90. Driving Change and Innovation in Senior Living with Dillon Painter of Priority Life Care

In this episode of Raising Tech, host Matt Reiners sits down with Dillon Painter, Project Manager at Priority Life Care, to explore the nuances of change management and the evolving role of technology in senior living. Dillon shares his journey into the industry, his approach to fostering innovation across multi-generational teams, and how he’s leading transformational change initiatives at Priority Life Care.

Dillon offers practical insights on overcoming resistance to change, building strategic communication plans, and using data and AI to elevate care quality and operational efficiency. From identifying "change champions" to leveraging AI for fall prevention and personalized resident experiences, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways for senior living operators and tech innovators alike.

You can connect with Dillon on LinkedIn. 

Discover more about Priority Life Care on their website. 

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Transcript

Matt Reiners: Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech. Today I am joined by the Dillon Painter project manager for Priority Life Care. I've gotten to know Dillon over the years. I remember the. First time I think we met Dillon was at, he, one of the health tech conferences. Mm-hmm. And, I've been a fan from afar of what you've been doing and just really excited to jump into some of this stuff here with you today.

I think what you're doing in Senior Living [00:01:00] Orgs in Priority Life Care specifically is just super important that I don't think enough organizations are. Prioritizing thinking about, and it's just becoming a, it's falling on people's plates, but to have someone like you really prioritizing it and crushing it from what all it seems like.

So I wanna give you props on that and uh, really excited to jump into this uh, with you here today. 

Dillon Painter: Thanks, Matt. Super pumped to be here and really excited about this conversation. Awesome. 

Matt Reiners: Dillon, a place I always like to start with new guests. What is your story and how did you end up in senior living?

Dillon Painter: Yeah. I wish I had a really exciting and riveting story, which got me here to senior living, but it really starts with where I'm from, which is Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is where I was born and raised. This is home to me, and this also happens to be where our home corporate office is for priority life care, and.

In a roundabout way without getting too far into the weeds I've known the Petras family for quite some time, actually over 10 [00:02:00] years. I've only been working at Priority Life Care for almost three years, and through just a series of timing and continuing to have that friendship and that connection, Bobby Petris who's recently named our president.

He always told me, Hey Dillon if you ever find your way back in Fort Wayne, I'm going to hire you. I don't know what you're gonna do, but I trust you and I'm gonna bring you on and you're gonna help us grow. And the timing of everything. I was in Indianapolis. My wife and I were just about to get married, and I joked with her one night.

I said, Hey, would you ever move back to Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is where she's from as well. She said why? And we had a conversation and I immediately texted Bobby afterwards, I said hey Bobby, you remember how for the last five years you've said I have a job. If I wanted it, if I move back I think we're moving back.

And so moved back to Fort Wayne. And that was really how I. Got into senior living [00:03:00] and to your point on my introduction project manager is my title. I think that was a very, or is a very ambiguous role, which suited me at the time. I didn't know exactly what I would be doing for priority Life care, but calling me a project manager was ambiguous enough to get my foot in the door and my role's evolved ever since then.

And I've worked with seniors in the past, in former lives, former professions, former settings, and yeah, really happy that I ended up here and this has been a really great experience in senior living. 

Matt Reiners: I, I love that. Dillon, I think, as an industry we're grateful to have smart, awesome people like you, like joining the ranks and like doing awesome stuff like that.

I know we were talking before this project management is so ambiguous, really, anything could be considered a project. But it's super cool of what you guys are doing and the team there, big fans of Bobby and Sevy have gotten to know them as well. Love what you guys are up to and I know what kind of sparked this conversation.

I know we were going back and forth. I think it was like on a [00:04:00] LinkedIn post or something. Yeah. The idea of. Of change management and how we can really do that. And I'm wondering like from your experience, what are some of the biggest challenges organizations face when implementing change, especially, in our industry of senior living and how do you navigate that resistance to change?

That I feel is like inevitable and whatever you're doing or working on. 

Dillon Painter: Yeah. So I think at the very core of change I've always put this at the forefront that this affects people. Generally speaking, we don't like change. Humans we're creatures of habit. And so I think the first and foremost thing is understanding change management is not easy.

