senior Living residents. On this episode, you'll also learn more about Ageless Innovation's mission of bringing joy, fun and happiness into people's lives through the power of play.
Additional Video: YouTube & Joy for All
You can find Jim here:
Website
or on LinkedIn
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome to Raising Tech podcast. I'm your host Amber Barden. Today our guest is Neil Cannon . He is the CEO of LED Dynamics. Neil, welcome to the show.
Neil Cannon:Thank you, Amber
Amber Bardon:Neil, you and I met recently at a conference where I was giving a presentation and at the end of the presentation you raised your hand and you wanted to let everybody in the room know about your product, which I thought was really interesting and that led us to where we are today to do this podcast. First of all, let's talk about you. Can you do an introduction, tell our listeners who you are, how did you come into this company? And then from there let's talk about what is LEDdynamics.
Neil Cannon:Thank you for that, Amber. I'm one of these guys who gets sent to a company that is supposed to make a lot of change happen at that kind of company and I've been successful with that a couple of times in the fiber optic space. I'm pretty technologically-focused kind of companies only. Then I was lucky enough to get involved in a lighting company, I think it was around 2008, which you would think of as a hard time. We were able to market that company to General Electric, quite a good outcome for both the company and for the acquirer. Once you do this twice, you get a reputation I guess or something. But I came to this company LEDdynamics primarily because it was a very technically savvy group that was working in a lot of different areas and we've brought a lot of that technical capability to bear on the problem of building better lighting for elder care . We have very creative technology staff and they came up with an idea to literally replicate sunlight inside the building at higher intensities so we can make the lighting do more what's known as the circadian entrainment of the elders, one of the things you discover, as you get past a certain point, sleep becomes a challenge. The melatonin levels in an elderly person are much, much lower than somebody who in their teens or their twenties. For that reason, you see sleep problems, sleep problems in elder c are environments, usually foretell falls, trips to the ER, sadly even broken h ips. There's numerous costs that an elder c are provider will see because of sleep disturb. We feel like we've got a technology now that should allow people to be s ay inside, but outside if you will. It's a more intense lighting package. If you as a young person t our through one of our installations, you would probably think the lighting is quite bright and that's intentional because the elder eye is not as sensitive as the younger e ye. So we have to deliver this light into the eye that then varies throughout the day. If you think about sunlight in the morning, that'll be quite amber. In the middle of the day, it'll be bright white blue, that's called sort of noontime lighting. And then in the evening you'll get amber lighting. That's what your body's designed to handle. That's how we all live . Before we moved indoors, we had natural light sunlight outside and how we were circadian and trained and we moved inside. Now people basically 80% endorse and in an elder care facility, if it's an icy day, they're not taking anybody outside. If there's any weather at all, it's pretty hard for these folks to get outdoors and then even then to have an adequate amount of time to be exposed to natural light . It's another challenge for many of these facilities. So we thought, let's bring it inside. Let's build up a strategy where operators could have a circadian entrainment, lighting indoors. And that's proved to be pretty successful. The technology we have does exactly what the sun does in the morning. If you looked at it, it's amber middle of the day day. It's quite blue and the end of the day it's again amber and you walk the person through melatonin cycle. Basically in the middle of the day you should have your melatonin very low. In the evening, it should be coming back up, preparing you for sleep if you can keep that going. We've worked with sleep researchers and folks that are deep in the topic and they've told us, my joke is: Give them the lighting of La Jolla, sunny every day , you don't really want to follow clouds or gray days because that's only going to harm people. Now we're coming on to daylight savings changes. These are not beneficial either, so we leave the lighting alone. It works just like the sun inside and operates on a very exacting schedule. That took a few innovations. We had to innovate on the optical front and on the controls front because you have to actively manage the light all day long, which we do. Out of that, we've already got one installation. We've got a group checking out a second installation that's going to go live in Virginia and they've been mostly new construction projects. Because of persistent interest, we've come up with a strategy that will work for home care as well. It's still in beta tests , but it's been pretty well received. We've got a number of people trying it out and they're pretty happy with it because a lot of elders are trying to age at home. We've been recently adding that to our portfolio of product ideas, but the basic idea is to give people essentially what they should have by being outside indoors and make sure that their circadian entrainment is as good as it can be from a lighting perspective. You can't keep people from drinking coffee, you can't keep people from watching TV too late or any of the other things that influence your ability to fall asleep in the evening. At least the lighting can be 100% encouraging circadian entrainment, which is what we're doing.
Amber Bardon:Sleep is such an important part of our daily lives. I know when I don't sleep, I am a disaster. I'm really curious, how did this idea come to be? How did the companies get founded in the first place and and how did this problem get identified?
Neil Cannon:The company is actually quite a longstanding provider of LED solutions. It was founded by a gentleman named Bill McGrath very early on. He was an innovator in the electronics and control space. Came up with such things as the very first stylist , installable tube, speed up retrofits and stuff like that. And then over time this little company has become a provider to other bigger companies. If you look inside of other people's products, you'd find our know-how in there even some of the largest lighting companies buy our solutions for that. So we were discussing new areas of expansion and there's a field in lighting called color tuning, which is what you have to do to get from amber in the morning to blue in the middle of the day. And amber, again, you have to change the light as you do it. And Bill had a very clever idea about how to do that, but also correct it because if you don't do it just right so you wind up with a light that doesn't look right, it's got a little bit of a pink hue to it and you don't want that. So Bill solved that problem with a third chip and then it has kind of a dynamic control range. The technology was actually invented on October 11th, 2019, so I remember that day. And then we put it through a number of stages of development and now it is being installed in elder care facilities precisely for this reason to encourage circadian entrainment and enable sleep . So the company has done this from its headquarters in Randolph, Vermont. It is next to a very competent technical college. We've had a very good ability to recruit talented engineers. In short, the company's idea of inventing this was at first an optical curiosity, we could do this, that's kind of neat. And then we started to dig in and look at plausible applications like it was sold into museums for better quality of light . It was sold into retail for exactly the same reason . Strangely, we went in to talk to the retail customers and they said, "You know what? We're all sleeping better." And I was like, "okay, wait a minute. There's something else going on here." And then we started to dig in and it turned out, the Department of Energy through their Pacific Northwest National Labs had done some limited studies on this and had already shown you could suppress sleep disturbance by having a changing light source. So they already shown that independent study followed up with another one. Harvard did a study on falls. Same conclusion, better lighting equals less problems basically because the residents sleep better. So we thought, okay, that's a good target market. We, through one of our investors, we got connected with progressive elder care group. They've been working with us quite succinctly since then. Kind of in the middle of it, we're deploying first projects and deploying new solutions to meet more of the market demand and, and feeling quite good about it because I think we've got something that's genuinely helpful.
Amber Bardon:So from what you're describing about the way that the system works, is this primarily for residents that are in their room most of the time? Or is this applicable to residents that are independent assisted that are moving around and not in their room all day?
Neil Cannon:The best is if you can keep a person under the same lighting all day long. In other words, if the lighting's going to change, let's say a building had skylights in it and you were watching the sun change throughout the day, that would give the person the experience to being outside, not only at least in the character of light, they're receiving maybe not the quantity but the character through the skylights. So we took that approach. We cover the whole area. We call our product PERFEKTLight.
Amber Bardon:When you say the whole area, do you mean the entire campus?
