In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Patrick Leonard, has a fascinating conversation with Marti Milligan, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for The Ridge Senior Living, about how The Ridge are utilizing robotic pets and dining robots to enhance the resident experience in their Senior Living communities.
Discover how The Ridge Senior Living are engaging robotics to celebrate residents' and their families' birthdays, to improve staffing challenges and to provide an extra layer of comfort to residents through the use of robotic companion pets.
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
In this episode of Raising Tech, our host, Patrick Leonard, has a fascinating conversation with Marti Milligan, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for The Ridge Senior Living, about how The Ridge are utilizing robotic pets and dining robots to enhance the resident experience in their Senior Living communities.
Discover how The Ridge Senior Living are engaging robotics to celebrate residents' and their families' birthdays, to improve staffing challenges and to provide an extra layer of comfort to residents through the use of robotic companion pets.
Raising Tech is powered by Parasol Alliance, The Strategic Planning & Full-Service IT Partner exclusively serving Senior Living Communities.
Welcome back to Raising Tech, a podcast about all things technology and senior living. I'm your host, Patrick Leonard, and today we're gonna talk about a topic we've highlighted on the show before, but this time we're gonna hear about it directly from a senior living community operator and that topic is robotics and we're gonna talk about its specific use cases in a specific senior living community. So with that, I'm excited to introduce our listeners to our guest today, who's Marti Milligan from The Ridge Senior Living. Marti, welcome to the show.
Marti Milligan:Thanks Patrick. It's great to be here!
Patrick Leonard:It's great to have you. So Marti, before we dive into the topic today, do you mind giving our listeners just a little bit of background about yourself and your role at The Ridge as well as a little bit of background about The Ridge Senior Living itself?
Marti Milligan:Sure. So I've been with The Ridge Senior living for a little over five years now. We have independent living, assisted living and memory care in Utah, the Salt Lake City area and also in the Denver metro area in Colorado.
Patrick Leonard:Awesome, thank you for that, and so what originally sparked us having this conversation today was o ur t eam was at a conference and we learned about your c ommunity's utilization of robotic companion pets at The Ridge Senior Living, which is super exciting and interesting, and so can you tell us a little bit more about what you're using at The Ridge and how?
Marti Milligan:Sure, so at The Ridge, each of our memory care neighborhoods are equipped with a sensory room and that sensory room has comfortable chairs, blankets, aromatherapy, music therapy. And we also have some more tactile therapies like our robotic pets right here. The robotic pets, we use them primarily with memory care residents, who are in that sensory phase of dementia. So, they really are able to bond with these pets. They bring them a lot of comfort. It helps to reduce agitation, and they're actually quite lifelike.
Patrick Leonard:Wow. Listeners that can't see this, when we release the recording, at least we'll have to share some video clips on social media, but we can see in your background them interacting and moving as you talk and just petted the head. It's amazing. So back up a little bit and tell me how did you all decide to start utilizing these companion pets? You know, for my knowledge at least, I'm just learning about this technology as of late and hearing of communities utilizing it in the senior living space. But I'm always so curious how certain communities decide to make the leap to something like this and try something new and exciting like this. So can you tell us a little bit about that journey and how you decided to start utilizing these pets at your community?
Marti Milligan:So these pets first came on my radar through Argentum. We had attended an Argentum conference a few years back and our main building in Colorado was still under construction. And so we were looking how can we incorporate technology? How can we be innovative in our approach to memory care and dementia? At the same time, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with dementia. She was about mid-stages and we placed her in a memory care neighborhood in Florida near her home. At that time we purchased one just like this guy here, it's like a little golden retriever, golden retriever puppy and gave it to her. She was about in mid-stages of the disease process and we were amazed at how she bonded with this little animal and we would go to visit her, she would feed it, she named it, she brought it with her everywhere and it just really brought her great comfort. And when I saw that happening with somebody who meant a lot to me, I was able to kind of think, wow, I think this would help a lot of people. And so we incorporated that into our sensory rooms as we opened The Ridge Pinehurst, and then we subsequently have done sensory rooms and included these animals at our Salt Lake City locations.
