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.
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Welcome to Raising Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Amber Barden. And today we have Matt Just. Matt Just is the founder and developer of the software behind Plan of Correction 365. Plan of Correction 365 is an AI driven platform designed to simplify and streamline the compliance process.
Welcome to the show, Matt.
Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here, Amber. appreciate the invite and the intro.
the podcast is a long time coming for a little peek behind the scenes, but we have rescheduled this recording so many times because you’ve gone through a complete rebrand and restructure and our topic compliance.
It’s not something that people get super excited about, but it’s something we all need. I’ve had a lot of clients asking about compliance tools lately. So I’m really excited to dig into this. first of all, just tell our listeners, who are you? Who is Matt?
Yeah. So, I’m Matt. I’m actually a consultant pharmacist by trade, have been in long term care space, assisted [00:01:00] living, post acute care, skilled, nursing communities for Jeepers.
It’s been about 12, 13 years I’ve been in the industry. I’ve been a software entrepreneur, developer, sort of dabbling in that type of stuff. created, a previous infection control platform and have since moved on to Plan of Correction 365, which, which you mentioned isn’t, is a AI automated compliance management platform.
we’re really focusing on. that compliance component of long term care, which, can be Very mundane at times, but extremely necessary in the industry. we’re here to help with that. we do a lot of things, leveraging AI. in the long term care space, AI is sort of this nebulous topic, that’s a very much a buzzword right now.
we really need to leverage in long term care. That’s my opinion to create efficiencies. as you know, Amber, there’s a lot of team member shortage in the long term care industry. And [00:02:00] so I think communities really need to embrace a I technology to become more efficient. Given that lack of team member capabilities sometimes we have as well as availability for for those positions.
So leveraging those AI tools can be really important to create efficiency over time within long term care. tell me a little bit about this shift to compliance. you originally started out in pharmacy and then you made this change. Did you identify a gap in the marketplace or tell me a little bit about that evolution?
Yeah. we launched the business about, 12 months ago and launched the platform. Functionality and capability about, two months ago and have had much success with the platform my transition focused on long term care and main pain points Talking to my consultant clients I kept hearing the term compliance come up, I saw the frustration and panic that happens not only during the survey process for everyone involved, but even after.
the survey [00:03:00] process. this frustration and panic lingered throughout the post survey process. that’s when a lot of the work really occurs in terms of providing that plan of correction to the state. What are we going to do with our team members to become compliant?
What kind of education and policy reviews need to happen? I thought, why not leverage AI for that? we have so many open source tools that can help Create efficiencies in that post survey process and reduce that survey anxiety that people can experience with that survey process after the surveyors leave the building.
And that’s where I really identified that gap. I thought, there could be something to improve efficiency within that post survey process. And that’s Planet Correction 365. tell me a little bit more about that. is your tool specifically focused on survey or do you also do incident reporting or what is included in that compliance component?
Right. we take that 2567 or that assisted living survey [00:04:00] document extract data from it and leverage our AI tool to automate the process of writing your plan of correction we take what usually has taken hours to days to weeks to do and reduce the time to create a plan of correction specific to what you were cited on, within minutes.
we leverage our technology to create audit templates and tools for you. when you get surveyed and get a deficiency, we grab that information and create every tool you need around that post survey process to become compliant. including audit tools, audit calendars, policy and procedure.
we leverage our automation to create PowerPoints for you for educational purposes and really how is everything in that post survey process in our system. In addition to that, you know, not only do we focus on being compliant in [00:05:00] the moment, but also what can we do for the future to ensure that we really minimize our risk for obtaining potential deficiencies.
we have a proactive Insight tool within Planet Correction 365 that allows you to see regionally what deficiencies communities are getting in your area How do I prevent that deficiency from occurring in my community? What can I look at for policy and procedure?
What kind of audits can I create around that we have created the ability for mock survey templates to be uploaded to our system, creating plans of correction, finding those deficiencies, and putting proactive tools and processes in place to prevent survey tags from occurring.
Okay. Interesting. Is there anything else like this on the marketplace? No, we’re really only the, we’re the only company that’s really leveraging automation and AI to, to create plans of correction for people. So, yes. Yeah. I haven’t heard of that before. I know that there is a [00:06:00] big need for, um, more automated and streamlined incident reporting.
Is that something you’re going to be spotting in the future? Yeah. So the evolution of our platform really is driven by our clients. And so, you know, we have a large number of clients on board that are providing feedback for us that are providing guidance. And we’re really letting them be in the driver’s seat for future development and functionality.
We’ve already had some great suggestions on adding um, A couple of fields for survey process, survey dates, and those type of things really create the reporting capabilities needed on the back end to, to really leverage what, what long term care is needing in those reports and whatnot. we’re really letting our clients sit in the driver’s seat and tell us, what do you need?
And I think that’s unique about our company. We’re really. We’re really focused on client satisfaction and, and getting feedback from them to create a platform that really is a robust platform. So, [00:07:00] um, I don’t know if incident reporting is on our roadmap at this point in time, but we’re letting our clients sit in the driver’s seat and, and, and tell us what they need in the post compliance space.
Makes sense. Do you have any advice for communities on navigating the survey process or anything that you’ve learned or tips or tricks that you could share? Yeah, well, you know, as, as a lot of individuals know, time is of the essence when it comes to the post survey process, um, uh, citations and fines can accumulate very rapidly on a day by day basis if you’re out of compliance in, in certain areas.
Um, You know, our platform is really focused on saving that time and getting you a compliant as fast as possible. And that’s what I would focus on. So, once the surveyors leave the building, you need to have the ability to respond quickly to their, their recommendations and their, their actions as well as when you get that 2567, that document.
You have a [00:08:00] certain amount of time to respond. And so, you know, time is of the essence in that regard. So my advice is to be timely, um, get that response back, get the survey process behind you in that respect and look towards the future to really prevent those tags. AI is super cool. We can really leverage it to slice and dice data however we really want to in the snap of a finger.
And I think in addition to being timely, we also need to be proactive in a lot of respects with that survey process. So timeliness and proactiveness are essential and leveraging AI to create efficiency for you. Why not? Why not do that? So do you have? Sorry, we’ll start that over. When we think about AI, I think there’s a lot of opportunity and excitement people have with what it can do.
But I know there’s also concerns on the privacy side. So can you talk a little bit about how can you [00:09:00] ensure that this data that’s going into a survey process utilizing AI is safe? How is it safeguarded and how does it remain private? Right? Yeah. So we take privacy very, very seriously here at Planet Correction 365.
And we know that You know, a lot of communities don’t want their data out in the open air within the AI realm. We only hand AI what is needed to create a plan of correction, and we’ve really created our own little in house AI component and functionality that really keeps things in that tight knit circle.
So we don’t hand AI any more information that it needs, no community information, nothing about that. Here’s the survey tag, we’ve trained you on the process of the, of the survey deficiencies. Create a plan of correction that is accurate for this specific deficiency, and let’s move on in that survey process.
So, but you’re right, there is a lot of concern on the industry within the AI realm about that privacy. [00:10:00] And, you know, I think In some respects, Amber, I think we need to sort of get over that privacy. Um, you know, I think that, uh, there is a concern, but when you talk about holding a cell phone in your hand, all your private information is already out there anyway.
So, my focus is really how can we leverage it to create efficiency within that long term care space. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like it is a little bit defeatist, but yeah. Yeah. Understand that people also have concerns about that. And that’s something I hear, I hear frequently and I don’t always know what the answer is to that either.