Neil Cannon:We actually would prefer that in the elder care facilities, primarily memory care is where the most challenged residents are residing. In that case, those are usually enclosed areas where access is controlled because some of the folks might get confused and leave. So they have to control the area. So most of the activities of the elder care , memory care patients, are within a controlled area. Our thesis is that it should be used by everybody, essentially. This would help at any stage in a person's development as they age. However, it's clear the most acute need is within memory care because that's where the sleep disturbances are most profound. The science is kind of coming around, people are accepting it more and more. It turns out that addition to rods and cones in our eyes, we have this third pathway and that is the control, that's the control of our sleep wake. It's called an intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell. And that particular cell senses blue light. So if you look at a computer screen late at night and it's emanating a great deal of blue light, it's likely to reawaken you at a time when you don't want to be reawaken. And this science has been worked out over the last couple of decades. And the other science that's come online just since 2012 is an understanding of how important sleep is to our cognitive capability. And it's how your brain clears its metabolites. So when you like go for a workout and you wind up with a lot of lactic acid, your lymphatic system will clear that. It turns out your brain doesn't have a way of clearing its metabolites the way the rest of your body does. So what happens is you spend time and energy throughout the day, about 25% of that goes into your brain. It's only 2% of mass. So it's a very small organ in your brain relative to the amount of energy it is . And then waste product, all the byproducts of thinking. But when is it clear ? It turns out it's only cleared in the last stage of deep sleep. If you wake up in the morning and you had a poor night of sleep and you have familiar brain fog, you know, you run into the espresso machine, you get the espresso and it countermands some of that stuff, but really it's still there. Now the clinical observation that seems, it's been around for years, but it's also been more recently interrogated. Alzheimer's patients, the hardest patients that any of these facilities are working with, if they have good sleep, they do not significantly progress in their disease. If they have poor sleep, what is noted is their disease progresses very quickly, probably going to be at some point a tie up of the sleep behavior and the propensity to either have Alzheimer's or have Alzheimer's that is unstoppable. That work was done and we cite that in our discussions and it does resonate, especially with medical professionals that work in elder care , went up to UVM , talked to the gerontology lab, the research is not fully defined and we'd like to be able to say to people, put this in, everybody will sleep fine. And the answer is, it's not quite that clear. But clearly coming out of the research is these indicators that this is an important topic. And of course it plays immediately to resident satisfaction. If they're sleeping better, they like where they are better. And that's what we're endeavoring to do is give people an environment where sleep is easy for especially these vulnerable populations folks initially first. And then I think what'll happen is the rest of the facilities will be booked in this way.
Amber Bardon:If a community would like to move forward with implementing the solution, what would they need to have ready? What would the install look like? Can you walk us through that?
Neil Cannon:The vast majority of our projects fall into two categories. One is they're building a new facility and they'd like to put in the most modern lighting. In that case, it's very straightforward. We work with the architects who are working on the building and many of them are actually increasingly aware that this is important. The last project we worked on with a very progressive architect gentleman named Steve Ruiz, and we didn't have to convince him of anything, so to speak. So he was a very strong advocate. And why do they want this? Because they want better projects, they want things to be done better. And then of course, the operator, we have a philosophy of just making everything " set and forget." So the idea is that you shouldn't have to do anything to this. Once you install it, it's very simple to reset it and change it if you need to. The vast majority of lighting systems usually don't get reset. They're usually put in once and just operate. So we start it out with a "set and forget" idea. Now the harder proposal in some ways is to do a retrofit. A retrofit of a building that has a lot of different types of lighting that might've been modified over years can be a bit more challenging. But we've succeeded in that vein as well. We have what's known as retrofit kits, meaning we can go into existing fixtures, we can put the light engine in. It's just a set of ICS and LEDs that we insert into the light fixture. And then it works just the same as it would in the new construction. The last project we wanted to do, which was strongly asked , many of the residents come with their own lamps. So we came up with a strategy of using color changing bulbs with a specific type of software and control so that even the lamp next to their bedside or over their desks would be controlled in exactly the same way. So everything is moving just like sunlight. And we've become increasingly expert at dealing with both the retrofit scenario and the new construction. I wouldn't expect that an operator would need to do more than allow us in with their facilities managers or their architects if it were a new construction. And we can carry the process forward from there. Most of the discussions we have now are directly with operators. The vast majority of operators are listening intently. The biggest stops to our work are typically the company can't afford it. If they can't afford it, are they allocating resources elsewhere at this point? And then of course, the last piece of the puzzle is everybody wants that definitive study that says, this lighting does exactly this, and we're working on that. We don't have it all yet with our friends at P&L. Slowly getting to the point where we can make stronger claims. In short, I think it's just a matter of us interacting with the operators, their agents, architects, or the people that are looking after the buildings directly.
Amber Bardon:Neil, this has been really interesting. I've really learned a lot from everything that you've shared on this podcast. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know?
Neil Cannon:I think there's one last point to make in this process. I'm actually going to quote a guy who's quite a good sleep researcher, a gentleman named Ken Wright. He runs the sleep research program at University of Colorado, one of six labs worldwide. We brought him this and set it on his desk and he said, what is this? And I said, well, it varies just like sunlight does. And he looked up at us and kind of surprised, he said, "well, that oughta work." And then there's another gentleman who's in a similar way, he works at the University of Oregon, a guy named Kevin Houser , and we sent him the light. He's got it over his desk, says , "That's the best light I've ever seen. It literally is a perfect light. It's light as we should have had it all along." It's just that the technology is only now getting to the point where we can do that. You know, fluorescent tubes, no chance, incandescent bulbs, you couldn't get there. But with our LED technology, we can do this now. It's just now becoming a value proposition for people.
Amber Bardon:Thank you so much. Neil . Tell me where can our listeners find all about you? Where they can they get more information if they wanna reach out and get in touch with you?
Neil Cannon:We maintain more than one website. LED Dynamics is the holding company over a couple of other things. We sell B2C through a group called LED Supply, and we sell directly into the fixture market or a division we have called ProLume. You go to either LEDdynamics.com or prolumeled .com , you'll see significant reference to PERFEKTLight technology, color changing technology aimed at this. Lastly, I do have a YouTube video on the whole topic that's a little more elaborate with slides and everything. And that's under LED Dynamics, Neil Cannon.
Amber Bardon:Great. Thank you so much Neil. And listeners, if you'd like to provide feedback on this episode or if you have ideas for a future episode, you can find us at raisingtechpodcast.com and Raising Tech Podcast everywhere on social media. And as always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Amber Bardon, has a stimulating conversation with LEDdynamics CEO, Neil Cannon. LEDdynamics has a unique tunable white light technology, known as PERFEKTLight, that is designed to mirror natural sunlight from sunrise to sunset to create better sleep. This can lead to enhanced memory, reduced risk of falls, and overall improvement of cardiovascular health.
Listen to the entire episode to discover how LEDdynamics is helping residents in Senior Living communities improve sleep, which promotes healing and aids in patient recovery.
Additional Video Links: YouTube, Prolume
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Amber Bardon: (00:00)
Welcome to Raising Tech podcast. I'm your host Amber Barden and today our guest is Rafael Haciski, who is the Vice President of Commercial Insurance at Johnson Kendall Johnson, also known as JKJ, which is a full service insurance brokerage with a large senior living group. Welcome to the show.
Rafael Haciski: (00:17)
Thank you Amber. Thank you for having me.
Amber Bardon: (00:19)
To start off with, just dive a little bit deeper and give us a little bit more background about yourself and about your company.
Rafael Haciski: (00:24)
I am a former attorney turned insurance broker. I was a white shoe lawyer defending Fortune 500 companies for about a decade and just sort of general business litigation and then that kind of delved into insurance coverage disputes where we were adverse to the insurance carriers on large denied claims. And I segued from that and was pulled into the insurance brokerage side where I currently work with a little over 300 plus Senior Living communities on their insurance and risk management. JKJ is a little bit unique from a makeup standpoint where most brokerages focus on geography focused on where they are for their business. We serve the nation, but we chose to kind of delve into industry segments instead. So we have a senior living group, we have sports and entertainment group, we have a real estate group and international group. All of those require sort of above and beyond insurance and risk management services and we provide that from a hands-on approach.