Patrick Leonard:Wow! Such a cool personal story I wasn't aware of that kind of sparked this that makes it even more impactful, and so I noticed as you're talking the two pets, the the cat and the dog behind you, are barking and making noises moving their head around. So, tell me a little bit about how that works . How are they sensing and why are they reacting certain ways? Did you program them a certain way? Did they come a certain way ? How does that work?
Marti Milligan:So, they are programmed to sound and to touch. So if I come over here and I pet the top of the cat's head, you can see she's putting her paw up, just licking her paw. She's probably gonna roll over here soon and so I can pet these guys, they'll respond to it, they'll bark or fur and it's kind of fun. It's impossible not to pick them up and play with them <laugh>.
Patrick Leonard:That's awesome and it sounds like your mother-in-law had such a great experience. How have the residents responded at The Ridge so far to interacting with them ? Are they more prevalent in , you know, with certain residents than others or how are they interacting day-to-day in the community?
Marti Milligan:So, a lot of times it depends on the particular resident. So in particular if a resident prior to moving in had had a cat or a dog, this can spark a lot of memories for them. We provided you with a video of one of our residents who is extremely close with the cat. So sometimes she doesn't like to give it up and share a cat with other residents. But you know, ultimately she will if you ask her if you can pet her cat. So <laugh> , these guys are just, they bring a lot of comfort. Family members are very interested in this. It can help to spark that communication with family members or friends and their loved one because it gives that memory care resident the opportunity to touch something, feel something while the family member is interacting as well. The same with caregivers. A caregiver, oh for example, needs to brush somebody's hair and maybe that resident doesn't like her hairbrush. We could set the cat in that resident's lap and it gives her something to do while her hair is being brushed. That's just one example.
Patrick Leonard:And so how many pets do you actually have in a given community and are there other options besides the dog and cat that I'm seeing here today?
Marti Milligan:So we only have the dog and the cat at our communities. I understand there's a seal out there that some memory care neighborhoods are utilizing, and then the other thing is, is you can purchase these for a loved one at your home. They're available on Amazon.
Patrick Leonard:Awesome, okay. But are those ones that you're actually providing the community you're providing residents for? That's awesome. Cool .
Marti Milligan:Yeah , so we provide these for the community. As I said, we typically house them in our sensory room so that it's another piece of that daily life where somebody can go into that sensory room , if they're feeling a little overwhelmed or feeling agitated, we can put some soft music on and have them interact with the cat or the dog. I will say though, you know, the sensory room of course is open. Residents have access to it anytime they want and it's not unusual for the cat or the dog to disappear for a little while and then we have to go on a hunt for the animal.
Patrick Leonard:<laugh>. That is interesting. I didn't even think about that. Do they have tracking devices on them ?
Marti Milligan:<laugh> Not a bad idea. Maybe we should chip them <laugh>.
Patrick Leonard:<laugh>
Marti Milligan:Now all of our memory care neighborhoods are also pet friendly. So we do have some pets that are within those neighborhoods depending on where somebody is in the dementia process and how they're able to care for their pet or bring in a service to healthcare for their pet. But for those who don't have a pet anymore or have not brought their live pet with them, these are really great options .
Patrick Leonard:And do they require just simple batteries to operate them?
Marti Milligan:Simple batteries. They have a pouch back here to turn them on and off so that memory support residents can interact but they're not necessarily going to find that button to turn on and off the animal.
Patrick Leonard:Makes sense. Very cool. So normally you think of implementing new technology, some type of implementation training process, ongoing support that you would need to provide from the staffing perspective. I mean these appear from what you're saying to be pretty self-sufficient and pretty self-explanatory. But is there anything that you know was involved with getting all that set up and any training or ongoing support that you need or simply change the batteries when they run out?
