83. Kristen Parsons Redefines Aging in Place

In this episode of Raising Tech, host Amber Bardon welcomes Kristen Parsons, Executive Director of Tiffany Village and Kenny’s Pond in Newfoundland, Canada. Kristen shares how her communities have transformed senior living by becoming some of the most tech-enabled communities in the region.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Kristen’s Journey: From registered nurse to executive director, and her mission to ensure seniors can age in place with dignity and independence.
• Revolutionizing Senior Care Models: How Tiffany Village adopted innovative technologies like AMBA to create personalized care plans and enhance staff efficiency.
• Overcoming Challenges: Insights into addressing workforce shortages, technology adoption resistance, and infrastructure upgrades like Wi-Fi.
• Data-Driven Care: The role of integrated systems in providing proactive care, reducing emergency room visits, and improving the quality of life for residents.
• Future of Senior Living: Kristen’s vision for a more individualized, technology-driven approach to care that promotes autonomy and lifestyle choices for seniors.

This insightful conversation highlights the transformative power of technology in senior living, offering valuable lessons for communities looking to enhance care, efficiency, and resident satisfaction.

Resources Mentioned:

• Tiffany Village & Kenny’s Pond website
• Email Kristen Parsons: kristen.parsons@tiffanyvillage.com
• Follow on Facebook: Tiffany Village and Kenny’s Pond

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Transcript

Amber: [00:00:00] Welcome to Raising Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Amber Bardon. And today our guest is Kristen Parsons, who is the executive director at Tiffany Village in Canada. Welcome to the show, Kristen. Thank you for having me. I wanted to give our listeners a little bit of background on how we came to have a Canadian community on the podcast.

So you and I met at the ARCO conference in London last year, you did a really interesting presentation, which actually I've spent a lot of time thinking about what you talked about and actually even Telling other vendors and other clients about some of the really innovative things that you're doing.

And I know you have a strong partnership with AMBA, which we also did a podcast with them. So I am so excited for our listeners to hear more about your story, about Tiffany village's story, and to really talk about how you have become one of the most tech enabled communities that I've ever heard of. So let's dig into it.

Give us a little background on yourself and tell us about Tiffany village, because there's a really unique story there. 

Kristen: So my name is Kristen. As you [00:01:00] said earlier, I'm the executive director for Tiffany Village and Kenny's pond. My background is a registered nurse. I started in acute care in Alberta, actually born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada, but went to Alberta shortly after finishing my undergrad and was very you know, exposed early on to technology, which on the east coast of Canada.

We were a little bit behind at that time, and then my career, you know, progressed into long term care and assisted living, which brought me back home after, you know, 15 plus years, which was great. And when I had the opportunity to come in and be the executive director for Tiffany village and Kenny's pond, we had quite a few seniors that had been aging in place, but we were seeing them.

Often leave our homes to go either to long term care or be, you know, as they age in place and there was a fall or a change in their behavior, they were going out to the emergency room departments spending, [00:02:00] you know, X amount of hours there and then often not returning because they were either a not safe to do.

So, or B, we did not have the capabilities within our staffing model to support. So my goal coming in was, once you come and live at a place like Tiffany Village, which is 183 suites, or a place like Kenny's Pond, which has 114, you can live with us regardless of where you are in the aging process, that we can complement your needs to your individual care plan and that we evolve and change as you evolve and change.

And that came in line as we brought technology such as AMBA into place. And then we built our entire staffing model and our operational and strategic plan around that technology, which really enhanced the care delivery and made us, you know, one of the leaders of assisted living and independent living in in the province.

Amber: Can you talk a little bit more about the care model that you have and share a little bit about how you [00:03:00] were able to get funding and support for that care model that you have? And I think, you know, I know you shared at the ARCO conference a little bit about the geographic pieces that come into play with why you had to develop that model.

So I'd love to hear you talk more about 

Kristen: that. Absolutely. So when I came back home, which is Newfoundland, you know, predominantly the focus has been on our baby boomers. They're, they're aging, they're coming back after retirement, they're living in a province. And our province is so this is an area that's quite geographically spread where a lot of our seniors are living in very small outport fishing communities where hospitals are not always open 24 7 emergency room departments are closing because of short staffing and a lot of individuals within our province that are not baby boomers or older or of a younger generation are more attracted to acute care settings if they're coming from from a health care background.

