55. Lutheran Life Villages/Medline- Transforming Senior Living with FitRight Connect

In this episode, Amber Bardon interviews Michelle Christensen, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions at Medline, and Ashley Douglas, Corporate Director of Quality and Compliance at Lutheran Life Villages. They discuss the FitRight Connect, a Wi-Fi-enabled wetness sensing system for managing incontinence in healthcare settings. 

The episode explores the development, implementation, and benefits of FitRight Connect, including improved resident care, staff satisfaction, and cost savings. Ashley shares her experience piloting the program at Lutheran Life Villages, highlighting the ease of use and positive resident feedback. Michelle emphasizes the importance of communication, collaboration, and support for successful implementation. They also discuss the potential for technology to enhance senior care and improve quality of life.

Learn more about Medline on their website.
View Michelle's LinkedIn profile here.

Michelle Christiansen's Email: mchristiansen@medline.com
Medline Email: fitrightconnect@medline.com

Download the FRC brochure here.
View the FitRight Connect product catalog here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Amber Bardon: Welcome to raising tech podcast. I'm your host, Amber Barden. And today we have two guests with us. Michelle Christensen is the senior director of clinical solutions for Medline. And we also have Ashley Douglas, who's the corporate director of quality and compliance at Lutheran Life Villages. Welcome to the show.

So I just want to tell a brief story about how this podcast came to be. So I was working with Lutheran Life Villages on a strategic assessment and interviewing staff. And we were just talking about technology and innovation. I heard about the Medline solution that you're using there at Lutheran Life Villages around sensors and adult diapers.

And I thought that was so cool. I'd never heard about that before. So I'm really excited you're here today. This is a new technology I've just learned about, and I think our listeners will be really excited to learn more.

So Michelle, I think most of our listeners have heard of Medline and know what it is, but for those who haven't, can you just tell us a little bit about who Medline is and what you do?

Michelle Christiansen: We are a health care company a manufacturer distributor solutions partner bringing supply chain [00:01:00] solutions and diverse clinical expertise into all corners of health care. Our goal is to make health care run better. We want to provide best in class service. Easy to implement products and have a really great positive impact in healthcare and making sure that we're helping healthcare providers and frontline caregivers do a better job.

Amber Bardon: Thanks for that intro and Ashley, tell us about Lutheran Life Villages. Give us an idea of your community. 

Ashley Douglas: Yeah. So Lutheran Life Villages is a senior care organization. We've been around for over 90 years we started as a kind of group home for senior citizens to receive nursing facility care, and we have grown exponentially to now seven campuses where we can provide long term care, memory care, assisted living, traditional assisted living, rehab, as well as any physical therapy, and anything for short term rehab to home.

As well as independent living to we do offer [00:02:00] that as one of our service lines and a fun program we have is foster grandparents, which is where we are actually able to partner a senior citizen with a student, like a first grader to learn from and grow their skills and reading and manners. And it's a really great program that we have that we've extended to.

So senior lifestyle living and senior care and now foster grandparents program. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, that's such a cool program. 

So tell me a little bit more about your role with the community. 

Ashley Douglas: I help our 7 campuses with quality and compliance with regulations, because as you are probably familiar, long term care is highly regulated. I heard a fun fact one time, don't fact check me on this, but most regulated next to nuclear warfare, because we have not only the employer laws, labor laws, we have all the senior care laws.

So constant change, which is good. We like to call it dynamic change. And so my role was recently developed to help make sure that we're [00:03:00] all on the same page and where we need to be and moving forward to be successful and to further enhance the senior lifestyle communities and senior care. 

Amber Bardon: Congratulations.

Michelle, maybe you can tell us a little bit about this product and solution. How did it come to be? 

Michelle Christiansen: We spend a lot of time working at the front line with caregivers and all corners of health care. I'm a clinician and I started out as a CNA a long time ago and we understood and noticed that there was a need.

At the front line to help manage incontinence. Frontline caregivers are struggling and we wanted to develop technology that was going to make the management of incontinence easier for frontline caregivers, take some of the stress away but also to improve the quality of care and outcomes while instilling comfort and thinking about dignity for those that are incontinent and those that are being cared for. We have an amazing team here that our R and D and quality teams that have [00:04:00] spent about a decade working on this technology. We had to make sure that it was right that we were launching at the right time and that it was going to deliver on everything that we wanted it to do.