Marti Milligan:Yeah, I mean the training really is here's how you turn it on and here is you know how you change the batteries. But we do person-centered care as many senior living communities do. We also do the Teppa Snow approach. So we utilize a lot of those trainings within using these animals in more comfort. But I wouldn't call it therapy, I would call it more comfort for residents.
Patrick Leonard:Got it. Okay . So from my understanding, you're also using robotics in other ways at your community. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how else you're using it throughout The Ridge?
Marti Milligan:Sure. So this year we introduced robots in our dining room and restaurants at our Colorado location. So we have two robots in independent living and we have two robots in our assisted living dining room.
Patrick Leonard:Very cool. So how has that been, I imagine obviously has probably a little bit more of an impact, a little bit more configuration, some things you have to work out, some training opposed to the pets who again just are kind of there as a companion. So tell me how that's gone in the dining room from a dining perspective, what has the impact been on the staff and the residents?
Marti Milligan:So as with many other senior living providers, we were hitting a lot of staffing shortages last year and we were looking at creative ways in how can we address these staffing shortages, provide that utmost service that our residents deserve, but be able to deliver it in a timely manner. And again, we were at one of the conferences and we saw these robots that were being utilized in dining, in senior living restaurants. So we looked into that, as far as would that be first of all cost savings? Second of all, do they work? We went to another senior living community that was utilizing them so that we kind of see how that process went. We had to do some minor modifications as far as doors going into the kitchen and thresholds, but extremely minor modifications for that. And then we were able to introduce the robots and ultimately we've been able to cut two FTEs after the introduction of those robots.
Patrick Leonard:Wow! So cost savings and then the residents, it doesn't seem to bother them or freak them out in any way. <laugh> ?
Marti Milligan:No, the residents have embraced them. When we brought all four, so, The Ricge Pinehurst is a large community. It's rental, independent living, assisted living and memory care and we have this very large lobby area. So, we brought all four robots in and did a demo for the residents . And then we had a naming contest so the residents were able to name them, they kind of got a little close with them. So we settled on the names Ridgely for The Ridge Senior Living, Wally , Luna, and Rosie. Because if you're going to have a robot, you have to have a Rosie , right?
Patrick Leonard:<laugh>, Rosie the robot. I love it! <Laugh> . That's such a cool way to incorporate the residents and get their buy-in and make them feel part of the process as well. I love it. So what would you say, I mean there's people out there who are in different levels of adopting technology like this in particular robotic, particularly in senior living communities. So what would you say to those out there? I mean, obviously with senior living being such a people-centric business as you mentioned, what would you say to those that fear that robotics, maybe particularly more so in the dining sense that you just mentioned, but just in general the fear of maybe losing a little bit of that human touch that is so important in senior living and the fear that that might be removed in some form or fashion by the utilization of robotics. Can you talk a little bit about that for some of those people who may be fearing that for someone who's been through it in a couple ways on the other side of it?
Marti Milligan:Actually, very interesting that you say, aren't these robots going to take the people portion out of it? Because actually the opposite happened . These robots are allowing us to have more face time with residents and to spend more time individually with each of those residents during that dining experience. So the robots have cut down on the steps going to, for example, busting a table, taking the dirty dishes to the dishwasher or the food is ready and it needs to be brought out to the table. In independent living, we have two robots. In assisted living, we have two robots. One is strictly for dirty dishes, the other is strictly for food delivery. And what we found is we can deliver the food faster, we can deliver it hotter and we can have better service when we're doing that. So our wait staff has handhelds to take the order so they're not leaving the dining room to take the order and then the robot is bringing the order to the table. So they essentially don't have to leave the area at all. They can continue to service residents the entire time that they're on their shift.
Patrick Leonard:Wow. And that's a great perspective on it. And so when the food is coming out, the later will be there to actually take the plate and still serve the residents. They're just doing the work of getting it out there and similarly, when busting the table, are they taking the plates and simply putting it on the robot, Rosie the robot, we'll call it <laugh> and Rosie's taking that back to the dishwasher, is that what you're saying?