And we were finding a lot of individuals were. Missing their homes, but having to leave their [00:04:00] homes and come to Tiffany Village and to Kenny's pond. So we wanted to create a very holistic view on how you can provide care that even if you're leaving your home in outport, Newfoundland, you're coming to live at Tiffany Village and your wife has memory care, but you do not.

And you're living quite independently. You can live together. We can support the services and care model within your home and bring the care to you. So we created what you would consider a home care model within the confines of a large style community like Tiffany Village and Kenny's Pond. We have all the registered nursing, licensed practical nursing, physician services, recreation, wellness, dining, if you choose, or if you want to cook for yourself and you're safe to do so.

And then we have a great program that gets you back to your home through recreation and wellness, whether that's bus outings, or going back to fishing villages, or even bringing some of the memories of living in outport Newfoundland, which is. [00:05:00] Putting your clothes out on the line, putting fish out to be dried you know, making fish and brews and, and for those people from our, from our culture, that's very accustomed to them and brings them back to their way of life, even for people who retire and want to live in Newfoundland from Florida or from other countries, what drew them to Newfoundland was the culture and the holistic view and I feel we do that very well.

It's not just segmented into individualized departments. Everything we do is about the lifestyle of the person and getting to know them and creating a unique setting for them. And it's tricky, as I said, in the AMBA conferences or in the ARCO conferences, how do you do that? When we're all strapped right now for for labor.

This is not the most attractive place for people to come to work in in the setting of what long term care and what our mindset is and trying to ensure you have the right people and by bringing in technology, we soon realize that we don't need to be in their suite or in their home. 24 [00:06:00] hours a day, seven days a week for all residents.

Some of you do, but this allowed us to be anywhere in the confines of Tiffany Village and Kenny's pond and know when someone has fallen or that someone needs help or that someone's breathing pattern or change or their heart rate. You know, increased, you know, they're going to the bathroom more often than they usually did.

So maybe they have an infection. Maybe they have a, so we were able to manage our resources and be more pronounced and proactive versus reactive while at the same time, giving people their dignity and their independence to still have their own space and not feel like they're in a care environment. And I think the story.

Of Tiffany Village and Kenny's Pond is really segmented in that, you know, this business was built on the back of a man who, you know, was born and raised in Newfoundland. He's seen a need in the senior community. He didn't want to be like everyone else, where everything has to be isolated, you know, your long term care.

So you anything above a level 4 needs to go to it, you know, to a more [00:07:00] institutional style of home or. You know, you're less than level 2, so you need to go to a personal care home. Like, he believed that seniors had a place, that they should age in place, and that their journey and their story should be shared.

And I feel that we have really done a great job in making sure everyone feels individualized. Everyone feels like this is my home, no different than living in a community. And we've taken pressure off an acute care system and a long term care system that is overtaxed right now by by bringing technology into practice.

Amber: I know you just mentioned in the information you just share that 1 of the big drivers to move to technology was staffing shortages. Workforce is a big issue here in the US as well. It's a big buzzword. Can you talk a little bit about the other drivers that pushed you to more of a technology driven solution, both from a care perspective?

And then if you can just speak a little bit more to. to some of the labor challenges and then also I'm curious about how did that interface with [00:08:00] regulation? 

Kristen: Absolutely. I mean, you see it on every evening news hour about our shortages and, and that was pronounced even more post pandemic. A lot of people, you know, were challenged to continue to do care.

There was a lot around caregiver burnout. I truly seen from, from my lens that. We weren't always working smarter and more efficient. It was a lot of guesswork into care, and I still think there there is. I don't think it's isolated to 1 particular division of care. I think it's all over every country right now.

So, when I came into the role, 2 and a half years ago, I found that our staffing model was a very 1 size fits all. It was very much. Not so much government regulated. We didn't have a lot of red tape where we were, but we did try to stay aligned with what other homes were doing. I come up with ratios that were very much, you know, the historical practice.

You need to have so many people on this floor because you have so many residents [00:09:00] not really looking at level of care, not really looking at day and night routines, or even understanding what the day and night routine was. And by bringing in early on, we brought in door sensors and sensors within the suite and sleep mats.

We couldn't hear what they said. We couldn't see what they were doing. We just knew there was activity and what the disruptions of activity were from day and night, and we actually changed our staffing ratios within the 1st 6 months of the deployment because We seen our nighttime activity was far less than daytime activity.