It was important to us that, it's going to have an impact, but, it has to make a difference. It has to make the job easier because it is technology. And we don't want it to be difficult to implement. 

Amber Bardon: So Michelle, can you describe for us what is FitRight Connect?

How does it work? Just tell us a little bit more about the product. 

Michelle Christiansen: FitRight Connect is a Wi Fi enabled wetness sensing system. It consists of a small pod that attaches to a disposable incontinence management product an adult brief. And what that the brief senses wetness ongoing while it's being worn and that information is then transmitted via Wi Fi.

into a tablet, if you will, that the frontline caregiver has or a desktop or whatnot, a digital [00:05:00] platform. It notifies caregivers when a change is needed really just taking the guesswork out of managing incontinence at the frontline. 

Amber Bardon: That's so innovative.

 tell me how did you come to find out about FitRight Connect is this something that Medline brought to you or was something you were asking about. 

Ashley Douglas: Our representative Dave came to us and he said, I really like what Lutheran Life Villages has going on and I think you guys would be great to pilot this program called FitRight Connect Briefs. And he said it's The first to be rolled out in Indiana, which already piqued my interest because I like to be a forerunner and anything I can be especially if it improves senior care and just the overall resident experience.

So when he brought that idea to myself, I presented it to my team and the team was super excited. And my team definitely likes to achieve new results and further enhance the resident experience. So that fit exactly in with what we wanted to do. So when I presented the idea, they were all on board and said, yes, when can we start?

And we [00:06:00] started it, I think the next month after we did a couple of virtual introductions, and then we were off. 

It was about a year and a half ago. And so when he presented the idea, we met with Michelle and her team.

And then right away, they sent a team to our campus. So all the way from northern Chicago, all the way to Fort Wayne, they came to, not only meet the leadership team, but also to start the training with the floor staff in the direct care. 

Amber Bardon: So Ashley, what specific outcomes have you seen since you started using this product?

Ashley Douglas: So in essence, it's avoiding diary for us. And for those in the industry, we have, what's called a minimum data set, which is what we get reimbursed from all the tasks that staff do for each resident. And so this. was able to serve as that voiding diary for us because it legit produces data that we can use to show what the voiding patterns are, how often the incontinent episodes are occurring, and so that has also [00:07:00] not just Helps the resident outcomes, but also the staff efficiency, because Michelle had alluded to, we use a tablet at our campus.

So each nurse's station has a tablet mounted to a wall and Medline actually provided Wi Fi extenders too, because those who have older buildings, sometimes the Wi Fi with the brick and mortar, it's a little bit of a challenge. So we appreciated that feature that they added for us. And so as soon as the pod triggers that either.

It's the brief is soiled or there's an incontinent episode that goes straight to the tablet. There's a visual alert. The staff can see it immediately, and they can go immediately to change their brief, or if it needs, if the battery is dying, it'll indicate with a gray indicator light that it needs to be recharged, and so again, immediate response, and we can take care of the need right then and there.

Amber Bardon: Can you tell us about where do you have this rolled out at? What level of care? How many people are using it? 

Ashley Douglas: Yeah, so we started [00:08:00] with a sample of 20 residents, and it is for long term care. One resident we did add to it was a hospice resident. we had a family member who was very interested in the program, and her loved one is nonverbal. With this resident in particular, we were able to roll out this program. Family was super delighted. The resident had better incontinence outcomes as well as better skin integrity. Because she wasn't having the breakdown because she wasn't waiting as long to have a brief change or that two hours because it turns out her frequency is a lot more than what two hours would require.

It was a very positive outcome and we were glad to add her to that program, but typically it's your long term care residents who are there 24 7. 

Amber Bardon: That makes sense. So Michelle, I know Ashley mentioned Wi Fi was an issue, which of course people have listened to this podcast, have heard me talk a lot about Wi Fi infrastructure and what I call the Wi Fi [00:09:00] crisis and things like that.

But can you walk us through if a community would like to implement this technology, what do they need to have? What kind of software, hardware what kind of infrastructure setup do they need? Can you talk about that? 