It does feel like a lot of it is just out of our control and we have to give up a lot of privacy to get some of this automation and efficiency. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. Absolutely. And another thing is like, I feel like when long term care, you know, I’ve been at conferences and they, they, they think about AI and this really, uh, uh, what am I trying to say?
You’re thinking about [00:11:00] AI in this very broad space and this very, all encompassing component of AI. With long term care, you don’t have to adopt a robot that hands your, uh, your residents meals. Like that’s, start small, I guess is my point with AI. What can you use right now to create exponential efficiency in your community, reduce operational disruptions, And that really is a lot around the post survey process in the survey process in general.
So, you know, I always encourage long term care communities. You don’t need to think of AI in this all encompassing fashion. How am I going to adopt? something that, you know, passes meals to my residents, um, and has very, a big expense tag behind that. You can leverage AI very, uh, inexpensively to create exponential efficiency.
And that’s what we’re here to do at Planet Correction 365. Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, AI [00:12:00] is such a buzzword. Like you said at the beginning of the meeting, you know, you go to a conference and people are just like, Throwing AI out there all over the place, but not a lot of people are talking about the practical application of it.
And what does it actually mean? And like you said, it can be in so many different ways. So AI could be, you know, taking notes of our call that we’re on right now, or it could be writing policies for us to chat GPT. Um, or it could be something more advanced with like data analytics and things like that.
But I think it’s just such a case by case use. Um, scenario that you have to look at specifically what it is you’re looking for and asking about than just the sort of general AI. And so I think we’re going to, you know, actually, actually think, um, we’ve talked about doing a podcast series where we talk about practical application of AI and how can you actually use it?
Because that’s the question everybody has. Yeah, I think, I think you’re right. I think that can be a tough spot to sort of start. Like people think about where do I start with AI? And I think you’re right. The practical applications can be difficult to extract in terms of what can I [00:13:00] use it for. And, you know, my advice would be to start small.
You don’t need to adopt this all encompassing AI technology all at one time. Start in small bites and move forward. What can you leverage right now that’s out there in the market to create exponential efficiency? So sorry, I couldn’t find you. Uh, Matt, can you give us an example of a specific client you’ve worked with or a use case or a success story you can share?
Oh, right. Yeah. Uh, many different ones I could choose from, but I, I always revert back to, you know, a couple of, you know, surveys that didn’t go great. They had a lot of citations, the coordination that it’s going to take to manually create a plan of correction for each different citation. This one community had 47 different citations and 160 page PDF documents.
So you can imagine the, [00:14:00] the, uh, burden that that might occur, uh, that might, um, Yeah, be on that community’s plate for that process. And we were able to turn around a plan of correction for them utilizing our software within 10 minutes. We had a fully complete plan of correction that was written. They were able to become compliant very quickly and, and move on from that process.
We also had the same client, uh, unfortunately get an IJ tag. Um, that needed a plan of correction that day, like within hours, and so, you know, they were really struggling to come up with that on their own, but leveraging our tool, we were able to create a plan of correction for them that the surveyors looked at, accepted very quickly, and moved on in their survey process.
Well, Matt, I think you really created a product is really necessary, and there’s a gap in the marketplace. So I really appreciate you coming on and telling our listeners about it. Is [00:15:00] there anything we haven’t talked about that you want to let our listeners know? Yeah, I would like to let you know about our, um, Uh, our partnership with the Institute for Post Acute Care and Ayesha Kallur, um, very excited for that, uh, for, for Planet Correction 365, um, partnering with them and, and, and getting their knowledge in the industry has been extremely beneficial.
They’ve really provided guidance on the functionality of the website and really leveraged that clinical, uh, uh, aspect in terms of the plan of correction that we’re looking to, to generate and write. And, you know, I’m very excited and, and, and wanted to just give them a shout out for what they, uh, for what that, what they do on an everyday basis.
Excellent. Where can our listeners learn more? you can visit our website at plan of correction, three 65. com. that’s where you can get all the information about the platform. Uh, we really you know, [00:16:00] the simplicity of the signup process, simplicity of the pricing structure. You know, we’re here to help long term care and create efficiencies.
And that’s what we’re focused on is assisting in that post compliance process. that’s where you can find more information, PlanetCorrection365. com. Thanks Matt. Thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks
In this episode of Raising Tech Podcast, host Amber Bardon talks with Matt Just, founder and developer behind Plan of Correction 365 (POC-365)—an AI-driven platform aimed at simplifying the compliance process in long-term care. Matt shares his background as a consultant pharmacist, his transition to software development, and the evolution of POC-365.
They discuss how the platform automates the creation of compliance plans, reducing the time and effort required post-survey, and the importance of adopting AI to improve efficiencies in the long-term care sector. The discussion also covers client success stories, privacy considerations in using AI, and the future direction of the platform based on client feedback.
You can find more about POC-365 on their website!
Matt Reiners: Welcome back. Today we meet with Checked In Care, a SaaS company based out of Australia who’s changing the landscape of customer and staff experience in the care industry We’ll meet with founder and CEO of Checked In Care, John Perkins from Australia today.
And we also have on this interview, John Bosen, the president of their first USA customer advantage home care, based out of St. Louis. we’ll explore many of the benefits that this Australian company is bringing to U. S. based companies in the aged care and senior living industry.
thanks for joining me today, both Johns. first question I have for you, John Perkins is, can you just tell me the why behind Checked In Care?
John Perkins: Yeah, thanks, Matt. And thanks for having us on your podcast today. I’ve been working in the care sector since 1994,
My great aunt, who was heavily involved [00:01:00] in raising us, went into a senior living facility, And I remember walking in to see her and thinking, wow, you live a meaningful life and this is how it ends. And that really sparked a deep question inside me because the dignity of the end of life wasn’t there.
So that sort of lit that spark and led to me starting to work for not for profit care providers. I then started my first technology company in 1995. After selling that company,In 2001, I co founded another company called Ethan Group, which became Australia’s largest privately owned IT company, which delivered broad services to the care sector.
But what I noticed during that time was how self service capabilities, such as what you saw in the care retail industry, hospitality industry, even financial services industry, Where people could access what they wanted, when they wanted it, anywhere, anytime. you could go online at 10:30 at night and find out what you needed to know.
That was not happening in the care [00:02:00] industry. when you add the fact that in the care industry, it’s quite often families that are calling in and they’re anxious about knowing how their loved ones being looked after. That was the core reason behind starting Checked In Care. It was very much around bringing to the care industry the same self service capabilities that was happening in every other industry.
So that if a family member, or even the client, wanted to know what was happening with their care, they could access that information 24/7. What we’ve done is, we’ve actually Connect to a broad range of back end systems and bring all that information into a single screen, whether it’s an app or your desktop, so that whatever you need to know or you as a family member need to know about the care of an individual is available through that one app.
But also that’s extended now to staff, where there is so much app fatigue in the care industry. We bring all that information now into one single screen, one [00:03:00] window for staff to access the five, six, eight, 10 systems that they need to do their daily job.
Matt Reiners: Yeah, it’s such a smart idea. I went and spoke to a group late last year, and someone mentioned they had 15 different apps on their phone, all required to do their job, all at different logins, it was a pain in the butt, right?
Like it’s just not a way, in a industry that prides ourselves in the care that we provide to have all of this. in one stop shop I love that. I know we’ll get to John Bosen here talking from the client experience, but I’m wondering John Perkins, if you can share some of the business outcomes, your clients are experiencing today.