We were able to determine that some people having nighttime activity either had sleep disruptions because of medication management wasn't appropriate, or these individuals had memory care challenges and were more appropriately to be assigned to memory care. care, or we've seen individuals had, you know, chronic pain or had a UTI, and we were able to medically manage it or support it so that everyone had a more appropriate sleep wake [00:10:00] cycle or had an appropriate care plan for their needs.

And then we were able to shift the resources to reduce some of our ratios and increase where we most needed it based on the data that we were receiving it. And then we were able to validate it by speaking to families and care staff by the information we were getting from the technology. So that allowed us to stretch our resources, be more efficient with them and more effective and reduce some of the burnout.

I mean, when you're in a building like ours, that, you know, has. You know, eight plus floors and you're, you know, you're moving your resources along. It's nice to be able to actually look from a lens down and say, this is exactly where I need to be. And here is managing well. And before that, it truly was guesswork, which I think a lot of organizations are doing, which costs the resident money, it costs the taxpayer money and the organization money.

So labor was important. But most importantly for me and what keeps us in business is, you know, we can, we can sell you a beautiful lifestyle, a beautiful suite and all [00:11:00] the amenities and services. But what keeps people here is really good care. And for me, I found, you know, polypharmacy, you know, right now seniors are on far too many medications and half the time we don't, we're giving a medication to support another medication so that it reduces the side effects and really it comes down to good nutrition, you know, good hydration, good sleep cycle, making sure that they're well engaged because loneliness is one of the leading, you know, causes of death I find in our seniors.

And AMBA was able to help us do that. By knowing people's activity and knowing what their day routines are without being with them, allowed us to put in engagements, put in different types of services you know, put in exercise programs where maybe people were getting, you know, sleepy or people were wanting to take a nap because they weren't engaged, or they were going to medication for pain when they could have needed more rehabilitation.

So I feel like it just provided a full continuum of care that before we were, we were missing. [00:12:00] 

Amber: I know you've touched on in this conversation so far a couple of you've mentioned a couple different ways of you're using technology and a couple types of technology you're using. Do you mind, can you walk us through what does technology look like from a day to day perspective, both from a staff perspective and from a resident perspective and give us a little bit more insight into the technology you're actually utilizing and have deployed.

Kristen: So right now we've been really focused on, you know, the utilization of AMBA into practice. I would say when we first implemented it, and this would be for any organization, whether you're unionized or not, change, people usually are resistant to it. And it's really hard when historically you've done something the same way, and now someone else is coming in and saying, let's have this complement what you do.

Because right away, people are going to think that technology is going to replace them. Yeah. And in some ways you can change up your ratios. You can change your model of care, but we really want to echo the importance of it [00:13:00] being complimentary to you. So you can work smarter. You can work more efficiently, give more time back to the resident and give more time back to yourself to be able to perform the skills and the duties that you're required to do.

So from a care perspective, we've utilized it around you know, sleep activity, recreation and wellness you know, allocation of resources medication oversight, like we are deploying right now, something called a med carry, which we're so excited that will give independence back to the resident to either manage their medication themselves because they're having, you know, medication occurrences or you know, issues right now doing themselves.

Or we are bringing it into an assistant living community with the support of a staff member that may not be licensed and registered, but know the resident, you know, better than that individual is going to be providing the medication at the time that's most appropriate with oversight from, from a registered professional.

So we're excited around that independence and [00:14:00] autonomy. That's going to come back full circle. So from a care perspective in the beginning, absolutely. People were resistant. Once you take them on the path and they see how much time they get back and how much more they can give to the resident from an engagement versus, I'm sorry, I can't do this right now.

I have to go see someone else is important because if you went into this type of profession, you did it because you want to be resident focused. And now we can't be from a resident perspective. You got to remember my generations are, you know, 75 80 plus for individuals and, you know, the late 80s to 90s.

Technology is unheard of. They're still, you know, some of them are struggling still with the ATM. So talking to them about, you know, the benefits and the supports of bringing a technology to practice is, you know, it's walking them through day to day what we were able to do for you. Because of this, and I'll give an example, you know, we had an individual that, you know, was concerned about, you know, their [00:15:00] wife they felt that, you know, they would have to go to another home because they couldn't age in place because, you know, we were seeing memory issues and because of AMBA, we determined that, you know, this was an early onset of dementia.