Marti Milligan:Yes! So you still have that human touch, that human interaction during the service. Our dining rooms , the way that the main restaurant is set up, we also have a bar that's adjacent that serves food and drink and it's a little bit of a walk. So think about many times in one evening a server having to walk from where they're picking up the food at the kitchen through one restaurant through the bar to deliver. That's a number of minutes that that simply is taking. Now that server can stay, they're interacting, they're taking the next order, maybe they're busting another table if that's what's needed. And if it's a larger table, these robots can hold up to six plates. So if it's a larger table, we don't have to have two servers bringing food out, we can now have, you know, Rosie the Robot bringing the service to the table. And then you know, Ridgley might be cleaning up so somebody is there loading the dishes on but they're not taking all those steps in between.
Patrick Leonard:Got it. That makes a lot of sense. It really helps to walk through because if you haven't done it in a community that has them before, you can watch videos as much as you want online, but you walk through kind of from the order taking all the way to the bus to the table really well. And I think that paints a really good picture. I mean it makes the waiters' lives easier and takes probably the least fun part out of that job away <laugh> and makes it more efficient.
Marti Milligan:The robots are interactive as well. So the only thing we did have to work with residents on is we had to ask them to please not move the tables, like push tables together because the robots are programmed to go to each individual table and if you move a table somewhere, it's not gonna know where it is . But if a resident is walking in front of the robot, the robot will stop and it will say, "excuse me," and then the resident can move out of the way and the robot will not continue to go until that resident is at a safe distance.
Patrick Leonard:Wow. Amazing.
Marti Milligan:It sings "Happy Birthday"
Patrick Leonard:<laugh> . There you go.
Marti Milligan:So, residents are bringing their families in now on their birthdays so that the robot can sing their grandkids "Happy Birthday." How amazing is that?
Patrick Leonard:Wow. Amazing. Amazing! You would just never imagine . I love it! You all clearly gotten so creative with the use of it. I'm sure you're a model for these companies who are providing these robots is probably the best use case out there. So thanks for sharing all that. Is there any key learnings that you wish you knew prior to implementing any robotics, any fashion of the communities or what would you say to other senior living communities out there who haven't made lead that they should be considering that The Ridge has kind of learned from the process ?
Marti Milligan:Well as far as the robotic animals go, I think the robotic animals, it's just a very minimal investment absolutely worth it to have in your memory care neighborhoods. Now the robots in dining, that is a little bit more of an investment depending on what company you choose to provide that they come, they do the training, they help you with programming it. The biggest thing is really having them come look at your kitchen to see what the thresholds are, how the robots can get in and out. Because as I said with us, we had to do some minor renovations and some adjustments to be able to facilitate the robots. They can't open doors, they're not that advanced yet.
Patrick Leonard:Yeah, someday , someday soon I'm sure. Awesome. Well, Marti, are there any other final thoughts or words of wisdom you want to provide our listeners before we part ways today?
Marti Milligan:I just think that we have to embrace technology in senior living. We saw over the past year that the staffing shortages, I don't really see an end to that. Also, we will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 65 here in the next couple of years. So we have to be creative in how we're providing services to our seniors and technology robotics is just one element in that delivery of care and services as we have this aging population.
Patrick Leonard:I love it. Couldn't have said it better myself! Well, Marti, thanks again so much for taking the time to be here today on the show and really to educate our listeners and myself on this topic of robotics. I think you demystified and really brought it down to a practical sense and use case in a senior living community from your perspective and how it's really benefiting and not only benefiting but it sounds like enriching the lives quite significantly of both residents and staff members and family members coming in and and getting "Happy Birthday" sung to them. So, thanks again for your time today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Patrick! Awesome. And listeners, thanks for tuning into another episode of Raising Tech! If you have any feedback or a topic idea or would like to be on the show yourself, please feel free to reach out to us on our website , www.ParasolAlliance.com. Have a good one!