Rafael Haciski: (01:19)
I would say a lot of brokers place coverage and then are out of sight, out of mind, onto the next account. We're very unique in that when we place the insurance coverage for our clients, that's the beginning of our story for that year. We're action planning the policy here, identifying loss trends, figuring out where we're gonna deploy our risk management and safety services from our office to our clients so that when we come back to the renewal following year we have a good story to tell the market that then allows them to get a little bit more flexible when it comes to pricing and coverage considerations. We're a little bit unique when compared to our competition out there. Another thing I'll add is we're an independent brokerage, in the insurance world right now is seeing a lot of acquisitions and mergers and affiliations.
Rafael Haciski: (02:02)
There's shareholders. We at JKJ are our own shareholders and we're going be that way for years to come and we're proud of that fact and we know that that really lends a lot of value to our clients because they know that the people they're seeing on the screen or the people they're seeing in their office who are providing those services are the people they're going be working with throughout the relationship. It is a very family atmosphere at JKJ. We all are in it to win it and if we win account, we all win an account and we're excited to provide our services to more and more organizations out there who have such a heightened need. Cyber obviously being one of those.
Amber Bardon: (02:32)
We're definitely gonna dive a little bit more into the topic of cybersecurity insurance on this episode today. But before we get to that, I'm just curious, what can you share that you're seeing as some of the top trends in the insurance area that senior living providers should be aware of?
Rafael Haciski: (02:48)
Funny, when people ask questions like that, I always like to kind of go to the end. What I mean by that is go to the bad thing that is going to happen or has happened because that's what insurance carriers have to do when they underwrite an opportunity. When they look at a new account for renewal purposes, they have actuarial analysis and folks out there who are looking out and seeing what could happen from a claim standpoint, from a frequency standpoint, from a severity standpoint, what's going to happen. Then also what is the organization doing from a protection standpoint that addresses those concerns and those claims that could pop up. COVID really turned things upside down because it forced underwriters at the insurance carriers to underwrite to a future that people did not know what was going to happen. I think that in turn really created a lot of market volatility from a pricing standpoint, from coverage terms were going to be offered by these carriers.
Rafael Haciski: (03:36)
So right now I think what we're seeing is, I wouldn't say a plateauing, but the dust is finally settling post COVID in a time where we really didn't know what was happening or what was going to happen. Then as a result, COVID tweaked things a little bit. For example, from property standpoint I can say that very large organizations all the way down to personal homeowners alike have experienced extreme rate hikes when it comes to property coverage. It's because of the fact that COVID has increased labor costs, increased material costs, the cost to replace things has gone up. There's a lot of fluctuation volatility, I guess you could say right now we are all kind of doing our best at JKJ to keep our clients ahead of that game and kind of doing things that really do benefit the organization from an enterprise risk management standpoint, but also in a best-in-class standpoint.
Rafael Haciski: (04:19)
All the great risk management tools that are utilized by our clients allows me and my team as the broker for the organization to pitch that community or that organization, that company in the best light possible for the insurance carriers. That really is a need right now. The carriers need to hear a story, they want to figure out what's the plan from a strategic standpoint, what are they doing that's different from all the other similar organizations down the road that you know, makes them better than the other or makes them less likely to have something bad happen that then would have to be covered. So there's just been a lot of like volatility I think over the last couple years post covid and fortunately now I think we're starting, you know, flatline a little bit when it comes to renewals and how things are looking out there.
Amber Bardon: (04:58)
Can you elaborate a little bit more on what providers can do to help protect themselves and prepare and some best practice tips to deal with these risks and changes that you just mentioned?
Rafael Haciski: (05:08)
A lot of times we find, unfortunately, is that people are busy and think that the busyness factor really negatively affects risk management. When we come into an account and we perform a mock audit, mock mystery shopper walkthrough of the organization from our safety guys who all come in and point fingers at things that should be tweaked or changed or fixed, a lot of times when we present our findings, it's the first time that the executives are hearing about those things. That tells me that we are all way too busy and do not have enough time to focus on what's important or prioritize on what's important because what you don't know is going to kill you. That's what we've been finding a lot is that when we're coming out and pointing our hand on a new account, the things that we identify are things that really were not known prior to our involvement. We know that those are the items that insurance carrier will look for the minute they step foot on a community. It's really about staying ahead of the game, giving yourself enough time, enough runway, pre-renewal to sort of figure out how you the organization look from an insurance standpoint and what are you are doing to better that look. Not a lot of that is happening right now. So we really try respectfully, politely to push on that a lot because we know that will benefit the organization from a risk management standpoint.
Amber Bardon: (06:17)
Just to walk me through, how do you guys go about that? Do you have like an assessment or a checklist that you're measuring the community against some standards?
Rafael Haciski: (06:24)
I like to say it's sort of a test drive of what JKJ does from a service standpoint, but really it also helps us identify where the problems are. We'll come out in the onset of meeting CEO, CFO who typically handles the insurance program. We'll say, "Hey look, let one of our guys just come out to your community for a day and you won't even know that he or she or there. They will do a walkthrough and come back with a extensive report on what they found that they inspected the, the parking lot, the parking garage, the boilers, the basement, the roof, whatever it is." That report becomes square one towards what do we together need to do to make this organization a little bit more buttoned up from a risk management standpoint. Similarly, we'll ask for lost data. I mentioned before about going to the end of what bad thing will happen and then reverse engineering the claim to make sure it's covered, how it's handled, et cetera.
Rafael Haciski: (07:13)
We like to take loss data because that's what the insurance carriers will do when they're looking at a renewal is evaluate the loss experience for that specific organization. That loss data will tell us where claims are coming from. Is it the CNAs who are getting hurt on Mondays because maybe they're getting hurt actually on the weekends and bringing their injury into the organization. That loss data really helps us identify specific to that organization where the problems are coming from. Finally we like to take a look at the current program. The current insurance package insurance is basically a contract. Page 1, it says you're covered for everything and there's 150 pages after that that says maybe, you have to do this if you want that. By the end, people don't know what they're covered for or what they're not covered for. So by us collecting those policies at the beginning of the relationship allows us to identify what's covered, what's not covered, if those coverage terms or those coverage aspects match up with the operations that that organization is doing because a lot of times we find that folks don't realize that they're not properly covered and that's where we really shine.
Amber Bardon: (08:14)
Let's talk a little bit about cybersecurity, whether people like it or not or whether it's good or bad, the insurance industry has really pushed all of the communities to take cybersecurity really seriously and that's a big shift over the last couple years. It's to the point now where I feel like a lot of other entities are getting involved in the security aspect. So financial auditors, with all of this information, with all these changes, it can be really hard for a community to understand what exactly do they really need to do because at the end of the day, most of the changes that they're making and they're implementing and they're going ahead with it can be very disruptive to operations and they're doing it primarily to be able to get cybersecurity insurance. That's what's really driving it.
Amber Bardon: (08:52)
What we've seen is, we've had financial auditors come in and and say things like, " Oh now you need a 14 character password" and you need all these things that are not actually being required by insurance companies. So can you talk through that a little bit? What are you seeing as the trends? What would be your advice to a community to help prepare for this?
Rafael Haciski: (09:08)
I'm going to take a step back further and just go a little insurance geek for a moment because I think it helps. Back in the day before all of this cyber stuff was a thing, most organizations have general liability policy that covers slips, trips, falls, property damage, that basically if your organization gets sued, your general liability policy hopefully would step up way back when there was a little bucket of money within that GL policy, that general liability policy that was saved for cyber related events.
Rafael Haciski: (09:36)
Fast forward a couple years after that and carriers realized that cyber was beginning to become an emerging risk from a just exposure standpoint as a result that they did is instead of providing that little bucket of money in the GL policy, they said we're now just gonna bake in an exclusion that says we the carrier will not pay for any cyber related events in the GL policy.