John Perkins: Yeah. So Matt, the global issue that everyone’s having is staff availability and retention. And globally, as we talk to our customers, the number one issue they’re having with staff and when they do exit interviews with staff, the key issue that staff continually raise is they just don’t know what’s going on in the organization.
There’s not [00:04:00] enough communication. A lot of care workers who are mobile. They actually don’t access email, and the standard way that organisations communicate with their staff today is by email. And when our global partners have been looking at the reason why staff are leaving and it’s hard to retain staff, it’s because staff are saying, we don’t know what’s going on, there’s no communication, and there’s too much paperwork.
Even though these organisations have the systems in place, it’s too hard to access those 15 systems at the back end. we solve that problem, we connect to those 14 or 15 systems, we bring all that information into one single screen, and we enable that full communication channel.
everything the organization wishes to communicate with their staff is accessed through that one screen, that one app. solving the communication issue and access to those corporate systems. from a HIPAA compliance point of [00:05:00] view, staff are only allowed to see the information they’re allowed to see based on their role.
if you’re not supposed to see clinical information, if you’re a cleaner, you’re do not have access to that, our system solves that problem by only giving you access to the information you need based on your role.we have both the staff and the client app from a client point of view.
whether it’s the client or family members, you’re in a high stress scenario. You wish to know how your loved one’s going. And today, 70, 70, 70 percent of all calls into long term care facilities go either unanswered or someone says, I’ll get back to you, but they’re just so busy.
We help address that issue because those calls get dramatically reduced because the client or the family have access to the information they want when they want it. Reducing complaints, increasing transparency of that information to individuals and therefore substantially reducing staff effort because the [00:06:00] client or family members can find out the information they want when they want it.
Matt Reiners: I love that. I think where we’re going in terms of a working force, That transparency is key, And making sure you’re keeping that front and center. as we navigate the next five to ten years, I do see transparency continue to playing even that much larger of a role.
And I’m curious, this is for John Bosen, who hopefully gets an award for being the first U. S. based client of your guys. But John, I’m, John Bosen, I’m curious, what is the business problem that Checked In Care is helping you solve? And how’d you learn about Checked In Care?
John Bosen: great questions, Thanks for bringing him up. I met john accidentally as most relationships go, it’s right place and right time. I’ve been on the same software for about 20 years and we’re looking to switch we call it E. M. R. S, which is a electronic medical record.
We’re looking to switch softwares and the salesman of the new platform Introduced me to John he happened to be coming to the States for an event and we met up the clouds [00:07:00] aligned and here we are today
apprehensive because I don’t want to share the good magic that John’s done with the rest of the states. And so I understand that all that stuff that John said is true and great, but I’m biased and that I want to keep a secret for myself. And again, I’m being cheeky. So I hope you can see that.
in all honesty John’s company solves a huge problem that I have in the home care industry it’s very segmented. A lot of stuff is still on paper. As John talked about, communicating with your team is a challenge in itself.
And I’ll just frame this for you so that you can see for yourself and your audience can see for themselves. here in St. Louis, we have a pediatric hospital called children’s hospital. They have about 150 beds. I have 4, 000 clients throughout Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, and Tennessee, administered through 50 office locations out of those locations, about 4, workers.
They don’t come in and so they don’t have access. You go [00:08:00] to the hospital every seven to 11, those shifts change, There’s healthcare workers leaving, there’s healthcare workers coming. They have support, they have policies, they have training, and if somebody doesn’t do what they need to do, all you gotta do is wait outside the doors and you can intercept ’em and train ’em
Home care is very segmented and it’s done like business was done 30 or 40 years ago. COVID for example. Prior to COVID, there was nothing electronic, no employment applications, or any of that stuff you order an HVAC guy to come out to your house, you get a picture of himhis likes, dislikes, his favorite color, you get all these things that tell you when to expect them, what he looks like and all these things, you order a home care worker, you Something that’s pretty intrusive.
You don’t know who you’re getting. You don’t know when they’re coming. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t. And the lack of communication is missing. John plugged that void by supplying an easy platform that allows them to get the service that they need when they need [00:09:00] it, Imagine somebody interacting with your mom or dad that has dementia. And you trying to maintain a full job
And so nothing like my mom or my wife managing my mom’s needs. And John made that all doable as easy as with an app, as easy as typing in the phone number from my mom’s instance, without even involving me and giving her designated responsible party access to whatever information at their fingertips.
So they can make better decisions so that they can give quality care or partner with us to make sure they get the quality of care they need in the comfort of their home.
Matt Reiners: Wow. Love that. Talk about a testimonial. that’s so awesome to hear John Bosen.
I appreciate you sharing that with us. And I can understand being the first you don’t want the word to get out for everybody else, but hopefully John Perkins can take care of you in one way or another for doing that. John Bosen, another question I have for you, and you hit on it a little bit, but I always see this probably [00:10:00] more so a hesitation to work with some companies from outside the U.
S. market, bringing in solutions and services into the U. S. have there been any challenges that they’re based in Australia?
John Bosen: Noquite the contrary. I’ve been in this home care industry for 20 years.
I’ve been talking about an employee application since cell phones have come out, I’m only 45, but this is the first job I’ve ever really had. we’ve been talking about an employee app for literally 20 years. The man delivered that easily and It’s a breath of fresh air because what I like about John is he came here without any preconceived notions of what I wanted and in a typical salesman fashion, he listened, okay, but didn’t put me on what he wanted to put me on.
He put on, put me on a problem and trying to solve something and that goes a long way. he didn’t try to sell me something out of the box. He came to. solve my problem. in all honesty, that’s how the conversation started.
It’s not this is what we think [00:11:00] it’s tell me what you need. And he’ll tell you anything’s possible. It’s just how much it’s going to cost you. if he’s committed to it, He’s committed to making it work,
The hardest part is he’s on a different schedule but he’ll get up and have conversations with me And so I think that’s a, he can tell you how that converts in Australian time, but I sure don’t have a problem.
Matt Reiners: No that’s awesome to hear. And I know right now I just had to Google it.
It’s 6 20 AM in Sydney. So John Perkins waking up early to take part in this. And it’s so refreshing to hear. And I think John Bosen and you kinda, you mentioned like a typical salesperson my problem is I see typical salespeople are not like that. John actually coming in and listening and building a solution that makes sense versus forcing something upon you.
That’s where I’ve seen the most successful. Partnerships, not just a vendorship release is when you can work off the direct client feedback of what works well, what’s not working well and create a best solution for that. And then John boasted another question back to you. When you think about the [00:12:00] future with your partnership with Checked In Care, what do you hope as it evolves over time?
And would you recommend them to other us based providers that are not your competitors?
John Bosen: Yes, absolutely. You said it right there.
We are here in Missouri. we started with the caregiver side of it. The future is both a client side and a caregiver side of the app. in all honesty, more and more. Five years from now, it’ll be 22, five years from there it’ll be 44.
the answer is as fast as he can develop, we’ll continue to bring. More and more functionality to the table. And really it’s just as fast as what problems come up and how can John solve them? What I have now is a virtual mailbox. in front of every client and every caregiver that travels with them.
I’ve been waiting for that for 20 years. So I’m excited about our future.
Matt Reiners: I love that. question for you, John Perkins. It sounds like you’ve got a raving client and the St. Louis, Missouri area, but what are some of your other future plans for North America?
John Perkins: thanks, Matt. We’ve hired people in [00:13:00] North America now, and it’s a matter of building the team and scaling our capabilities into the market.