Michelle Christiansen: It's really simple. We have a team of experts that will audit

a location to identify the strength of Wi Fi and from there, they develop a plan of how how we need to approach, each location with a rollout as Ashley had mentioned repeaters. I don't know a lot about them. I just know I consider them like little boosters, if you will, of Wi Fi. It strengthens the signal.

Little things like that, that we can do, but we have just an amazing tech team that, that tackle all of that. We do all of that behind the scenes so that it is s eamless and effortless for the customer. 

Amber Bardon: Great. That's good to know, Ashley. A lot of our clients come to me and they tell me that they don't necessarily want to be early adopters [00:10:00] of technology, they want to be somewhere in the middle.

So I think it's really exciting to meet you and to hear a community that actually does want to be on this forefront and be an early adopter of technology. Ashley, can you talk a little bit about how does this fit with the vision of Lutheran Life Villages? And how did that lead you to want to try this product?

Ashley Douglas: Yes. So one thing that Lutheran Life Villages really prides ourself on is our mission, vision, and values. And Lutheran Life Villages vision is to be an employer of choice, a provider of choice, and a thought leader in the community. So when this idea was presented from Dave, I thought about our vision again, presented it to the team and realized, yeah, this is what makes us a thought leader in the community.

We are going to trial this, the ups and downs, learn from it, hopefully, eventually roll it out to our other campuses. If it's a successful program and Being that we are ones who like to lead boldly is what we call it. This fit exactly into our plans and. I like to think that we are going to be a part of [00:11:00] incontinence history, senior care history, and for that, it's a little bit of a legacy that Lutheran Life Villages can leave on as well.

Amber Bardon: Wow, that's fantastic. Michelle, how many communities or locations do you have FitRight Connect rolled out at? 

Michelle Christiansen: We're hovering around 15 right now across the country and still growing. As we warm up to implementation strategy we continue to take on more and more customers. So this is still a pretty new product then it sounds it is. We did an official launch last month at our national sales meeting. So very new. Very exciting. 

Amber Bardon: Are you aware of any other type of innovation happening around incontinence or do you feel like you're somewhat the leader in this? 

Michelle Christiansen: I would say that we are definitely a leader in this space. Not only because of the technology, but because of our manufacturing capabilities with our FitRite portfolio of products, 

Amber Bardon: that's exciting.

I feel and this is again, something else I say on the [00:12:00] podcast a lot. So if anyone is a regular listener, but I always say that I think senior loving technology is the most exciting industry right now because there is so much innovation happening in a lot of different areas and there's so much opportunity to develop things like this that help improve people's lives on a daily basis.

So Ashley, is there anything about rolling out FitRight Connect that surprised you or what were you most excited about? Yeah. 

Ashley Douglas: So I think the initial surprise was how involved the FitRight Connect team was with the hands on training the IT support, having their team come to our building, not just doing remote.

Actually testing the wifi signals, actually testing the tablets, testing the pods having that support really showed the team and the direct care staff that this is a real deal. This is a big deal. They want it to be successful. We want it to be successful. It's a real partnership. And I think.

Having the ability to [00:13:00] because we have that partnership established, we were able to also make suggestions along the way during the 1st, initial rollout for customization for the iPhone or smartphone app and also for on the tablets, ease for user access and having those things. Direct reports to be able to say, Hey, we've run into this issue or this is working.

However, we've had a few issues with this and their team jumps on it right away. They do a frequent check ins. They also are able to access the information remotely as well. So they can help with any trending if they have questions about how to read the reports or how to read the basically the voiding diaries that are developed from their app.

From the pod and its use, because one thing with the pod, the longer that it's worn, the better the data can be. So if it's having to get charged too many times, then they could come in and replace the pods or send us new pods, which we have encountered [00:14:00] a few issues with that where we've had to replace some pods.

Also we learned with the briefs itself, you can't have a bag from. Six months ago, sitting in your closet and try to use that because the brief can, it doesn't have an expiration date necessarily, but. It won't work as well with the pods versus a newer delivery of briefs. And so that was a little surprising just to have that support and really know that they're there for us and they want us to be successful and ultimately they're helping us impact resident care.

Amber Bardon: So the next question I have is actually for both of you. 'cause I'm curious to hear your different perspectives on the answer. And Michelle, I'll start with you. What advice. Would you give to someone that would like to implement this program? So what advice and or what things would you want to make sure that they know about?