Rafael Haciski: (09:57)
Out of that was created the cyber liability world, it's a little bit unique because it's what's called a first-party and a third-party coverage party in that it's protecting your stuff, your organization's servers, files, et cetera. Also it's a third-party coverage for when you're going to get sued for potentially data breach or a ransomware event that the HIPAA information has been released inadvertently from the organization. So really the cyber policy is a unique hybrid form that was created out of the GL policy, having that exclusionary terms in there for cyber events. And then the other problem you have is that other policies, GL auto property, they're on what's called an ISO form Insurance Society Office form, ISO. What it means is that when you take those forms off the the cabinet and look at the terms, there's going be boilerplate language where everything starts from a coverage standpoint. Cyber does not have an ISO form, which means that every carrier has their own language when it comes to what coverage they'll provide and what coverage they will not provide.
Rafael Haciski: (10:58)
That makes it incumbent on the broker and the organization to identify, like I mentioned before, the coverage terms of the policy that you're buying. What are you really getting out of the policy and is it going to be protecting what you need? Further along those lines, you now have conditions that get attached to the policy that says you can only get this coverage if you do XYZ. If you put MFA in place, fill all your firewalls, all of that stuff.
Rafael Haciski: (11:24)
The carriers now are getting a lot more intelligent when it comes to the underwriting aspects and the requirement aspects of what they require from the organization from a protection standpoint. Similar to almost like a property program. I'm gonna look at a building and I'm say "I'm the carrier, I'm not gonna cover that building because you have not put sprinklers in the attic."
Rafael Haciski: (11:40)
"Well I'm the cyber carrier, I'm not going to cover that organization because you have not put MFA in place." So those terms and conditions have started to really kind of pick up steam and have become a little bit more onerous. We're going to provide you coverage but you have to do all these things first and all those things first cost money, it's flipped organizations upside down because they're scrambling to make sure that they're brought up to speed as best possible and are protected but also presentable to the carriers so that they get the coverage. In the end I think the key here is to pressure test your cyber policy. First of all, buy cyber coverage, you have to do that. Two years ago, three years ago, I had people in the nonprofit world come up to me and say, "Hey, I don't buy cyber liability and I don't need it because I'm a small nursing home."
Rafael Haciski: (12:20)
I said, "Well, you're a small nursing home and that's why you're going to get hacked so you better be buying cyber." Right now, we're seeing a lot of that happen where you folks hopefully are buying the program but then now they're getting pushed by the carriers to get things in place so that they're properly protected as best possible per the carrier conditions. What are you doing pre-loss, pre-loss mitigation services? Are you doing those fire drills similar to doing a fire drill for property again, you know, ringing that bell and making sure everybody gets out of the building, let's make sure that they do that right. Well let's do a cyber fire drill and how many times are you doing that throughout the policy year to educate your staff, educate people at the organization about cyber risk and how clicking on that link is maybe not a good idea or it's okay to call the person who allegedly emailed you with that PDF that you don't know what it is.
Rafael Haciski: (13:04)
It's all of those things that really we have to kind of focus on and it's moving at such a fast pace that keeping up with the changes and fluctuations in what carriers are in the business versus what carriers are not in the business and what has to be done to be best in class. All that stuff really requires a partner, a consultant JKJ. We're very proud of the fact that years and years ago we started our cyber practice knowing that this newfound exposure was gonna be a big one and something that a lot of organizations are gonna have to consider.
Amber Bardon: (13:32)
It can be really confusing for a community to have all this different information coming from so many different aspects and to really know what they should move forward with because like you said, all of this stuff costs money and or has an impact on operations. So the big one is obviously MFA, we're running into challenges with staff having to carry phones when they're not supposed to have phones on the floor.
Amber Bardon: (13:51)
Can you talk a little bit more about MFA, because I know that's a big one. What are you seeing? Are you seeing it for everybody? For just email users, VPN remote access?
Rafael Haciski: (14:01)
That's a common request from the carriers and really starting to see it be a requirement across the board. I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that the application, the document that is used to begin the renewal process that is filled out by the organization and presented to the carrier then takes that information and begins to underwrite the opportunity. The information that's in that application is so vitally important because what'll happen is the carriers at the time of the loss months and months after say a renewal has taken place, will go back to the application. We just had this unfortunately, where it was represented in the application that they had MFA across the board, sure enough, there was a ransomware event and the sort of forensic IT that took place identified that the hacker got through a hole that was supposed to have MFA in place and did not.
Rafael Haciski: (14:47)
The carrier found out about that and they came back and said, "We're not going to cover this claim because you said that you had MFA in place and you did not." Very simple argument, but it's something that should have been identified well before. Again, that identifies that cruise control mentality. I think that I've mentioned that a lot of these organizations do when they're doing through the applications, going through the things that they've done so far from an IT standpoint. As a result we're seeing a lot of our renewals, actually almost all of our cyber renewals involve the heads of IT at the organization who can speak those acronyms and talk about what they're doing from a security standpoint competently and also identifying, "No, we don't have MFA in that area. We need to put that in place." Definitely is a hot topic right now with carriers. They're going to come in and perform network scans before they even speak to us or the organization similar to what a hacker would do. We're aware of that and we need to make sure that our clients are prepared for it as well.
Amber Bardon: (15:37)
It's definitely been a challenge because not all of the insurance carriers out there can accurately define what they want. With MFA, we had one situation where we could not get them to tell us what they wanted, if they wanted it just for email or all domain users. They just really couldn't define what their own requirements were. So that's definitely a challenge that's going on as well as just figuring out what does this all mean and what exactly needs to be applied and how should it be applied when there's multiple methods.
Rafael Haciski: (16:02)
One of the most common cyber incidents that happen out there right now is ransomware events, social engineering theft, email compromise, data breach, all of those require some door to be open or some hole to be available for the hacker to pound into. The scary part is, is that unlike criminal who walks into like a jewelry store and steal all the diamonds, hackers can go into the organization and just sit there and just observe for months, if not years on end. Look at the calendars of the executives. See when so-and-so is out and when can I send that email from the CEO that says "I'm at the dentist office, but I need to see that W2 right now. So email it to me right now, right now, right now." We're also hung up on getting things off our list and making our inbox shorter.
Rafael Haciski: (16:43)
It feeds into that where the claim is going to happen because of the folks on the other end just aren't being complacent. They're focusing on something else. That hole has been there and open carriers don't really know how to underwrite to that. And so that's what we're seeing. From a pricing standpoint, from a cover standpoint, it's trending upwards because I think carriers are still figuring out what they're covering and what they're not covering from a cyber standpoint. And again, as you know, things are changing by the month when it comes to how and when these hackers can get into the organizations.
Amber Bardon: (17:10)
It's a whole new world. And like I said earlier, really the credit does go to the insurance companies for pushing the issue of security because without that I don't think it ever would've happened. I think a lot of providers weren't willing to invest the cost or the time or the resources to implement a lot of these measures.
Rafael Haciski: (17:25)
Another area I would just bring up is prevention, the during, which is the insurance, but then the aftermath. I might have made this analogy in previous conversation I've had with you, but you have a burning building, you know to get the heck out of the building and not get burned. You have a cyber event, organizations don't know what to do. Their wi-fi goes down, their IT goes down altogether, email is out, the phones don't work. All of that stuff happens. And so what are you doing from an incident response standpoint? Who are you engaging from? Legal forensic, who's on the panel? Who's been pre-approved by the insurance carrier? Who are we calling to handhold us through this very bad thing happening because I don't know if you've been in the office when something like that happens, but we're all running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out "how do I get my email back up? Why am I not hearing from anybody?" Having that proper incident response plan in place as well really helps organizations navigate through that. It's not if, it's when you're going to get hacked and brought down.
Amber Bardon: (18:17)
For every community out there that's listening, if security is not one of your top priorities, hopefully this podcast will help convince you to put it on your priority list. Rafael, this conversation's been really interesting. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything else you want our listeners to know?