What we see in this part of the world, in Australia, New Zealand is we are consistently allowing or achieving a 40 percent reduction in inbound and outbound calls. Why? Because clients families and staff have access to what they need when they need it so they don’t need to call.
Substantially reducing complaints and we typically see an increase in revenue per client of 1, 000 per annum. because the family and the client can see the whole range of other services that they can access through, through that one provider. So really it’s about bringing that same capability and business outcomes to North America.
And to do that, we’re building the team, we’re scaling the team in North America. It’s really a matter of our growth and the great work thatwe love working with John Bosen and his team. And it’s a matter of [00:14:00] replicating that across many more customers. very excited to be in the States.
Very excited to see our growth and keen to bring the same outcomes that we’re consistently saying to providers in the U S market.
Matt Reiners: Awesome. Super exciting. And I’m always excited when I see new companies breaking into the North American market. at times we think we’ve got all the solutions here, which is just not the case at all.
I’m always looking for other people to bring innovative ideas into it. last question, either John can take it. Any final thoughts you want to share that you haven’t had the chance to share quite yet?
John Bosen: Matt, we call him internally. We call him me the States, John, and that’s Aussie, John. And so there’s the first two things you didn’t know about our names. And so we’ll give you that. But then for me and all honesty, I think the takeaway here Is that John brings flexibility
He’s not bolted onto any platform. He’s going to solve your problems and address your needs and bring his solution and try best to go after your specific problems. For me, I think that’s the takeaway [00:15:00] here. It’s not a it’s not a specific solution, but it’s a solution that has the right back end and the right customer service to streamline any kind of software you need.
Matt Reiners: And then Aussie John, anything else?
John Perkins: Our mission as a company is a world where all people live their best lives with choice and dignity. it’s about putting that choice into the hands of the consumer and staff what
excites us about the North American market is it’s very heavily privately paid. Where the choice is much more in the hands of consumer. Whereas in our part of the world, it’s very much government funded. we’re seeing enormous amount of excitement for our solution in North America because the, the nature of a more properly paid system.
We’re very excited to be there and watch our growth as we go forward. The customer and potential customer we’ve met so far in North America have been awesome. John Bosen, certainly the top of the tree, butwe love working in the North American [00:16:00] market.
Matt Reiners: Awesome. Thank you, Aussie John andUS John, this was a great episode and really grateful to hear the success that US John you’re having with Aussie John’s service. Awesome job, guys. Thanks, man.
John Bosen: Nice talking to you, man. Thank you,
John Perkins: Thanks for having us.
You can find us online at RaisingTechPodcast. com where you can see all of our episodes and contact us to provide feedback or submit an episode idea. We are on social media everywhere at Raising Tech Podcast. If you enjoy Raising Tech, please leave us a review and share with a friend. Music is an original production by Tim Riesig, one of our very own Parasol Alliance employees.
As always, thank you for listening.
Join us on today’s episode as we connect with John Perkins, founder and CEO of Checked In Care, a pioneering SaaS company from Australia transforming the aged care and senior living industry. We’re also joined by John Boson, president of their first U.S. partner, Advantage Home Care, based in St. Louis. Together, they discuss the groundbreaking solutions Checked In Care is bringing to the care industry, enhancing transparency, reducing inefficiencies, and improving both client and staff experiences.
From Perkins’ personal inspiration rooted in dignity and end-of-life care to Bosen’s firsthand success with the platform, we explore how this innovative solution is bridging communication gaps, solving retention challenges, and streamlining care delivery. Discover how Checked In Care is shaping the future of caregiving with a client-first approach.
Hey everyone, my name is Alex Reckard. I am a resident IT technician for Parasol Alliance, and I’m currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. I will be your presenter for this month’s Tech at Home resident exclusive miniseries, and the topic is going to be all about artificial intelligence. Now, I’m sure plenty of you have heard of artificial intelligence before, so this will be a great refresher for a lot of you.
And if you haven’t, hopefully you’ll learn quite a bit with this presentation. With this presentation, we’ll explore how machines mimic human thinking and discover practical applications for everyday life. Now going over the overview, which will be the structure for the presentation.
We’re going to first go over understanding AI, also known as Artificial Intelligence, the benefits of AI, risks and concerns, practical applications, AI tools, and [00:01:00] Followed by demonstrations.
Alright, so I wanted to do a pop quiz at the beginning of the presentation. And as we go through each image, can you distinguish whether it was generated by AI?
I’ll zoom in for you so that you can get a better look at each of the image,
alright? I’ll give you a few seconds. You can feel free to pause the video if it makes it that much easier for you to get a better look at each of the image. And then, you can resume the video if you are paused, and then I’ll let you know the answers.
Alright, what do you think? Do you think you got all of them correct? Alright, so let’s go on to the first one. So we can see that this image looks really great. He looks really cozy. He has a nice knitted sweater. And if you actually guessed if this was captured by a human being, unfortunately, it is not.
It’s AI generated. And then going on to this image looks like it could be a great LinkedIn profile [00:02:00] photo. But if you mentioned that it was captured by a photographer, unfortunately it’s not. It’s AI generated as well. And you guys can probably catch on and see that there’s a pattern going on and if you did, in fact, think that this was captured by a human being, unfortunately this photo is generated by AI as well.
All these photos were generated by artificial intelligence. And now you’re probably thinking, how is this even possible? And I have to say, yes, it’s quite Interesting how someone even came up with technology that can do this it’s almost like magic to say the least, but the AI tool that I used to be able to make these images is a AI tool called mid journey.
And so mid journey allows for the generation of images. And it’s really come a long way and these are some of the images that I came up for this pop quiz that I wanted to add a little bit of interactivity [00:03:00] to the presentation. With that being said, let’s actually move on to the contents in the presentation as well.
Alright, now We will be understanding artificial intelligence, and with this slide we’ll go over a lot of the origins and history of AI and how it became to be what it is now. Alright what AI does is that it mimics human logic and reasoning, and its origin was actually from Dartmouth in 1956 by John McCarthy.
And he coined the term of Artificial Intelligence. And so what Artificial Intelligence does is that it’s actually a combination of various different subjects, such as Computer Science, also known as CS. Mathematics and Neuroscience. So it’s a mix of math, computers, and even a bit of psychology and neuroscience.
And then AI is all about data driven, adaptive systems. [00:04:00] AI thrives on using data, and the more data that it gets, the better that it can learn. And so the better that it can learn can improve automation, as well as optimization. This helps influence globally and also it continuously evolves each and every day.
Now going on to the benefits of artificial intelligence. And so some of the benefits that it allows us to have is automation saves individuals time and effort. And a lot of repetitive tasks end up becoming a lot easier and more convenient for us and if you ever use YouTube you can understand that a lot of videos end up getting recommended to you.
That’s actually artificial intelligence behind the scenes creating algorithms to better tailor your experiences for which video to watch and which video to recommend you watch next. This helps individuals gain access to more information as [00:05:00] well. It helps to foster innovation and enables further development, as well as optimize resource usage for environmental conservation.
Now, where there are benefits, there’s always going to be risks with everything. Automation may actually lead to a bunch of job losses as well, because a lot of repetitive tasks end up being automated, and machines are being used for those repetitive tasks and then a lot of human workers unfortunately will lose their jobs due to artificial intelligence.
Another risk is privacy concerns via personal data collection. And whenever you’re using an AI tool, you’ll have to make sure not to use any sensitive information or privacy that you wouldn’t want to share with a stranger. That’s something that you would have to keep in mind. false information from prompt hallucinations as well.