This individual is up toiling through the night. This individual had a UTI that A, they could not, you know, either cognitively or verbally report. There was, you know, reference point for the staff when they went in. They were reporting everything was fine. There was no sign of, of, you know, temperature or fever.

But we noticed frequent urination, which ended up being a UTI, which, as you know, can lead to cognitive changes because there's an underlying infection. And right away, you know, that husband needed to be able to see that because of technology, we were proactive. He did not need to leave his home. They could stay together.

And we didn't have to worry at this point in time that these changes were, you know, an early onset of something. It truly was an infectious process. Again, would have been the same. I don't know if, if it would, if we didn't [00:16:00] have that technology, I think she would have been out in an emergency room department, you know, 14, 15 hours waiting to be seen.

And, you know, that increases your risk for further infections or falls. So they need to see those benefits and we need to communicate them. And more of those stories that we share, the more people become believers, and the more they believe, the more they just embrace it, and then they don't even know it exists.

It just feels like every part of your day to day life is no different than picking up your iPhone. So I think that has been really important for our growth and development. 

Amber: I imagine with all the monitoring technology that you have deployed a big advantage, you have you didn't have before you did that would be access to a lot of different types of data.

So I'm curious to hear from you because I think one of the challenges we see with deploying. This different type of technology, at least here in the U. S. And I'm curious if you found a solution is that a lot of this technology doesn't talk to each other where you have a lot of different disparate data sources and integration issues.

So, can you talk a little bit about how did you solve [00:17:00] that? And what are the benefits and what have you been able to do with the data that you've been able to get out of all of your systems and how integrated and cohesive is that? 

Kristen: I totally align with what that was one of our biggest risk factors when we when we spoke about deploying technologies.

I did not want to have a platform for sleep and then a platform for, you know, mobility or fall risk and then a platform for medication and then a platform for heart rate and respiratory rate. You know, that that was something that when we did our research, we were really concerned that I wanted something that a would, you know, All sink into 1 platform that we could document under that we could pull reports for.

And that's why I think when we went down the road of looking for options, Amba became such an important part because although they had a foundation and somewhat of a baseline model, I was able to build a Cadillac out of it. So I started with a sleep mat and then I went to, you know, sleep. And then I [00:18:00] went to Medicare.

And now I'm even thinking about bringing in a detector to test like how far the water levels are and people sinks or in their bathrooms so that we don't have any risk for floods as people start to age in place and forget to turn off the tap. And I liked that part of insight that I could reach out to them and say I have this idea.

This is what I want. Now make it happen with within the same platform. So right now today, I could come in. I could see all you know. You know, 375 plus residents know exactly, you know, who's at a high alert, who's at a low risk, who's already triggered onto the platform that, you know, our staff are being deployed to, I can look over a 7 day window, you know, who's at the highest risk for falls, who's at a, you know, an occurrence happen.

I can pull that same report then for our physician, and we can monitor if we changed up the treatment plan, if anything improved or didn't improve. And then I can speak to any family member anywhere across the world and say, Look, this is what's [00:19:00] happening with mom and dad. And this is why we made the changes we made.

And now the data don't lie to us, you know, before. It's always about human factor. How good did they document? How good did they assess? Did they monitor the situation? Did they evaluate? Did they follow up? You're only as good as the person who documented that information. If you didn't document it, it didn't happen.

Now we're tested to say you have the data. You have the documentation. What did you do about it? Did it improve? Did it not improve? So I do think it creates a very cohesive integrated team. It challenges us. Because it challenges us in a way to say, you know, are these care plans effective? You know, should we be doing something different?

But now we're actually able to measure it, which before, you know, your measurement comes on a 88 year old individual that possibly could have memory issues and is telling you everything is 88 And you're documenting, everything is fine, the vital signs are great. Then you look at the report and say, they haven't slept in the last nine nights for 12 hours, everything isn't fine.

So I love [00:20:00] the report generation. I love the ability to be able to connect with different disciplines. I love the ability to show families no matter where they are, what's happening with mom and dad and how we've improved that situation. I also like the fact that. I can now know if people truly are independent or if they need support and putting that support in as quick as we can so that they can stay as independent as long as they can versus declining to the point that they can't.

And I like the fact that I can go in and interface this all into 1 system without having to open up 6 different applications for 6 different devices. Do I think we're just in infancy? I do. I think we're going to grow and expand into different pieces of of technology that will still interface under this one platform, which is exciting for us.