It affects people, it affects their daily workflow. It affects what they do on a day-to-day basis. And so with that in mind some of the biggest challenges you're gonna experience, or at least that I've experienced is first and foremost a lack of engagement. For me, I. When we're implementing change, I have to be [00:05:00] very clear in how I articulate the objective of what we're trying to accomplish to the people that change is going to affect.

It's important that they understand exactly why we are changing and why this is necessary. And a lot of times change fails when there's a poor communication plan. Secondly, I'm very detailed. Oriented, very detail driven. And so if you don't have a sufficient implementation plan, change management is not going to work.

For me and really everyone, I believe in 2025, we're very agile and we can adapt and we're flexible, but you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan in place, you have to have deadlines, deliverables et cetera. I see a lot of change fail when they don't have the framework to, to make it successful.

Another thing that I see from a challenge perspective is just this idea of limited resources or limited [00:06:00] expertise when you're implementing change. And so for. I typically lead our change management team, but I don't leave that alone. I strategically recruit other folks, whether it's executives, whether it's regional directors, whether it's a community level position, like an executive director.

I recruit these people to my team to help me implement this change management and to oversee this entire process. Unfortunately, there's situations where there is no one quarterbacking or overseeing the process, which is hard to believe, but it happens. Lastly, so I did wanna bring a bit of a unique perspective today when it comes to challenges that I face with change management, and this one has always fascinated me and it continues to fascinate me when it comes to changes multi-generational teams, I.

So at a given community, typically this is where change happens. You could have a team [00:07:00] with individuals from four different generations, and each one of them is different and they adapt to change differently. They prefer a different way to communicate and I think, again, going back to my original point, these are people, these are humans, and you have to understand who you're working with.

At a people level to, to effectively implement change and multi-generational teams is a big deal. And I don't know if people consider that. 

Matt Reiners: That's a great point, Dillon. That even myself I haven't thought about that too much. 'cause I think, where I've thought about ensuring, like employees of all levels are really engaging.

I've always thought of leadership home office and the community level. But to your point about multi-generational, like even just thinking in my own family, like I learn a certain way. My mom learns a different way. Even people on my team that I work with now that might be, a few years older, a few years younger, all learn and embrace new ideas and stuff very differently.

So I think it's a really good thing to call out [00:08:00] that I haven't heard many people call out and in these communities, people are all ages and then you're helping an older adult user to implement or like to use the stuff and it's really it's a really good thing to call out.

And I'm wondering, so you've mentioned like the communication plan and really making sure that you're prioritizing that, is there anything else you've learned to ensure that like employees at all levels, whether it's from leadership to frontline staff, or just align and engage when rolling out new initiatives or technology?

Dillon Painter: Yeah, absolutely. So we really take a top-down approach to our change. And so for me it's critical. We have to have, at the very top we have to have our executives bought into the change. A great example is right now we're going through an evaluation and the first thing I did was I brought in our executives and we went through the process.

We went through a demo. We have to have buy-in from the top because that has a downstream effect. And then throughout the process, strategically bringing in teams at various levels. [00:09:00] And I'm really excited, actually, I think next week will be our fourth interaction and meeting with this specific group.

And I'm actually bringing in executive directors. I'm bringing in specialists because I want to get their feedback. And from their perspective, 'cause they see things, they experiencing, experience things differently than how I do at my desk eight hours a day in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they are the ones who are in the field.

They're the ones who these things truly impact and affect. And so if at any point in time, we identify a red flag or we identify something that's just not going to work, I think it's important that you. Have those feedback mechanisms in place so you can truly bring in all stakeholders for change.

Specifically. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah, I think it's a great. Point to call out. I know in my own career whenever I've had to gone or go through change management, just including those people to at least voice their opinions while you're thinking through it. They come in with a different [00:10:00] lens. They're thinking about things a little bit differently, and just the ability for them to feel heard I find 'cause they do have a really good ideas and then when you're about to implement, they feel bought into the process that they were included versus something just like pushing upon them, right? Okay, nope, this is how we're doing it. This is what we're doing now moving forward. And that's where I start to see this reluctance really taking place.

And I, when I think about change management, I'm wondering if there's any key metrics or indicators you use to evaluate whether your change management strategy is working effectively. 

Dillon Painter: Yeah, absolutely. I think at a very basic level, the first thing we're gonna look at is engagement levels.