Rafael Haciski: (18:33)
Give yourself whatever time you think you're giving to get into your next renewal and double that because the time is your friend and the longer runway you can give yourself to adequately prepare for the next renewal or bringing up your organization to your best-in-class light that I mentioned. Really do that. Find a broker out there that actually does know what they're doing. We are proudly a Two-Time Cyber Broker of the Year, beating out all the big guys when it comes to the service model that we have at our office, what we provide for our clients. I mentioned that review of the cyber policy or loss analysis. We do that as sort of our spade work to show folks who potentially would like to work with us. What we can do, it allows us to really red light yellow light, green light the policy and say here's where we've identified problems in your program. We know we can help and fix those problems. And then at that point it's the action point of where do we go from here? Pressure test your program. Don't let just the real bad claim be the thing that's going to attest what you've put together from an IT standpoint.
Amber Bardon: (19:29)
And where can our listeners find you if they wanna learn more about JKJ.
Rafael Haciski: (19:33)
All over LinkedIn, Johnson Kendall Johnson. We're also out and about at many of the senior living and other related conferences, LeadingAge. Most, if not all of the denominational conferences, within that LeadingAge bucket. LinkedIn is typically the best way to find me. We're there and happy to serve.
Amber Bardon: (19:49)
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Rafael Haciski: (19:50)
Thank you. Appreciate your time.
Amber Bardon: (19:52)
And listeners, you can find more of our episodes on RaisingTechPodcast.com. You can send us feedback on this episode or if you have an idea to submit for a future episode, you can also find us at that link. And as always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Amber Bardon, has an intriguing conversation with Rafael Haciski, Vice President of Commercial Insurance at Johnson Kendall Johnson (JKJ), about how JKJ's personalized services allow clients to focus on their businesses while JKJ provides direction in managing cybersecurity risks.
JKJ's cyber practice is focused on creating risk management programs and educating clients on the importance of cyber incident response and changes in insurance terms. Discover how JKJ is keeping Senior Living communities properly covered by listening to the full episode!
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome to Raising Tech . I'm your host, Amber Bardon, and today we have a very, very special guest , someone I've known for a long time, someone who's very famous because I talk about him all the time as one of the original founders and inceptors of Parasol Alliance. Welcome to the show, Bill Lowe.
Bill Lowe:Thank you, Amber.
Amber Bardon:Bill, give us a brief intro about yourself. Who are you, where do you work? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Bill Lowe:I , I'm the c e O of Chicago Methodist Senior Services. One interesting fact about myself is that ever since college, I've never worked for a for-profit organization. I've been in healthcare my whole career. Started my career at Rush Hospital. I wish I could tell you that I knew at like age 18 or 19 that I only wanted to work for nonprofits. But I have to admit that Rush was the best job offer I got out of college that was fortunate. It was a great place to start a career, and it sort of set me on the path to where I am today.
Amber Bardon:Bill, you are pretty well known . I have to tell you every time I'm talking to someone else, and I always have to mention your name and I always stop and say, do you know him? Because a lot of people have heard your name, and the thing that you're really well known for is your vision in collaboration and joint ventures and trying to bring providers together to try to collaborate, inform new entities and provide services and Paris Alliances and output of that. You are one of the owners of the company and the one who came up with the idea for our business model. Today we're gonna be talking about another service and company that you started, and I know it's actually been around for a while , but I think the topic is really pertinent today because staffing is a big challenge. You know, we saw this really crop up during Covid with the Great Resignation. So we're here today to talk about your nurse recruitment program. So to start off with, let's just talk about what is the environment today with staffing and hiring? What are the big challenges you're seeing and how did that drive the creation of the program?
Bill Lowe:The creation of the program actually goes back a ways , Amber. And so we, I guess you could say maybe we had lucky foresight in that we anticipated back in 2005 that there would be a nursing shortage, but we're a small organization as you know, and so we didn't want to just take care of our own needs. Oh , of course, that's always first in , in primary. But also thought that if we were successful with nurse recruitment, that we'd be able to affect other nonprofit organizations by mitigating their, their staffing needs. If we thought we had a problem back then, we didn't know anything, right, because it's just gotten worse and worse. And it wasn't the year of Covid at all that affected us as an organization on our staffing needs. It was after that. I thought that the great resignation was a white collar issue. It's affected right down to our frontline staff for sure. That's been the most frustrating and humiliating development actually, is that we can't find enough CNAs to do the work. After a number of years after starting, we've always been solid with RNs, a hundred percent of them from, from the Philippines. That covered that problem for us, us, but then we did not anticipate a CNA shortage like we have today, and it's more acute for us. And I hear from my peer set that it's also more difficult for most of us to recruit the frontline staff and retain them.
Amber Bardon:So what is the program? Can you do a little bit of a deep dive into how did the program start? What does it do? A little bit more of the details behind it?
Bill Lowe:Yeah. The founder of our program was Rose Poly Cario , who , uh, for many, many years served as our DON and running this program. But , uh, today it's evolved to the , uh, to the point where we're trying to reach more staff from foreign countries and also recruit both RNs and frontline staff, the c n A or caregiver level. The latter is very challenging, but we sort of look back to our history and, and say that I think many organizations would've threw in the towel that point that we kept persevering on the nurse recruitment. It took our first nurses seven and eight years to get to the United States. What we learned is that they were patient, they were still excited to get here, and we learned that we had the patience and the discipline to stay with it. And so we're really glad we did a few years ago. It really took off and we were really proud to have a lot of our workforce shoulder to shoulder with their American-born nurse peers. Uh , during the pandemic really was a relief. We are proud because, you know , we're not reducing the workforce and then deploying them elsewhere. We're actually increasing the workforce from a country whose number one economic engine is sending human resources abroad and then people sending money back home. We've learned that US immigration , uh, can be a challenge. And uh , right now we're under a program called Retro Aggression that the US Immigration Department uses to basically stall immigrants from coming in and they sort of fall into limbo for a period of time before they open up the gates again. And , and that's challenging. What we've tried to do is reach out and just be very creative. I would say at this point I consider it almost a personal, as well as organizational mission for me to find workforces from wherever. However, we've expanded to Liberia and Ghana and Ghana we think will have success bringing in nurses quicker than we will be able to get them from Liberia, but they're both English speaking countries and we're optimistic that, you know, someday have an abundance of those , uh, folks arriving. We've also tried and successfully to assimilate with the Ukrainian immigrants that have come in, and we've been to three different job fairs. Not sure that we're gonna have a whole lot of success out of the box, but we're just gonna stay with it. We become a known commodity and sort of a friend to the Ukrainian immigrants, which is, we're a very mission-based organization, so we're proud of that, but also , uh, trying to help impact the workforce. It's super challenging. I'll , I'll just say that, but we, we go at it every day . New opportunities, even daunting things like, you know, trying to assimilate overabundance of arriving immigrants into our city and all across the country. Uh , I'm being patient with that one because there's just too much politics afoot, but when they decide that they wanna put those people to work, we'll be prepared to serve them and hopefully disseminate those workers across the country to other nonprofit organizations.
Amber Bardon:This program, any community in the country could reach out to you to potentially look at hiring people through this program, is that correct? Correct.
Bill Lowe:It can, and in fact, we have a pretty long waiting list for both , uh, CNAs and RNs. And also today we have close to 120 nurses working across the country at other facilities by rule , we have to be the employer. Then we report them to other nonprofits where , uh, on a full-time three-year contract , uh, agency basis. So when they arrive, you know, the hope is everyone that recruits one of our nurses, the hope is of course, they stay 20 years. That's usually pretty unrealistic. Uh , we've had some people that have stayed longer in our organization, but on average there's no nursing homes in the Philippines. They've worked in hospitals ERs or, and after their service with us, many matriculate into hospitals.