Amber: Have you ever had a resident refuse to take part in the technology? Is that an option for them? And if so, how do you handle that? 

Kristen: Yeah, so in the early days, like when we first started this, you know, [00:21:00] you got to be very careful in this type of business because in a setting that is not private, like we're a private entity.

And yes, over the last couple of years, we did go to the government and we did request subsidy for care. Which was quite unheard of in our type of work. And we did go to, you know, different levels of government and acknowledge the work that we're doing the longevity and retention of our clientele and the fact that we are keeping people out of hospital.

We're keeping them out of acute care beds. And so it's saving people money at the end of the day, and it's supporting individuals that need those beds to be there. right place, right time, right treatment and plan. So that really helped us grow. And when residents came to us, you know, Early on, we did give them the choice.

We said, you know, we have this new piece of technology. You know, we're still in our pilot phase. You're going to be part of the journey. We're going to give you the data. So, we had some people right up front that was resistant because of privacy and [00:22:00] confidentiality. They were very concerned that that information would leak out or that we were spying on them and then other people, you know, Especially family members embraced it because they weren't there.

So once we finished the pilot and we were able to show all of the areas where there were benefits and all the areas that we learned that we put corrective action plans in the individuals that were resistant up front did come aboard and say, you know, I want to stay in my suite as long as I can. I don't want to go to long term care.

Nothing against that, but this is where I came. This is where I want to age. I don't want to be in an emergency room. I don't want to have a medicare and say, you know, creates challenges for me down the road. I don't want to be separated from my wife or from my husband. So taking people along that journey every month, we were giving, you know, tips and good news stories that people embraced.

Then when we got to a point where we felt very confident. In the technology, which was truly six to nine months in where we were seeing really [00:23:00] quality outcomes. We went to all the clients and said, it's now a requirement when you're living here, because we want to ensure we are protecting your best interests, that there are absolutely no liabilities.

And that if you do want to live independently, then at the end of the day, the technology is not going to show anything that we need to, to change in your suite. But if it does. It allows you to live independently because we can insert those different resources there. So since doing that, we have not had any resistance.

And from a privacy perspective, we were able to show them that the information is stored, it's secure, it's no different than, you know, a chart, and that any point in time it can be deleted. That the information, once you're discharged Kenny's Pond, is not collected unless you want to use it for research purposes, and that it's yours.

So they could see it at any time if they chose to. So that was very helpful for us. 

Amber: Yeah, I think it sounds like it's really critical to have buy in at 100 percent for this to work, because it would [00:24:00] be a lot of trouble and potential risk for you to have to go back to manual processes if someone's not on board with the technology.

Kristen: You know, I've had a lot of homes reach out to me since, you know, talking about this, because a lot of people have said, well, did you go all in at once? Did you deploy it slowly? And I always say every home and every layout looks a little different. And if I was to tell anyone You know, should I do it in in one home or one floor versus the other?

My strong encouragement is at the end of the day, this technology is going to help you regardless if you're assisted living. If you're independent living, you're living in your own home. I mean, we've had people, our staff. Who were nonbelievers have it in their own home and recognize right away. They have sleep apnea and they had disruptions in their sleep, but they didn't have a partner to tell him that.

So that's why they were fatigued. That's why they were showing up, you know, late for work or maybe they had a healthy element that they needed to find out, but they didn't have a family doctor. So this allowed them to speed up that process. I'm a believer. But if people [00:25:00] are not a believer and they want to pilot it, I would always recommend pick a floor, pick a subgroup, pick your high risk that you want to be able to monitor that you don't have good insight.

Do it over the course of three months. You won't be long seeing that you'll be progressing it throughout the other floors or the other units or departments of your homes or 

Amber: facilities. That was going to be 1 of my questions. If you have what would be your top piece of advice to any community that's looking to implement this technology.

So you just shared 1 other other tips that you can offer or lessons learned things you wish you would have known. 

Kristen: You know, the 1 thing I would say to everyone now is technology is not going away. We're only at the, you know, the break of what's to come. And what I'm talking about today, you know, a year from now, there will be something new and exciting.

And it's important to work with a company or a group of companies that believes in the vision that they're not just selling you a product. Like, they're really trying to improve the lives of the clientele you're working with and improve the lives of your staff. [00:26:00] You can't do this in isolation. It can't just be for one party.