And so what I mean about prompt hallucinations is [00:06:00] that sometimes in these AI tools is that it might give back information that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And it could come off as, false information at times. Another risk is reliance on tech also has a chance of reducing critical thinking.
The potential misuse in AI development can also be a major risk. It could be unfortunately used for spam or malicious purposes, and that’s something that we have to be aware of. And then also a risk would be energy consumption. E waste and carbon emissions.
Alright, now going on to practical applications. There are a lot of virtual assistants that help perform tasks. If you’re ever aware of Siri, Siri is a very popular Apple virtual assistant. That helps you with a lot of day to day tasks, such as being able to call people much [00:07:00] easier, or be able to send text messages, or search things on the web for you much quicker.
And if you’re not familiar with Siri maybe you might be more familiar with Amazon’s Alexa as well, and that allows you to do a lot of similar tasks. Another practical application is that algorithms personalize recommendations. AI can actually translate text and speech in real time. For example, if you’re ever on a trip in a foreign country and you use an AI tool that allows one of the native speakers there that speaks in a different language, what you can do with the AI tool is get the input of their language and then whatever the output set as is your native language, it can allow you to translate
whatever that person is trying to speak to you about. Another practical application is autonomous vehicles help enhance safety measures as well. A very popular [00:08:00] autonomous vehicle or uses self driving is Tesla. And then smart home optimizes energy usage. So if you use a lot of smart devices for your home, you can be able to control the heating or cooling of your home as well as the lights.
If you ever need to turn off the lights whenever you’re away from the home it just allows you to be able to optimize energy usage as well. And then another practical application is monitoring both your fitness and health metrics.
Alright, now moving on to artificial intelligence tools. So in this slide, we’ll have different types of categories for each AI tool, with the first one being all about text. So text, AI tools and one that you might be very familiar of will be ChatGPT, and then followed by Gemini and Copilot. And a really popular imaging tool, and one that I’ve used in this presentation, [00:09:00] was called MidJourney.
And then another is DALL-E, and also Leonardo. And then going on to video AI tools, we have Sora, which is also another open AI tool, which is from ChatGPT and also Runway Machine Learning. Now, going on to voice AI tools, there’s Speechify. natural readers, and AI covers that you can find on YouTube.
Image recognition AI tools are Google Lens, Apple Face ID, as well as Tesla. And, what Tesla does for image recognition, for example, is that their vehicles are able to identify what obstacles are on the road, so that if it ever needs to make a maneuver, It can be able to do a safe maneuver around that obstacle.
And then procedurally generated games such as Minecraft, Terrari, and Valheim, all use AI related technology to be able to achieve these procedurally [00:10:00] generated games. Alright, now going on to the demonstration of the video. So the demonstration will highlight examples from the AI Tool Chat GPT, including crafting delicious Thanksgiving recipes.
Designing festive and creative Christmas decorations and also tips for hosting holiday parties. And so the reason behind a lot of these examples that I listed is because the holidays are coming up and I just wanted to come up with some pretty practical examples that we can use in ChatGPT. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna click on this link and we’re gonna go straight to ChatGPT.
And so the first, the first example was all gonna be about
crafting Thanksgiving recipes. So What we can do with ChatGPT, and so this is an open AI tool, and so in order to use it, all you’d have to do is go to ChatGPT. com, and then it’ll ask you to make an [00:11:00] account, sign in. And then you can go right ahead and start chatting with the AI tool. And so you can really give it any sort of prompt.
So you type in to the text field and send it as if you were sending a message to a family, friend. And so it works very similar to that as well. So what we can do is we can type in ChatGPT and mention, ” list me some popular Thanksgiving recipes, and ensure to include the ingredients and measurements.”
Alright, and so now it’s gonna start generating a lot of what we gave the prompt, and we can then see exactly what popular Thanksgiving recipes, there are, and also include the ingredients and measurements as well. So a classic roast turkey is very common for Thanksgiving. We can see [00:12:00] all the ingredients that it gives us.
such as a whole turkey and then all the remaining other types of ingredients, different herbs, different seasonings. And then we can then go down to the creamy mashed potatoes ingredients as well. We can see all the ingredients for there. And then classic stuffing ingredients. And then green bean casserole.
Jeez, this is making me super hungry. It’s just in time for lunch coming up here soon. And so if you ever find that any of those recipes look great, you can actually ask it would you like the cooking steps for any of these? So let’s say, give me the steps for a green bean casserole.
Alright, and now it will start generating us the steps for the green bean casserole, as well as give us a recap of the ingredients that we need for the recipe. Hope it’s first given us each step by step of what to do, such as [00:13:00] preheating the oven, preparing the green beans, cooking the onions and garlic, making the sauce, etc.
And so this allows you to really follow it follow the recipe just how you typically would make a green bean casserole. So this is a great way for you if you’re ever needing assistance with being able to make food in the future. So this is just one of the examples that you can do with it.
Let’s see what another one of our, what was another one of our it was Designing Festive and Creative Christmas Decorations. We can say, give me some examples of Christmas decorations.
Alright, so here are some popular Christmas decoration ideas to bring festive cheer to your home. And it’s going to give us a list of Christmas tree decorations that we can do, various different ornaments lights, tree topper, even like a tree skirt to add. Some indoor decorations that [00:14:00] we can use such as wreaths, table centerpieces, Christmas villages, outdoor decorations, what you could do with windows DIY decorations that you can do as well, and then theme decorations.
Then it later provides us would you like tips on creating a specific type of decoration. So this just allows you to go further in depth on some of the decorations that you’d like to do. Alright, now going on to our last. example, it’s going to be tips for hosting holiday parties. So now we can ask GPT, “please give me some tips on hosting holiday parties.”
Alright, and so it says hosting a holiday party can be a joyful yet challenging task. Here are some tips to help make your event successful, festive, and stress free. So it just mentions to plan ahead, decorate thoughtfully, set the mood with music, being able to prepare a holiday playlist a mix of [00:15:00] classic and modern songs as well, various different types of food and drinks that match the the event.
Entertainment activities, organization tips, and then create a welcoming atmosphere. And then it also mentions to don’t overdo it. Alright, and then it, like I said, at the end it wants to give even more types of suggestions. Here’s a bonus one. We can say list me five popular 2024 gifts
For nephews or niece.
All right, so now it’s going to list me five popular 2024 gifts for nephew or niece. So now we can see that a Nintendo Switch Lite is, one of the things that it mentions an instant camera, a name puzzle STEM related kits. DIY comic book kit. And these gifts cater to a range of interests and ages, making them thoughtful and engaging choices for your niece or nephew.
Like I said, you [00:16:00] can really put in whatever information that you want with this but just Keep in mind you can go as in depth as you want, but you have to make sure not to share any sensitive information that you wouldn’t want to say to any strangers. That’s just a disclaimer that I want to make for anyone that’s using this in the future.
All right. I want to say thank you for letting me do this presentation. Like I said, my name is Alex Reckard. I am the resident I. T. Technician for Parasol Alliance. I’m currently based in Madison, Wisconsin, and it’s been a great pleasure of being able to do this presentation. And I hope you have a great day. Bye.
Join us for this month’s Raising Tech miniseries with Alex Reckard, a resident support technician for Tech@Home! Alex breaks down the basics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a way that’s fun and easy to follow. You’ll learn what AI is, how it works, and how it’s shaping our everyday lives.
From a cool AI-generated image quiz to hands-on demos with tools like ChatGPT, Alex keeps things interactive and engaging. You’ll also hear about the pros, the cons, and some of the most exciting ways AI is being used today. Don’t miss this chance to explore the world of AI and see how it’s changing the game!