Amber Bardon:Walk me through, what does this look like for a community? So if they work with you and they're able to get a nurse or c n a, what does the process look like? And I also know you have some , um, assimilation tips. One
Bill Lowe:Of the things that we insist upon is that between our organization and their organization, that we provide two months of free housing for the nurses. There's the , the first time they'll , they land at O'Hare, they don't have the resources, so we support and we ask our clients to support them with the housing. The other thing is to make sure that, that they inculcate them properly in into the organization. If they treat them like agency workers, that's not gonna work for morale. So again, hearkening back to dreadful days of covid, you know, if people were doing a hero's bonus for their own staff, we strongly encouraged that. If they wanted to retain Filipino nurses that they, they should treat them and give them the same bonus. Basically they're on our payroll, you know, we would just say , just tell us what you're gonna pay. We'll pass it through without any markup at all, and it's really gonna help for morale and retention. Another factor of the program is it's, we don't separate families. We usually wait , uh, about two months until they're more on their feet, and then we'll bring over a spouse and children. So that's something that was very important to our board to make sure that we weren't, you know, taking nurses from a third world country that needed them to work in our workforce. That the reality is, is they have an overabundance of nurses in the Philippines all eager to work abroad. And so, you know, that that was a moral thing that was, IM important to our board. And of course, not separating families . Super, super important. But as far as the process goes, it starts with a, you know, with a job order and, you know, then we , we maintain and honor that waiting list. We don't know which nurse is going to arrive next or which group of nurses, but when they do, then we introduce them to the organizations. They can Skype or communicate with them however they want. But no one has ever said, we don't want that nurse <laugh>, you know , I think people are just happy to have the cavalry arriving with, you know, with some nurses in to . It's worked out really well. Uh, again, the only drawback is when the US governments to slow the, the flow and it , it , it seems counterintuitive. The politicians aren't really alert to the issue. Do believe that just like we can't grow food in this country without immigrants, I don't think for very much longer we're gonna be able to provide quality healthcare without immigrants arriving to help out.
Amber Bardon:Can you describe how does using a program like this differ from an agency or other types of staffing solutions out there?
Bill Lowe:The one thing that we profess we never want it to be, because it's very difficult work, is to be like a sort of agency that you have a third shift calling and you call us to fulfill that. That's for others to do. And there's, you know, really extreme premiums paid in order to get that emergency staff and they're, they're never familiar with your organization. So you know, you're paying for something that's not necessarily a really good solution. We have vowed to put full-time workers in and mitigate the need for those third shift call in replacements and so on. And to a large extent, we , of course we've mitigated the problem. I have to admit it's a drop in the bucket, but we feel that any movement expanding the workforce is good work.
Amber Bardon:How does this work from a cost perspective? I know you mentioned that they work for your company and they're sort of treated like agency. Can you just explain that? Sure.
Bill Lowe:It's very , uh, simple system and we're very transparent about the approach. So, you know , it starts with a , uh, $1,000 non-refundable deposit to place a job order per nurse. And so frankly, you know, we use those funds to do our recruitment while we're waiting for nurses to arrive. When the nurses arrive, there's an upfront placement fee that binds pay. And then after that, during the three year period, we send an invoice to the client that includes the hours that were paid for that pay period at most, 25% for benefits. And then there's an hourly mark, which can range from like seven 50 to $10 an hour in many cases. We cover the , you know , practice for the nurses, we cover their health insurance. The nurse costs nowhere near like an hour of overtime, which is really great for the staff. So when we started out, we were delivering nurses even less than $40 an hour with our markup included. Today it's mostly above 40, but always generally under 50, unless it's say on the East coast where the market just demands that they make five or $6 more an hour than here in the Midwest. Thanks
Amber Bardon:For explaining that. I think that'll be interesting for our listeners to hear and consider, you know, the impact and the options that are out there to address staffing challenges. I know you mentioned you are currently bringing in nurses and CNAs. What do you see as the future of a program like this? Do you see it growing and you know, starting to work with more countries like you mentioned? Do you see other positions possibly being offered in the future?
Bill Lowe:Yes, it's possible to add other positions. When we first started out, because of the slowness with which nurses could get here, we were providing therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. We actually were a part owner of a therapy company at the time with a dozen other organizations here in the Chicago land area. All of us nonprofits. And so we were basically providing the staff to the company we had a part ownership of. So that felt really good. And you know, we never were a significant part of the workforce, but we always had some percentage of the workforce was provided by our labor. So, and I think you can address that. There's a teacher shortage right now, right? Uh , we tend to believe we'll stay healthcare space and largely the older adult space. But you know, the idea of just speaking back to our motives again, when we make profits off of that, I call that substitute philanthropy. That's like philanthropy, that it's like philanthropy in that those are dollars we can use to support our mission. It's hard, I think it's harder to raise money for, certainly for a long-term care organization than it is to support an organization that supports education or hunger or museums <laugh> . So we, we try to be as resourceful as possible and adding to the pool of funds that can augment the mission. When you have a lot of programs like we do where there's no fees for the service, they have to be supported some way, right? So this helps. I think for others, and I should say anyone can petition just like we did. The tips I would have there is that it takes patience and perseverance. I guess I would encourage anyone who thinks they're gonna be in business 10, 20, 25 years into the future, it would behoove them now to start, you know, either working with an agency like ours, others, or, or doing it themselves, getting an immigration attorney and learning the ropes and just start petitioning. And our track record shows that eventually they will come. And when they do, it's always a joyful thing, you know, for the receiver of those nurses. And we have yet to, you know, the process for CNAs will take longer. We have yet to have our first one arrive, and it's a much smaller pocket of the immigration program that allows CNAs to come over the , the US government prefers higher paid, higher skilled people to come in.
Amber Bardon:Bill, this has been such an interesting conversation. It's, you're doing something so unique and different and you've come up with a really, you know, different approach to a problem that a lot of communities have. So I've really enjoyed having this conversation with you. Is there anything else that you want our listeners to know or you think that they should be aware of about this program or about this concept in general?
Bill Lowe:I would just reiterate that I think people should take advantage of either doing it themselves or working with someone else that that has the same sort of ethic that we do, which is to not exploit the shortage. I have one interesting fact that I'm talking to our insurance agent and belly yanking about that difficulty in finding and retaining CNAs. He brought up a really interesting point. He said that, you know, a few years ago when he attends his, the conferences like in our space, there might be one, you know, at the exhibitor's booths, right? There might be one in the staffing agency. The last time we went, he said there were 17 of 'em . And so we both began to realize is that what's happening in this situation with the shortage is you have , uh, and this is America, right? And we're capitalists, so you can't blame people, but so you have people leveraging the shortage. What they do is they actually shrink the pool of workers by saying, Hey, you know, you don't have to go work for Wesley Place, our skilled nursing facility. You can work for whoever you want to and whenever you want to, you know, and you'll make a couple more dollars an hour, you know , we'll set you up with technology, which I know any of us could do, Amber, and you help people all the time, but you know, you so you can be paid any time you want. That kind of thing. So that can be attractive with younger workforce and the gig economy. And so, but basically what happens is, is they shrink the pool for people that work directly for the employer, they expand the pool of those come at what I would call you, serious rates of hourly rates. And it just, it's just awful. And so the only way to fight that is, is to get in the game yourself with an approach that you know is not exploitative.
Amber Bardon:I think many of our listeners will resonate with that, for sure. Not , not the person . I've heard that sentiment.
Bill Lowe:Yes. Yes.
Amber Bardon:Well, bill, thank you so much. As always, it's always a pleasure to speak with you, and I really appreciate the time you took to talk to us about this topic. Thanks
Bill Lowe:For the opportunity, Amber. I enjoyed it.
Amber Bardon:And listeners, if you like this episode, you can find more of our episodes on our website raising tech podcast.com. If you'd like to send us any feedback, you can also do that through our website, parasol alliance.com . And as always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Amber Bardon, has a stimulating conversation with Bill Lowe, President & CEO at Chicago Methodist Senior Services (CMSS), about how CMSS' international recruiting program is helping their Senior Living community overcome staffing challenges.