It has to be you know, I think it's important for us to be for all parties. You know, Yes, I see care outcomes, but I also see financial gain from this. I also see an efficient workforce from this. I see less caregiver workout for burnout from this. So you need to look at your quality factors. Your KP eyes.

What's your top goals and see where technology fits into compliment that, but don't be scared to take the risk because doing things the same way is not going to work. Forever. And you have to be open minded to change just as people age and they're changing every day. If we stay in the past and we don't change with them, then obviously we're going to miss out on great opportunities, potentially impacting your business, you know, your, your own careers, your own opportunities.

So I would open your mind up to it and really listen to what's out there and to build a database of goals for yourself and see where that's going. And I think that this piece of technology could really help you and no doubt the more that you embrace and become less [00:27:00] resistant to it. I do think the more that you'll grow as, as a, you know, a person and as a, as a company,

Amber: sorry, I lost my train of thought. You mentioned a couple minutes ago in part of the earlier conversation that you feel that. What you're doing is still in its infancy and that there's still a lot more you can do. So tell me, what do you imagine the technology environment and care environment looking like in five to 10 years from now?

Good one. 

Kristen: I truly believe that we need to get away from this one size fits all model. I can only speak for, you know, my province and the country in which I live in right now, but I've had the luxury in my career to work in four different provinces. And the one thing that has always opened my eyes is, and I'll speak for long term care, because obviously my career was there prior to coming into this setting, is that long term care has a stigma.

Attached to it. Very institutionalized. People feel they have no [00:28:00] choices anymore, and I hear that even in my own parents who are aging. And I just feel now with technology, you could have dementia. And could still walk around a pond. You can have dementia and still go to a grocery store. You can have dementia and not require a lockdown unit for everything.

But I feel like there's still this association that when you get to a certain stage, you're locked down, you know, you're, you're institutionalized. Your choices are gone away. And I just think with technology now with things around safe exploration, we're starting to use words Safe exploration versus wandering.

You know, looking at opportunities to get out and to live a life and attend recreation. I spoke a lot in my presentation about neighborhood programs and having the opportunity to, you know, go to neighborhood programs and go to swimming and, you know, go skating and, and go out for tea or for coffee with, with your loved one or with other like minded individuals.

I think technology is going to [00:29:00] be allow us to do that. There's different tracking devices. I think there's gonna be technology. Now that's going to be able to assess people's moods and behaviors before they sundown. I'm not saying that's not out there. I'm just saying, I think that's where it's gonna go.

I think there's gonna be opportunities right now to assess people's pain threshold, be able to check changes with their bowel patterns and urinary patterns. And, you know, if there's anyone gonna be listening to this, who wants to explore that with me, I would love that. But I just think there's gonna be opportunities for sure.

Individuals to have more choice. regardless of their condition. So maybe it doesn't need to be a long term care. Maybe it's in your own home with home care. And you know, I think there's gonna be opportunities to really assess treatment plans with different types of medications and the effects that it has on people's behavior or, you know, clinical changes.

That's where I see it. I feel that we are going to change the trajectory of care. I think we're going to be able to look at people's level of care and determine the [00:30:00] right staffing complement and the right staffing skill set. And I think, you know, this one, it has to be all registered or licensed staff.

I think it's going to change. I think we're going to see people more towards like the personal care side of things and giving. I think it's important that we give back autonomy to the resident to be able to take on a little bit more choice. And I honestly got to be truthful with the aging population.

I don't think we have any other way of thinking. There's never going to be enough people to care for everyone. So we have to start thinking long term on how can technology help them do the things that they do well and can do well as the age. And where do we need to supplement that with a care that, you know, right now is not in their life.

I think it's going to make us more efficient with our resources. I think it's going to save, you know, taxpayers and the government money at the end of the day, if they're smart enough and open minded to use it. And again, that's where I go back to history. You can't just keep doing things the same way.

It's, it's not going to work. I do think we're going to have to embrace it, even in our own [00:31:00] lives, regardless if we're seniors or not. 

Amber: Yeah, I mean, this is a topic that we talk about all the time on this podcast. And then I talk about in my presentations. I do is exactly what you're saying is that this is going to be something that you're going to have no choice to have to move forward with and have to adopt and it is going to become a differentiator.