A full demonstration is available on our website.
In this episode of Raising Tech, host Amber Bardon welcomes Tammy Torkleson, founder of Indigo Technology, to discuss the power of data analytics for senior living. Tammy shares how her platform, KOM Analytics, transforms data management by giving small and mid-sized companies the sophistication of enterprise-level solutions. They explore shifting from data gatherers to data consumers and the importance of creating a culture of trust and efficiency.
They also address the fear of change and reveal how automation can revolutionize decision-making, improve quality of life, and simplify compliance. Don’t miss this insightful conversation on maximizing your data’s potential!
You can email Tammy (ttorkleson@indigotulsa.com) or visit their website for more information.
Amber Bardon: [00:00:00] Welcome to raising tech podcast. I’m your host, Amber Bardon. And today’s episode features Suzanne Allen, who’s the managing partner at Blue Fingerprint. So almost every single time I go on site to a client, I’m always telling them about Blue Fingerprint. I think it’s such a great product and I think it has such an impact on improving processes for sites.
So I’m so excited to talk to you today to Suzanne, learn more about Blue Fingerprint. So welcome to the show.
Suzanne Allen: Hey, thank you so much, Amber, for having me. And I’m excited to talk about a topic that rarely gets much attention, but it’s so critical when it comes to either an operating campus or new development.
So I’m excited to be here today. Thank you.
Amber Bardon: Yeah, definitely. You’ve definitely got this niche on solving a very specific problem and making it a lot more seamless and easy for senior living organizations. So tell us what it is. Tell us about it. First of all, a little bit more about [00:01:00] yourself and your journey.
And then tell us more about Blue Fingerprint.
Suzanne Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. So
I’m Suzanne Allen.
I a managing partner here at Blue Fingerprint have been working in senior living since 2005. So really my experience began on the construction side, working for a national general contractor who at the time in early 2000s, they were focused on building a lot of greenfield.
what we called CCRC’s life plan communities back in the day. And really what that organization developed was an in house tool to manage options and upgrades. So anytime a resident was Provided the choice to choose cabinetry, countertops or flooring. They took a very manual spreadsheet model and developed a platform.
So I joined that group in 2005 to really help project manage some of [00:02:00] those clients that were utilizing the tool. Since that time, we had the opportunity to purchase the intellectual property and create a standalone organization where today we work with providers, contractors, architects, developers across the country still very focused in senior living.
We’re passionate about helping our clients. We like the industry and we feel like we have a good understanding of all parties involved in the and really the development building process as well as in managing options and upgrades.
Amber Bardon: So tell me a little bit more about the specific problem that Blue Fingerprint helps solve. And can you walk us through a little bit more about the functionality of the system?
Suzanne Allen: When we think about new construction in particular, and for a new community, a new campus, for example, that is offering options and upgrades are what we term as personalizations [00:03:00] today. I think about managing multiple units, having to manage multiple items in a very specific amount of time.
Contractor is on board and they say we need all of the selections for the first floor by X date. So it’s really documenting and then tracking that information and data through its life cycle and the life cycle really is similar to conduit right between sales marketing and the resident and then it flows that communication to the builder and the subcontractor.
Moving coordinator, for example, meets with a future resident and presents a menu of selection offerings. That moving coordinator documents within the Blue Fingerprint platform. All of those choices also identifies any custom requests or items not on the menu. And then that information is [00:04:00] stored really in real time.
Available 24 7 for the team to access, right? So it’s hosted in the cloud. So everybody can look at that information once that unit is complete. Then again, notifications are sent off to the builder so that they know that complete inventory list of everything that they need to procure for the finishes in that unit.
Amber Bardon: So just to compare, how would that work without something like Blue Fingerprint? So what is the time saving and what’s the efficiency here?
This
Suzanne Allen: method, truly our biggest competition today is truly Excel because a lot of folks will manage this manually on paper. That process truly is only as organized as the person who owns it.
I’m sure if you gave me your spreadsheet, one of your spreadsheets that you use, Amber, I would be like, blown up. What does this all mean? So what we see in the industry is sometimes there’s staff turnover. So I have to relearn [00:05:00] this process all over again in order to pick up the ball and continue with them.
With the process of meeting with these residents and selecting so really it’s. It’s an organizational tool designed to keep everybody on the same page, right? The other challenge with a manual process is version control, right? Did I remember to send that latest version off to my project manager?
Did I document what unit 101 wanted in their sunroom? It’s the place everybody can look to really see the information. It’s also a product that provides documentation to the resident so that they can sign off on. And new construction in particular, they don’t move in for sometimes 18, 24, 36 months from when the process begins.
So they’re going to hang on to that documentation and what we call a personalization summary up until the day they move in. And they’re going to check their list on. [00:06:00] Okay, these are the cabinets. These are the countertops. This is the flooring I selected.
Amber Bardon: Yeah, I’m also thinking it’s a better look for the people meeting with the residents to be able to do this all electronically. I think every time I go to a doctor’s office and I still have to sign things on paper, I’m always thinking like, why are they not more technically advanced?
I think that there’s an advantage there to be able to do things right on the spot and right in the moment without having to go back and check on things. I’m sure that can add time into the process by being more efficient upfront that way.
Suzanne Allen: Even our clients have came back to us and said, you know what it does, Suzanne, is it helps build confidence with our residents, right?
They’re seeing us documented there. We’re capturing that information rather than maybe taking a clipboard and a sheet of paper or a notebook, or even a Word document to capture it all. It does help build that confidence. Not just that they made the right choice to make that decision, Move into the community, but the right choice and interesting their future with that organization.
Amber Bardon: Yeah, absolutely. [00:07:00] And in today’s world, where this industry is just growing and growing, and there’s so many options to choose from, and a lot of the community websites look the same that personalization is so important. And we’re starting to see a lot more of our clients want to be able to offer that as differentiator.
So can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in the industry in terms of trends and personalization and why that’s important?
Suzanne Allen: Oh, sure. We all want the ability to personalize and companies like Amazon, stitch fix, blue apron. They’re all feeding off of that, right? We identify what our personal shopping preferences are and how often do we look on Amazon?
But that says, Hey, we think you’ll like this product. So what we know about today’s precedent and we’re talking about baby boomers coming into the mix now, right? They’re influenced a lot of by what they experienced their tech savvy. They’re using Amazon Prime. They’re ordering their products [00:08:00] digitally, but also we’re seeing shows like HGTV and other design type shows that are very popular in today’s market.
So when you’re seeing all of these trends and styles and renovating your home or designing your future home and space. That’s really the expectation today. I think what organizations need to evaluate is. Is how much do you offer? Because we get to a place where it’s that paradox of choice.
We all want choice, but when we’re presented with too much choice, it’s overwhelming, right? Go Google faucet and Amazon and you’ll get 375 different options of a faucet. If we can help companies narrow down that menu to make it the right fit for them, 80 percent of their clients will choose off that menu.
I can almost bet. 20 percent is truly those that want what they want and they will customize. But if we can help manage the [00:09:00] majority I think it, it makes it operationally even easier for the ops team to support and provide maintenance to those products as well.
Amber Bardon: Are you seeing anything really unique or different when it comes to personalization or customization?
Any tips or trends happening? I’ve heard about, and we all know about the common ones about paint and cabinets and things like that, but I’ve heard about moving walls. And is there anything like that you can share with us?
Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think when we look at trends and evaluate, we’ve been around for almost 23 years now.