Michelle Christiansen: First thing, reach out to us, ask questions. We are going to do anything and everything that we can to make sure that the, the team at the other end is going to be really [00:15:00] successful. From a leadership perspective, it's crucial that the information, the excitement the onboarding of the technology is, is being pushed down to the front line that, so the front line staff know that they're being supported and that they, their leadership has an interest in improving their workload.

And the workflow for them while also improving outcomes. So I think communication is key. And then also having an open mind and just asking really great questions along the way and like Ashley and her team did, make suggestions. It's, how we can continue to improve technology.

A lot of what we do, and a lot of the products that we have today. Have been designed and or improved by frontline caregivers and feedback that we get in, from the corners of healthcare. So really important. 

Amber Bardon: Ashley, what are your thoughts? 

Ashley Douglas: So if someone's wanting to start a program, I think the most important thing to know is it's a no stress commitment.

There isn't [00:16:00] a sales pitch where they haggle you and they are there alongside you. So you feel that support and you see that support, which a lot of times with vendors, you don't quite get as much support as you can from the Medline team and the FitRight Connect team. But one thing that I would definitely.

Show if anyone's willing to come to the campus, we will give you a demonstration is how the pod actually fits on the specialized brief and how it transmits the signal to the tablet and how you can see the real time results, as well as the monitoring that's on the back end that occurs on their web page and their application.

And just the convenience of the pod and how easy it is for the staff to use and see instant results. We live in an instant world now, and it's how can you do more with less is a phrase we often say here, and we can do more because now we're saving time not changing people as often because they're avoiding patterns are more known [00:17:00] and more succinct because we can actually tell.

how long they've gone in between episodes, or maybe they're more frequent than we anticipated. So really being able to really personalize that resident care, it has allowed us to do that, as well as just the increased satisfaction with the residents and their family members. We actually have a few residents that call them their smarty pants.

They'll say, Oh, get my smarty pants on, which Is endearing, obviously they're enjoying it and they're feeling happy to know Oh, hey, I don't push my call light to be able to get changed or wait for my one to two hour change. It's going to happen immediately because yeah I drink an extra gallon of water today and now I'm having a more frequent incontinence episode.

So the residents yeah and their satisfaction. You can measure it, but you can't really measure it until 

you see their smiles. Yeah, that's a really good point. I was curious to know like how the residents have received this. Were they excited about it? Do you have more people that want to try to get into the pilot program?

Yeah, so we, it's ebbed and [00:18:00] flowed with who's on it and who some residents after a few months of use are like, you know what, I don't want to do this. And we respect their preference. And so does the Medline team. Because again, We want it to be successful. the increased satisfaction of the residents, you can tell that they like it because they tell their friends and then their friends are like, what is this smarty pants I hear of and we say, oh, it's the FitRight Connect brief.

And so then their roommates or the person down the hall asks and wants to get involved in the program. So then it's a quick, Hey, we need more pods. Phone call to the Medline FitRide Connect team. They send us more or they say, yep, let's reprogram pod 201 for now 202. And it's really easy to use. Not a lot of training required, honestly, to, to use the technology.

Very just user friendly, resident friendly, and again, family and resident satisfaction are the ultimate result. 

Amber Bardon: It's really interesting while you're talking about this. I feel like there's a lot of [00:19:00] misconception that a lot of residents are so anti technology or a little bit afraid of it. And I hear about this a lot with robots, for example, when you actually talk to communities that have some of this technology, the residents actually really like to brag about it.

They're excited about it. And so I think there's a lot more embracement of technology by the residents than a lot of people realize. So I think you're proving that with the stories that you're telling. 

Ashley Douglas: Yes, the 

residents are more in tune than I think we give them credit for. They're using the technology with their phones.

Just the other day, there was a resident with her iPhone out showing another resident her conversation with her son in New York and the photos that were sent, they embrace it. They're not trying to be a barrier for us. And again, if it affects their overall health care and improves it, then yeah, they're 

on board.

Amber Bardon: Michelle, can you talk a little bit about the ROI? So does this product have any cost savings?

How does the price structure work? Can you explain that part to us? 