That can be both tangible and intangible. Like I said we have feedback mechanisms in place. We have avenues and channels where throughout the change management process. We're looking for continuous feedback. We encourage it because we want to continue to address concerns and to potentially refine our strategy if we [00:11:00] need to.

So employee engagement level is critical to any change. But then as you start to peel back the layers, depending on potentially who you're working with, what technology you're implementing, you're gonna get things like adoption rates. We're gonna be able to track how quickly these new.

Technologies or these new processes are being utilized and we really lean into and leverage our partnerships to provide that data to us. And then specifically, you can create KPI that deals directly with what your changes. So whether that's efficiency, whether that's improved quality of care, these are types of metrics that, if we implement a fall prevention technology with the goal of minimizing or reducing hospitalizations, we would hope as we track that KPI over time, that is in fact what's happening. And so that's just another way to evaluate and to measure the effectiveness of the change.

Matt Reiners: It [00:12:00] makes sense. I think too many times I've seen people and I've always been on the tech vendor side in my previous life and seen implementation go really well, and then others not go very well. And I find it really depends on how that organization is embracing it and attacking it. And what KPIs are they putting there.

And one thing I've learned in my own career is, let's say if there's multiple sites that are using it and I see three super users, I try to figure out what they're doing differently or how they're thinking about it. Then try to like basically capture that, create a snapshot or a framework based on how they're doing it or thinking about it and then educating the rest of the people in hopes that it would increase that.

Yeah. So yeah. 

Dillon Painter: Yeah. 

Matt Reiners: And so we've talked about change management and how we control that. And I wanna just take this conversation 'cause you, to me, you seem like a tech guy. Like I know you're probably thinking about technology and how it's really shaping what we're doing. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on how techno technology, particularly ai.

We got what, 15 minutes before we said that word. So we're crushing it. 'cause I feel like it's brought up every time, but how is [00:13:00] that reshaping the senior care industry and is there any specific tools or innovations that you've seen make a real impact? 

Dillon Painter: Yeah, I think it's important to call out the fact that in 2025 we have more access to more data than we've ever had before at our fingertips at any given time, and I've always been a really big believer that.

Data for the sake of data doesn't move the needle. Data needs to be actionable. You need to be able to digest it and to interpret it. And so that's where we've been able to really utilize AI to help us with that interpretation, with those action items, with those insights that ac ultimately make an impact.

Specifically, I think right now in the space and this is something I'm passionate about, coming from the preventative health space, the health monitoring and preventative health technologies that are out there. The [00:14:00] specifically we're partnered with Safely You for Fall prevention. We're partnered with Toy Lab for con increased wellness in our residents.

And these specifically. In the preventative health space are giving us more data to our residents so we can address concerns before the crisis happens. And I think back to where I was working at a hospital in 2020 when Covid and I saw the impact that. A crisis had a health crisis had on our world and how the healthcare systems were overwhelmed.

Now we can be proactive and specifically some of the technologies and the AI built into health monitoring is been crucial and critical and truly helped us. Other ways we're leveraging AI is customizing our experience for our residents. For example, our activities departments.

We, we manage communities all over the country [00:15:00] and depending on the area, culture is different, activities are different, hobbies are different. And so we utilize AI to make sure we're customizing our activity calendars to actually be and meet the needs and hobbies of the actual residents and our buildings.

And I think that's such a, so small and simple thing to do, but it's a big deal. It truly is. And then. Of course we're using AI to increase our operational efficiency. Matt, I know you're a huge chat PT user, so are we. We love chat PT We love to streamline workflows and we love to enhance our decision making and to make better content and to really utilize AI to ultimately give us more time back so we can spend that time with the residents, which as we know, that's where the impact happens.

Matt Reiners: It's so true. And yeah, it's funny when I think of my own use of chat GPT and how it's evolved, I've created my own GPT, Matt [00:16:00] GPTI call now. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So when everybody asks about it, I'm like, Matt GPT helped, I think I'm, I, so I'm not lying to them. But yeah, it's amazing of what it can do and how I've been able to coach it up to your point, like and it's all about automating the mundane and elevating the meaningful, I find with that sort of stuff. And to your point because I find a lot of people are resistant to technology 'cause they're afraid, right? This humanoid robot's gonna come in and Yeah. And take away all of the jobs and all this stuff.