So when we do a look back and say, what’s important to seniors, right? A functionality is still really important because they want to envision doing what they love in this next home that they’re gonna occupy. But what a trend that we are seeing is more and more people are choosing to consult or do some type of work once they move into a retirement community.
So technology is extremely important as you guys [00:10:00] know, right? So having the ability to even add extra outlets, ensuring that the connection or the connectivity to their den, which is not going to be their office has appropriate bandwidth so that they can, use still different programs or streaming, different things like that.
But also items still like adding lighting or creating unique space for what’s important for them, whether that be in a wine fridge or extra storage.
Amber Bardon: What do you see are some of the challenges with More communities trying to do more with customization and personalization. Is there ever a point where it goes too far?
Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think it sets a precedence, right? So in about 2010 when the recession hit, communities had to offer whatever they could to get people to move in, right?
So there were all kinds of incentives and one incentive was truly Customize the space and it’s on us, right? [00:11:00] So here, fast forward almost 15 years. We’re in a place where the buzzword and senior living is how do we standardize? How do we maximize and create efficiency? And so trying to reign that back in is a challenge, right?
But I think the first step in doing it is to actually take their current process. Here’s what I would invite any community to do and communities that we work with. One thing is we’ll invite them to a process mapping session, right? This is specific for a renovation or a unit turn, walk me through every step every person has to take in order from sales, right?
We sell the unit, we have someone who wants to move in to the time they move in, whether that be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120, walk me through all of those steps. And then from there, we can identify here’s a big gap of time where, we’re waiting for this.
What if we [00:12:00] try this approach? So we identify those inefficiencies and then try and introduce whether it be a Blue Fingerprint or some other method or process to improve it.
Amber Bardon: Yeah,
that makes
sense. What would a community need to know or do to prepare for implementing something like blue finger print?
What does that process look like for onboarding?
Suzanne Allen: Oh, I think the
1st step is communication. So our leaders today and senior living understand the importance of how we need to maximize how we have better buying power. We only have 4 carpets to choose from versus 40 right? Our suppliers may give us a better price if we can maximize some of that.
Purchasing on scale but, really, I think it’s the communication from leadership to the actual boots on the ground to say why is this important? Because I think what we find here at Blue Fingerprint is leadership understands that [00:13:00] boots on the ground are just so busy trying to get through each day.
With the task they’re responsible to perform. So to stop pause. Hey, we have a new implementation. We all know it’s some work to get that set up. So I think if the communication is still up front, we provide a nice demonstration for the entire team so that everybody understands what we’re into and then clear established goals, right?
What are we trying to achieve here? Is it reducing the number of days it takes for a renovation from 90 to 70, right? So it’s determining that path, I think first through a communication plan to the entire team.
Amber Bardon: Yeah, I think that’s good advice for any implementation for sure.
Yeah. Suzanne, is there anything we haven’t talked about yet that you want to share and make sure our audience is aware of?
Suzanne Allen: I think the biggest thingIs listen to your resident, some communities who are approaching a new development we work with a lot [00:14:00] of development teams and marketing teams and your residents are your best source of information. During those early sales conversations, or even events where communities might sponsor a coffee top or a cocktail hour to come in and look at what the future might look like.
Community or expansion may look like they’re your best source of information on what they might expect in their homes and units, right? If it’s a clientele that when I started 15 years ago it oftentimes when folks move to a new senior living community, it was almost a step up, right?
Because they hadn’t really renovated their homes yet. Back in that time. They were moving into something fresh and new. Today’s residents have either moved, downsized, Renovated their homes. So they have some expectations like they don’t expect plastic laminate countertops anymore, right? They expect solid surface.
Many of them have quartz in their [00:15:00] home. They manage to expect that. Listen to those residents find out what they’re passionate about, what’s important for them in their home. And then, if it can be accommodated, then talk to your development team, talk to your contractor about how can we provide this within the construction schedule.
Amber Bardon: Suzanne, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s really great to chat with you again. And I am excited for all of our listeners to learn more about Blue Fingerprint because I think it is such a great product.
So where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more? Yeah, thanks so much, Amber. You can find us by visiting our website at bluefingerprint. com. You can connect with me, Suzanne Allen, on LinkedIn.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
You can find us online at RaisingTechPodcast. com where you can see all of our episodes and contact us to provide feedback or submit an episode idea. We are on social media everywhere at Raising Tech Podcast. If you enjoy Raising Tech, please leave us a review and share with a friend. [00:16:00] Music is an original production by Tim Riesig, one of our very own Parasol Alliance employees.
As always, thank you for listening.
In this episode of Raising Tech, host Amber Bardon sits down with Suzanne Allen, Managing Partner at Blue Fingerprint, to talk about how their platform is making life easier for senior living communities. Suzanne shares how Blue Fingerprint started as a simple tool to track resident choices, like countertops and flooring, and has grown into a cloud-based system that keeps everyone – from residents to staff and builders – on the same page. It’s a game-changer for simplifying the customization process and helps communities run smoother, while giving residents more confidence in their new home.
Find more about Blue Fingerprint on their website.
[00:00:00] You can find a full demonstration of this tutorial on our website at parasolalliance. com. Just click on the resource tab and it’s under Resident Education.
Hello, my name is Michael, and today I’ll be talking about assistive access and accessibility for iPhones.
To get started, you will need iOS 17 or higher in order to do this on an iPhone. If you don’t have iOS 17 or higher, don’t worry, we will still cover some accessibility settings that will still be available for you and everyone else as well.
So assistive access, what is it? Assistive Access is a simplified home screen that allows people to use the iPhone easier and more effectively. As you can see on the right side of the screen, it makes the apps a lot bigger.
There’s not as many apps on the screen, and that’s really the only thing you can see. Assistive Access is really there for simplicity, to make it easier for you to use it, as well as keeping things in an orderly fashion, in a row or a grid, however you like it. So we’ll go ahead and [00:01:00] get started, and go ahead and find where the Assistive Access is in the phone.
Where it’ll be is in Settings. You’ll scroll down to Accessibility, and then Assistive Access will be at the very bottom. Once you’re in Assistive Access, you’ll see these two screens on the right side of the presentation. They’ll let you put applications in, any ones you want. You can change the view from grid to row, as well as all the other options, such as wallpaper, if you’d like to be in the background.
If you’d like to allow volume buttons or not. If you’d like to allow the ringer or silent mode to work. If you would show time on the lock screen, so if you like a clock on the lock screen or anything like that. If you would like to show battery level on the lock screen, show notification baggages, and allow Siri.
The very last one, passcode settings, will be something we’ll deal with towards the end. And that’ll be how you start assistive access, so we won’t get to that just now. But once you have adjusted all these settings how you like, changing the row to grid, adding in, turning off, turning on, any of these other settings at the bottom, [00:02:00] we’ll go ahead and look at the applications.
So calls and messages will be a little bit different than any of the other apps. All the other apps will work how they normally do when you’re not in assistive access or looking at the iPhone normally. But calls and messages will be much different. So for calls and messages, you’ll be able to receive calls from either selected contacts, all contacts, or everyone.
However, you can only make or send messages and calls to selected contacts in the phone. So you can’t choose the option to make a call to anyone or make a message to anyone in your contacts. You’ll have to go in there, Select the contact you like and then keep going down the list and saying I need you know this person that person they Need to be a person I can call or text at any given time and you’ll choose all of those people and then once you’re done You’ll move on to the next part of the settings So I would suggest having the show dialer keypad always on just in case let’s say you go to the doctor They give you their phone number and they tell you to [00:03:00] call them or something like that If you don’t have that dialer keypad on then you wouldn’t be able to type in their number and call them.