Michelle Christiansen: Sure. So when we think [00:20:00] about technology, we think expensive. And that is not the case with BitRite Connect. For a couple of reasons. One we manufacture our FitRight portfolio of products here in the United States and owning our own manufacturing allows us to bring better products in at a lower price because, we control all of that.

But also what the technology does, the capability of FitRight Connect it just brings so much to the table. We're getting residents in the right product. We're getting them in the right size. We're changing them at the right time. So customers immediately see a decrease in spend and product utilization, which is great.

It's helping caregivers work smarter and not harder. And by allowing the caregivers to work proactively when it comes to managing incontinence, it's just. Managing incontinence is just so tough in general. Caregivers spend so much time doing so and they really struggle with it and [00:21:00] it's because it just involves so much guesswork.

This is really taking the guesswork out of managing incontinence by giving those caregivers the notifications and letting them know what steps are needed so that they can as Ashley mentioned earlier, address the need right away. So we're improving, the quality of life for someone who is experiencing incontinence works improving their comfort reducing.

The spend of and the product utilization, which is always great. But also the staff satisfaction, that's just a huge improvement. We often hear when we're going in to work with our customers, the frontline caregivers tell us please don't take it away from us.

Please don't take it away. We love it. We just, they work so hard and they want to do such a great job for everyone that they care for. And it's tough. And this just makes it really easy for them. It empowers them. It's just great. So I can't say enough great things about it. I know I'm biased, but we just see the difference at the front line and with the residents and Ashley [00:22:00] mentioned the smiles.

It's just incredible. I'm just very fortunate to be a part of it. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, you're really highlighting the fact that not only is it technology that helps provide better care for residents, but it also improves staff day to day and makes them a little bit happier to come to work.

Maybe because it saves them some time and also that they know that they're able to provide that better care. 

Ashley Douglas: I'll piggyback off of that. I also think for the staff, it gives them something to look forward to because they're part of innovation, and you don't always get that from other employers and to know that we are spearheading this project and moving forward and seeing success.

I think that also helps. I want to say a little bit with retention, I would say, because yeah, how cool is it to come to work and say, yeah, we're the first in the state to roll out this product and this program and be a part of that and it's success and they get to take contribution to it and take credit for what they're doing and actually see the results of their care on the tablet and from the [00:23:00] reports that are able to be pulled.

I would also want to point out to with the pilot program, as Michelle had mentioned, when you get it and then you're in it for the 30 days or 60 days that you're in the pilot program, and then they come and say, okay, do you want to continue the program? Or is this not the right time to roll it out for the whole building or for other residents?

What are your thoughts? Originally, we didn't think it was the right time. We wanted to wait a few months and roll it out. Because staffing, staffing is a thing that we all worry about. It's not going away. But we didn't think the staffing was right at the time. And so when our pilot was starting to end, they came to collect their equipment and my team and I, we froze for a minute and we said, wait a minute.

We don't want this to go away. No, like this has been integrated into our care. We can't, we know we, we don't know what to do without it. So we ended up Starting the program right then and there full time and I know it threw Michelle's team a little bit in a [00:24:00] loop because they were expecting the in the pilot and come back to us and 30 6090 days to see when we wanted to roll it out full time and because my staff loved it so much and the residents loved it so much.

We couldn't stop it. We continued and here we are. 

Amber Bardon: Probably a nice surprise. 

Michelle Christiansen: Four days. Your staff picked it up in four days and just made it so simple. It was really incredible. 

Ashley Douglas: They're quick learners. 

Amber Bardon: Michelle and Ashley, this has been such an interesting conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Michelle Christiansen: Thank you for having us. This was fun. 

Ashley Douglas: Thank 

you. It's been great. 

Amber Bardon: Michelle, where can our listeners find more if they want to learn more about FitRight Connect? 

Michelle Christiansen: They can go to Medline.

com they could call 1 800 MEDLINE. They could reach out to me at mchristensen@Medline.Com we can start there. 

Amber Bardon: All right. Fabulous. And we'll be sure to put all of that contact information in our show notes as well. 

Michelle Christiansen: Great. Thank you. 

Amber Bardon: 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 [00:25:00] 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 Resig, one of our very own Parasol Alliance employees.

As always, thank you for listening.