Discover how Chicago Methodist Senior Services' innovative hiring program is allowing CMSS to bring on dedicated and professional caregivers to keep their Senior Living community fully staffed by listening to the full episode!
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech podcast. I'm your host, Amber Bardon, and today our guest is Rich Kortum, who is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at KARE. Welcome to the show, Rich.
Rich Kortum:Thanks, Amber. Excited to be on.
Amber Bardon:I am so excited to do this episode. As listeners may know, we have spoken to the c e O of care in the past on a very early episode that we did a while ago, so we thought it was a great time to do a refresh. There's been a lot of changes both in the industry and the staffing experience and in care itself . So really glad to have you here so we can talk about what's going on, what's new. For those listeners who are not familiar with care, to start off with, can you just tell us a little bit about what is care and what are the specific problems you're looking to solve in the industry? Care
Rich Kortum:If for Not Familiar, it's a digital labor marketplace that connects pre-qualified caregivers with communities to help with their staffing challenges. What I mean by labor marketplace is that we have tens of thousands of frontline caregivers that are on our platform that are essentially pre-qualified. We'll do all the verification, making sure that they meet state requirements for their licensed position, background checks, drug screening, and they are then eligible and looking for work. So when communities work with care, it's really to help with a lot of the challenges that they face. In the past, when you look from a third party Labor Sense, agencies been kind of a bad a a , there's a bad reputation I guess, over the years. And a lot of what has been done is what led to the foundation of care that I know Charles has shared with your listeners in the past. But just kind of a recap on that. Agencies typically would have lengthy contracts with communities, quality of labor, it sometimes wasn't the greatest. You had no control who was coming into your community and at the end of the day, if you found somebody you liked , you couldn't hire someone without a stiff penalty. And so those are the things that care really wanted to disrupt and change. And so by having this marketplace of nurses, it's giving communities access to thousands of verified caregivers that can come in and work a shift in their community. So communities when they use care, they just post their own shifts to the platform. They say what type of position they're looking for, give a little shift description, and then thousands of caregivers have access to view that shift. They can apply for that shift. Communities can view the profiles of the care heroes that are on the platform, look at ratings and reviews that have been left about them, and ultimately choose who comes to their building. And if you've had a positive experience with someone, you can hire them for free. So communities are using it not only to help with the immediate challenges of being fully staffed at their communities, but they're starting to look at it at a way that, you know, we can provide relief to our current staff from an overtime perspective and not having to burn our staff out, but also recruit new talent to come into your communities.
Amber Bardon:And if anyone who's listening to this podcast has been to any type of conference in the last two years, I know you have seen care there because your marketing strategy is very bold. It's very out there. Everybody's got the matching t-shirts and they usually have bright orange shoes. And there's definitely a real presence that you can feel with care when you're at a conference. But you also have a very bold marketing strategy with the statement staffing agencies suck. <laugh> , I don't know if you're qualified to dive a little bit into , uh, you know, how you guys came up with that marketing strategy and how effective that's been, but what message are you trying to get out when you say things like that?
Rich Kortum:Yes, we have been very obnoxious with our marketing and if
Amber Bardon:I didn't say that you did <laugh> , it's
Rich Kortum:It's , it's good. We've got a slide that we share that has that on there. It's, it's really come out that way. And when you see something like that, it's, it one catches attention. But we truly want people to understand we're a disruptor to what agencies have done. There's been a lot of challenges. There's been , um, some bad players that have come into the industry, frankly to take advantage of communities from a price gouging standpoint, stealing their staff, you know, and those are things that with care, we truly want to provide communities , uh, a solution that's gonna be able to give them the power and the flexibility to use care when they want however they would like to, and ultimately try to recruit and hire new talent. We encourage communities to do so. Yes, it is a marketing , uh, stance that's really, we, we've kind of been known for it. We're known for for our orange everywhere as I got my orange kicks right back here behind me, shockingly I happen to be in blue today for whatever reason.
Amber Bardon:So one of the things that I really like about care that I always share with our clients is how, and you did kind of briefly mention this when you're giving your overall description, but just to elaborate and make sure people understand this, is that you encourage direct hires to communities and you don't charge any fees. Can you just talk a little bit more in detail about that aspect of the platform?
Rich Kortum:We're encouraging them to go 'cause we know that we've got data that backs a lot of this up that you know, 60% plus of your frontline care staff has some form of secondary job. And our goal is , is to be their secondary job. I mean that second job, they might have minimums on the number of hours specific dates that they have to work. Now they're working and your community Monday morning from eight to four, and then they've gotta go do their second job at five o'clock and head straight to that care gives the caregiver the complete flexibility to make their own schedule, choose where they work when they work. So they might not have to put in that running from one job directly to the next. And so they can find when it's gonna work with their schedule. So even if a community's hiring our people that are on the care platform, there's a strong chance and what we want to do is to continue to grow our, our labor force that's on the care platform to be able to pick up open shifts, utilize it as that secondary job. So
Amber Bardon:I know you've been talking about the clinical aspect with nursing specifically. What is the approach and future vision for other positions that are notoriously difficult to hire for things like dining and housekeeping? Yeah,
Rich Kortum:It is something that's been a been, you know, kind of a thought during the pandemic in some of our larger markets. You know, we were approached and had some conversations with some large hotel operators and it made sense at that time and we did help with some of that staff that was, you know, furloughed or wasn't working at that particular timeframe. That was at a time where we were really trying to grow care. Care started in 2019 and then six months after the first shift is spill the pandemic hits and it kind of changes things up. But we wanted to get back to what we were really focused on was growing that frontline care staff. And we've grown to a point today where in 38 states there is conversations in terms of do we look at it from different solutions in the caregiver standpoint that we know that communities are telling us that they're short staffed with? Is it dining? Is there conversations to be able to bring dining and hospitality back into this? There's always that opportunity I think, in the future. But with that, there also comes some challenges with that where if you have somebody that's housekeeper, there's endless opportunities that are open for them from restaurants, hotels and and whatnot where if you're a C N A, you know, there's, it's a little bit more, you know , siloed in terms of where you're going to be able to go work to use their your skills. So there is conversation potentially. Is it something that we open up again into the future? We are having not to reveal too much, you know, where there's conversations looking, how can we grow our current services today and can definitely expect something into, into the future
Amber Bardon:If a community is struggling with staffing. Talk me through how does using Care compare from an R O I perspective to using an agency or direct hire?
Rich Kortum:Agency rates have really kind of expanded. They've come down some from what I've seen, but we don't tell our partners, our clients what they need to set their rates at. You know, we have the same per hour fee that we add on. If they wanna offer $5 an hour or $50 an hour, it's the same flat rate that goes on to that. Now your , your shift might not have filled if you offered $5 an hour. Our goal is to fall somewhere between what you would pay for your own fully burdened full-time employee and overtime. Um , 'cause we know that overtime number is, is something that's extremely costly and I get it, you know, communities will tell us consistent staff is our best staff and therefore we would rather pay overtime have , you know, third party labor that comes in the building. But when you start looking at your overtime expenses, it continues to add up and continue to grow. And so we wanna provide something that's gonna be able to, you know, be uh, competitive with what you are paying from an overtime perspective where your agency rates are typically far much farther over that. So really finding that sweet spot between what you would pay your own fully burdened employee and and overtime , um, you know, to save cost to the community but also provide a relief, a much needed relief and break for your own current team. Thanks
Amber Bardon:For that explanation. I'm sure that's a big question most of our listeners are thinking about as they listen to this episode. Shifting gears a little bit, as we all know, there's been a lot of transition and change in the industry overall in the last few years. Certainly C O V was a huge part of that. Following Covid , obviously the great resignation and a lot of staffing challenges, what is care seeing as far as the major shifts? Like what would you identify as sort of the major trends in staffing and is there anything that you can share as far as your insight in any of the changes that we're gonna continue to see in the next few years?