And, you know, it's absolutely necessary from a workforce perspective and a care perspective. Two questions I have for you on possible challenges. So have you, do you have any regulatory issues in terms of not being able to reduce staffing levels in place of technology and how, you know, how did you deal with that?

And then the 2nd question is, did you have any infrastructure challenges from a technology perspective with deploying this technology and getting to getting it to work effectively? 

Kristen: Yeah, so for the with relation to staffing, we're very fortunate. Yes, we have a staffing model. So I'll speak for previous.

So, previous to us having subsidized care you know, we really have the freedom to work with [00:32:00] ratios, adjust ratios and make, make those, make those changes as we need it. So, for instance, if I had an assistant living floor and they were all level 3 and then due to residents passing away, the. Residents that we brought in were level 2.

I had the freedom to change up my staffing ratios based on acuity. And then when subsidy came in to play to pay for people's care they did give a standardized hour per resident. They were expecting a personal care attendant who does the personal care or nursing who does the medication to provide.

And what I loved about that is that for some of them, they actually put them at a higher level of care, which is a higher pay bracket. And for some individuals, we were able to acknowledge because of the technology cause they were assessing it based on a survey or based on a questionnaire, you know, they don't require overnight care.

They require, you know, morning care and evening care and wellness checks, which I can do on AMBA. I don't physically have to go wake them [00:33:00] up with a flashlight. I can physically go in and say they're sleeping. Their heart rate, you know, is 65. And I don't have to disrupt their sleep. So we were actually able to go back and say, you know, they're not a level 3, they're a level 2, which is great.

Which I think is great for any person out there that, you know, is, is living in long term care or living or, you know, subsidized by the public entity that it can be more cost effective with the use of technology, which is great. With regards to our staffing levels, as long as I have efficient and effective data.

It's really hard to fight against it. I can make that change, and I can explain it to any unionized environment where I need the resources, which before I couldn't so as long as the data is there and you have a generated business case, you're quite able to have the freedom and the luxury of changing that.

What was your second question? You had asked me regarding, it was 

Amber: about technology infrastructure. So I know one of the big challenges we have here is wifi, for example. 

Kristen: Yes. So we did a Wi Fi upgrade when we did the deployment, not in the [00:34:00] early stages, because you just don't know if you're going to like it, if you're going to do this through every suite and through every building.

So at Tiffany Village our building is such that there are concrete structures. So, Between each suite. It's really great from a like a fire control perspective, but it can make it really difficult from a connectivity perspective. So you have to be very mindful of where the hot spots are and where you could have connectivity issues or poor connectivity.

So we did do a we did a full deployment of a Wi Fi upgrade. We changed out where our sensors were so that we could have good signals at all times and be able to recognize what's happening in each suite, regardless of some of those barriers. So that was one of the things that we had done. The other thing we had done is we want to make sure that all of our care workers have appropriate technology to read the platform wherever they went.

So we invested in iPad smartphones to make sure that As they were setting up each individual care plan for the resident, if someone was at Risper Falls and say they were downstairs and on level 2, and [00:35:00] this person was up on level 4 or 5, and they seen that the person was at a bed longer than 5 minutes, and they knew that was a trigger, they would get an alert.

They could deploy a care worker from that floor and say, you know, go check on this person. 

Amber: Well, Kristen, this has been absolutely fascinating. I know it's only January, but I'm going to go ahead and call it and say this is going to be one of our top podcasts of 2025. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Where can our listeners learn more about you and about Tiffany village and Kenny's pond? 

Kristen: Well, we have a website at tbkp. ca. So tb for Tiffany Village, kp for Kenny's Pond. I'm also on indeed, kristin. parsons at tiffanyvillage. com. People can reach out to me any time. We're very well networked on Facebook as well.

So if you search Tiffany Village or Kenny's Pond, you'll we have a really great opportunity here. We would love to hear from other people. I find the best learning you do is from sharing so we're not isolated to know that there may be someone out there doing something really great. But at the end of the day, I will [00:36:00] say what separates us from a lot of people is that everything we do.

Every decision we make is really centered on the, on the resident experience. I want this for my parents. I want this for myself. I'm sure you want it for all of you. So we have to do better for our generations to come. So we create the very best life that we can for them. So I'm very excited. Anyone can reach out anytime.

I would love to hear from them. 

Amber: Thank 

Kristen: you so 

Amber: much for joining us today.