They would have to be on that selected contact list that we mentioned earlier. So definitely have the dialer keypad on as well as the in call options of keypad and speaker. Have those on as well. It’ll just make the calling experience a little bit easier. If you like speakerphone because it’s a little bit louder, you can do that as well.
So all of these options are definitely helpful and I would have them on. For the messaging options, you can have it tap to hear a message, so when you click on it, it’ll just start talking to you, it’ll read out the message out loud, as well as conversation details, if you wanted to have that summarized for you as well.
The other options at the bottom are message input, which means do you want to have the keyboard available, do you want to have a video selfie or emoji available, so that’s all completely up to you. I would recommend at least the keyboard available, but the emoji and video selfie are definitely something that are more personalized and completely up to you if you want to add them or not.
But since we’re done with the calls and messages, we can move [00:04:00] on to what the other apps will look like and how you’ll set them up with assistive access. For example, here on the left side, I have ESPN and Assistive Access. If you want to have that on and available, you can choose it, and then it’s going to ask you a couple different settings questions.
Each app will be different. However, they’ll majority be the same. So it’ll ask you if you want to have any notifications, Face ID, Bluetooth, a microphone, local network and location. So you’ll be able to choose, if you want the app to have access to that or not. More or less, you’ll say yes to mostly everything, unless there’s something on there that you say, I don’t want the person who’s using the phone to have the ability to do that.
And you can turn that off from there. When you’re in Assistive Access, these apps like ESPN or maybe a banking app or a weather app will all work how they normally did before. So you won’t have to worry about getting used to a different layout or a different display. Once you click on the app in Assistive Access, it’ll look exactly like how it did normally on the phone.
So once we get all those settings [00:05:00] adjusted, you add all the apps you’d you change all of the settings on assistive access at the bottom of the screen, such as, the wallpaper, volume buttons, etc., you’ll be able to start assistive access. And where that’ll be is at the very top of the main page of assistive access, they’ll say something to start assistive access.
So once you’re all ready, you’ll click that, It’s going to ask you to set a passcode for assistive access. What I would recommend is putting the same passcode or PIN that you use on the phone currently. If you don’t have one, then you can make it something simple. If you really want to, like 1111, it doesn’t have to be something too complicated, mainly because when you’re in assistive access, you don’t want to get stuck in there and not have the ability to leave.
So what that passcode does is, if you want to leave assistive access, You can exit it with that passcode, but you do need it. So something to definitely remember, jot down, or make it something that you would easily remember. So we’ll go from there once you get it all set up, if you want it or if you don’t want [00:06:00] it.
So once you click star assistive access, you put in your passcode, it’ll begin to enter assistive access. It’ll look very much like the phones on this screen. So it’ll have all your apps in this order. You’ll have that wallpaper if you want. And you’ll be able to use any of these apps how you’d like.
Except for calls and messages will be a little bit different. You’ll still be able to make calls, receive calls, all that kind of stuff. Just depending on what settings you chose earlier. So that really is it for assistive access. The only other thing I wanted to mention was if, let’s say, you don’t want assistive access, you want to get out of it, how you can get out of it is clicking the power button on the right side three times.
Once you do that, it’ll give you the options of either going to settings, emergency, or exiting assistive access. Then it’s going to ask you to type in your passcode that I mentioned a little bit earlier. You’ll type that in, and then your phone will go back to how it normally was before.
So it’s really easy to get out if you don’t like it. So you can play around with it, see if it’s something you would like, and then leave if, let’s say, you don’t like it. So there’s a lot [00:07:00] of options in here. They make it easy to get out, easy to get in. It’s just adjusting all those different settings to how you might want it.
So now that we’re done with Assistive Access, this is the part for anyone who doesn’t have iOS 17 or higher. Or if you do, you can still use all these options here. All the other accessibility options available. So there’s a lot of them in vision, a lot of for physical and motor including, touch face ID all those kinds of things that would help you use the phone a little bit easier, as well as it can look at your hearing devices, you can put subtitles on the phone if that’s a little bit easier for you.
And you can enable live speech as well. What live speech is, it’s just that if you talk into the phone, it’ll do what you tell it. So completely up to you and how you want to use it. But definitely take a look at these settings. If it’s something that interests you, play around with them. And you can always turn them off if you want.
But one of the main ones that I’ll talk about is display and text size. And that will be in accessibility, And then over here at the top in the vision [00:08:00] category. So once you click on display and text size, you’ll be able to see all the different options in it. The most important ones that I think are larger text and bold text.
So if you have a hard time seeing the phone, if let’s say you think the font size is a little bit too small for you, you can turn on larger text They have a couple different options about 5 or 6 so you can choose and see how big you want it.
If you want it as big as it can go, or if you want it somewhere in the middle, they have all those options available as well as bold text will make it a little bit pop out more. So makes it easier to see and makes it easier for the person using the phone.
How you see the phone and if it helps you. So like reducing transparency, increasing contrast, those don’t necessarily help you see the phone. It all does depend on the person from case to case. So definitely try them out, see how they look for you. And you can always just turn them off if you don’t like how they look.
The only one I wouldn’t recommend is Smart Invert. That completely changes the screen [00:09:00] color. So I wouldn’t recommend that one. All the other ones though are very good to use. So that’s just one of the accessibility features. But another one that I wanted to touch on was something called Assistive Touch.
And where that will be? Is in settings, accessibility, and then in that physical motor, you’ll click on touch. So once you click on touch, it’ll take you into this assistive touch menu. You want to turn it on and this will give you the option to tap things that maybe you wouldn’t normally be able to, or do things a little bit easier.
So what it’ll look like is over here on the right side, it’ll look like this home button. There’ll be a white dot in the corner of your screen. You can move it around wherever you’d like, but once you click on it, it’ll give you all these different options. So if you want to go to the home screen, you can click on that home.
If you want to go to the control center, that’s a quick way to get to the control center. Same with the notification center. If you were to click on device, then it would give you all these different options to either lock the screen, rotate the screen, Increase the [00:10:00] volume, decrease the volume, or unmute.
So this is more for if you’re having a hard time doing things, or maybe your screen is a little bit broken, and some features don’t work how they should. You can use AssistiveTouch to get around that and get to those certain places, like Control Center or Notification Center, as well as locking the phone if your lock button doesn’t work anymore, or if your volume button doesn’t work, you can use this as well.
There are a lot of other options in here, so you can customize things. As you can see, there’s another part called Custom and Gestures. I wouldn’t really recommend that that’s a little bit more advanced and harder to use, so I would stay away from that, but the Home, Control Center, Notification Center, and Device are all very good things to use with this AssistiveTouch.
And you can always turn it off if you don’t like it. Again, play around with these settings, see how you like it, and go from there. But that does conclude the presentation. Thank you guys for listening, and have a good day. [00:11:00]
In this episode, Michael Lynn, a resident support technician for Tech@Home, teaches Assistive Access and other accessibility features on iPhones, focusing on users with iOS 17 or higher while noting options for earlier versions. He explains how Assistive Access allows for a simplified home screen with larger apps and customizable layouts. Michael discusses adjusting various settings, including volume controls and the dialer keypad for calls and messages, and highlights that apps maintain normal functionality within Assistive Access. He also covers how to start and exit Assistive Access securely with a passcode. Additionally, he introduces Assistive Touch for easier navigation for users with physical challenges and encourages listeners to explore these settings.
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