Rich Kortum:Communities have really started accepting as much as they can, you know, third party labor and where we've seen, there's been a lot of new entrants that have come into the place and everybody's got their own little niche and things that are there. Communities have really learned from this as we look at who our workforce is today and what they are looking for, we've seen a lot of changes on the community front in terms of offering more flexible shifts and maybe, you know, quicker pay. So I think communities are really pivoting and changing as I've heard from folks that they're , you know, staffing challenges are getting better and being able to retain and recruit new folks. But , uh, some of the other changes we've seen over this timeframe is from a legislative standpoint, and I'm not talking from the large minimum staffing ratio, I know this that we'll might get into that, but states are starting to introduce new legislation to provide, you know, a little bit more transparency in terms of what rates , uh, agencies and third party labor are charging, holding them to specific standards that communities are held to today. And you know, for the most part, you know , Kara a hundred percent supports what is going on from a legislative , uh, perspective. Um , states last year that had some stuff passed , I know Pennsylvania had a agency bill that had passed recently. New York has one. I just sat in on a call yesterday, a briefing to discuss it is that's gonna be rolling out Missouri's rolling something out. But primarily because there's been so many new entrants that have come into the staffing place, there's not a good place to be able to identify who are they, you know, and so first phase is really let's have a registry of who is providing third party labor and then two, they want to understand what rates are. There's not a lot of rate caps that are saying you can't charge over this amount, but we are seeing, we want to understand, you know , uh, what you are accepting, but then also what's being paid to the caregiver they want to see. How far off is that from what you know, staff at communities are, are currently making. So we are seeing a lot of changes there cares pivoted to make sure that we're aligning with these to make sure that we're compliant with that. Some of the things are from Caress model being unique from a 10 99 independent contractor perspective, making sure that our partners are protected by have making sure our heroes purchase insurance policies , uh, from malpractice cybersecurity, just crime insurance to make sure that they're protected when they're in the communities. Also offering an E P L I policy to protect communities from harassment or if anything happens within the , within , within the communities. And that's something that we're seeing in a lot of the legislation as well, is to make sure that, you know, communities feel protected when workers are coming in to their buildings to provide, to provide care for the elders.
Amber Bardon:I think that's a really good point is that I feel not just senior living, but the country as a whole is really in this transition period with traditional employee practices changing a lot and shifting to this gig worker economy. And that's obviously just been a huge disruptor in a lot of other industries and sectors and I think it is now hitting senior living and you're a part of that solution. But it is a mindset shift to get communities to think about this differently. Because as you probably know, a lot of communities have really long-term employees that they've had for a long time and that's been their model. So what would you say to providers to help encourage them to think about this new and different way of providing staffing
Rich Kortum:Gig economy? It's, it's continuing to pop up. You've seen it in other industries. It's coming in in healthcare. It's , it's been there and in senior care and it's, I don't think it's going away anytime soon. And so it's to be accepting of it and you need to look, especially when you're looking at like a model like care that you can hire for free is , is you have a lot of long-term employees that are at these communities. But the other piece that we're not, that we didn't mention is there is, think of the number of employees that are turning over in that first 30 to 90 days . You know, it's a huge number that is, is not there. And communities that feel I I know everybody's been guilty of it, you make a bad hire, you know, it's been so challenging to get candidates to come in when you do have someone come through, you go ahead and , and make the hire. 'cause you definitely need a body that's on , um, on the floor. And so looking at who you're partnering with from a third party labor standpoint, it's can be your best new recruiting method to be able to see somebody. How do they engage with your current team to make sure there's a cultural fit as we know that's so important, but also how are they engaging with your family members and your residents to make sure it's a fit and it is a fit on both sides , you know, well , not just for the community before the caregiver as well, giving them the ability to kind of try before you buy. I think that there's, that's something that it should be a new method of recruiting for, for communities today if it's not.
Amber Bardon:Yeah, we're definitely going through a lot of change right now in , in so many different aspects and this is just a , a part of that. Is there anything you are at liberty to discuss that is new with care that's coming out that people can look forward to?
Rich Kortum:We will have some things, but some of the changes that we've, that we've made and , and making sure our clients, it's really just to provide a little bit more transparency with the help that were being provided. You're able to see hours that heroes have worked for you. So that way if you're curious to make sure that somebody's not working over X number of hours in a period of time, providing a little more flexibility for communities to see that. Really just continuing to enhance the platform to make it more user friendly for those. And also, you know, we're really kind of pushing and growing our partnerships piece with other vendors and different partners that we can do so that way we can certainly be a resource to be able to, you know, help with other issues that you currently might be having that we can certainly make introductions to our partners, to others that we feel might be a good value add for 'em .
Amber Bardon:Rich, we've covered a lot of topics today. I'm really glad we got a chance to sit down together again. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know about care before we wrap up?
Rich Kortum:I think one of the things is everybody looks at it just from a providing labor type of standpoint, but I do think one important notice is because we have so many caregivers on our platform, we get the opportunity to ask them questions, not just what's your shift preference and this and that. We ask questions in terms of what motivates you to come to work each day. If you were offered an extra dollar 50 an hour at, you know , the hospitality industry, would you leave? And it's some pretty fascinating data. We get into a lot of stuff on benefits, but then we also ask community leaders these same types of questions and so you can really see where there's alignment, but then also where we might be missing the boat on some of these things. I I encourage folks, you know , check out, you know, our white papers that we do have, but if there's even one piece of advice that I can offer off of this, we learn so much by asking questions and we love to go around and speak on this. I encourage, you know, communities to make sure that you're asking questions to your caregivers. You're gonna learn so much one of the studies that we do have and we start asking, you know, about disrespect and we dove into disrespect a little bit more. And why don't you feel respected? Caregivers are saying, well, you're not listening to my ideas. So if you are going to ask these questions, it's extremely even more important that you do something with it to show that you're taking in consideration what they're saying , uh, to be able to drive improvement for you. And ultimately I think it's something that can lead to your retention rates , uh, but also from helping from a recruitment standpoint because I think your current employees could be some of your best recruiters and if they enjoy where they're working, they're gonna be able to talk well about it out to their friends. I
Amber Bardon:Agree with you a hundred percent on that and I didn't know that you guys had all that data. It's really interesting to know. It's something that I learned today as part of our conversation. Do you share that with all of your clients or is it available with your white papers? Like you said,
Rich Kortum:It's , it's available in white papers that we have on the website. It's, it is something that we will push out. Our marketing team pushes new things out to our partners as it's there. Typically on the website you can go and download any of those white papers that do get published.
Amber Bardon:So speaking of that, how can our listeners find out more about care and who can they reach out to if they'd like to learn more
Rich Kortum:Simply? Our, our website is do you care.com and cares with a k? You go on there, you can certainly, there's, there's a link at the bottom of the page that'll say, subscribe now or you can learn more about care. You can go to the community experience, need the hero form. You can simply complete something and it sends it to our team or we're able to follow up with you. Otherwise, there's also a number on the website.
Amber Bardon:Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Rich Kortum:Thank you.
Amber Bardon:And listeners, if you'd like to find more episodes on Raising Tech, you can find them on our website, parasol alliance.com under the resources page. And as always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Amber Bardon, has a thought-provoking conversation with Rich Kortum, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for KARE, about how KARE's digital labor platform provides prequalified caregivers to help Senior Living communities overcome staffing challenges.
Discover how KARE is allowing Senior Living communities to decrease overtime, reduce burnout of their current employees and easily hire dedicated frontline employees without paying expensive agency fees. Learn how KARE is providing flexible workplace solutions using a modern twist.
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Let’s start a conversation
Want to learn more about us?
Podcast questions or ideas?
Looking for client support?
Let us know!
Parasol Alliance:
773.219.2220
Tech@Home:
414.219.9806
Mailing Address:
557 Forest View Rd.
Lindenhurst, Il 60046