And I'm wondering like, and you've touched on a little bit, but I'm wondering if you just take it a step further, in this industry that's so centered around. Human care that, that one-on-one face-to-face, but like how do you strike that balance between leveraging AI and automation, but then maintaining that personal, compassionate approach?

Dillon Painter: Yeah. Yeah. That's really important. Senior living is a human-centric industry. We are in the people business. And so understanding that we use AI to enhance our efficiency, not to replace a human at any given time is a really important. Thing [00:17:00] that, that we need to understand and something that we implement in, in, in our daily operations.

And specifically, we like to use the AI for administrative tasks so we can still prioritize the human interaction in the daily operations, but some of the background noise can be better. And again, I think it's really important as well to understand that. AI and technology allows us to have more time to spend with our residents.

I cannot state that enough. It should never replace the time you're gonna spend with residents. We're big believers in it enhances that efficiency and gives you that time back and ultimately leveraging AI and insights, that can enhance that personalized engagement. So the activities, example I said earlier.

We're using AI to create some activities, calendars, but it's still the human delivering it. And it's still the human having that interaction [00:18:00] with the residents. That's just super important. It's, it should never, ever replace what we're doing with the resident. I. 

Matt Reiners: I always like to use the example, right?

If you've got 40 hours in your week and 10 of those hours are spent on administration tasks, if you're able to use platforms to automate that, what are you gonna do now with the 10, eight hours you get back to your day? Like it's gonna be spent on more meaningful, I. The interactions that matter and helping to take off some of that burden.

And it's just been really cool to see, even in my own, my own personal workflows of what I've been able to do and how much I've been able to be that much more efficient. It's been really amazing to see. I wish I had access to this years ago. First couple, honestly, I, 

Dillon Painter: I. I often think that as well.

I wish I would've been doing a lot of this sooner. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. And my other question for you, Dillon, you touched on it in the beginning, but I'm wondering if there's any other thoughts you wanna add. Introducing new technology in an organization can be scary. I imagine you experience a lot of indifference at times, but have you [00:19:00] learned any best practices to address concerns from employees who might be hesitant or unfamiliar with digital solutions?

Dillon Painter: Yeah. One of the big concerns and hesitations is around the idea that someone's gonna be replaced. And a lot of times we get job concerns, and that's a very real emotion that our folks at the community are experiencing. And so we have to mitigate that. And so how do we mitigate that?

Number one, we involve the stakeholders into the process. Early and often we wanna get feedback. We want to educate and train them on why, we're introducing a new technology to them, specifically showcasing all the wonderful benefits of said technology. And then there has to be continuous support in place, both from us.

As the management company and then we really hold our partner's feet to the fire. We need them to also be proactive [00:20:00] in this partnership and to provide support. And so I know you touched on it earlier, I. As we're rolling out new technology, I love identifying change champions, or some people will call those super users and even more so I love finding for example, an executive director because when you have an executive director bought in and we're implementing change at another community.

Now it's peer to peer. It's no longer me trying to explain why this is gonna be such a great thing to an executive director. I can bring in my change champion. They're gonna be able to say how it's impacted and helped their daily operations, for example. And I think that's such a critical piece as well.

And then lastly, just support from the top right. It's we, you have to have support from the very very top. Of the organization and that support truly goes downstream all the way to the communities. If we're not bought in at the [00:21:00] top, I think it would be foolish to expect us to ever buy in at the community level.

Matt Reiners: Yeah it's such a great point. And, shout out Sevy and Bobby on that. And I will say a little known fact about me, Dillon, when it was announced that my wife was expecting our first child, the first gift we got was from Sevy. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me 

Dillon Painter: actually. Yeah. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah.

And it's, I and to your point too, I think I see too many times organizations failing 'cause there isn't that support at the top, right? Yeah. They don't have that culture built in. And if the top of the top aren't speaking, living, breathing, that it's just gonna fail down the pyramid. And it's unfortunate because.

I think in an industry where technology isn't a nice to have anymore, it's a need to have. And especially if you're gonna create scalable systems to get ready for what's coming and what's here today. A lot of these communities are gonna be irrelevant in the next few years. 

Dillon Painter: Yeah. And then, and we're really fortunate at, yeah, priority Life Care se and Bobby and really all of our executives, they want us to be at the forefront of [00:22:00] technology.

We've completely embraced it as an organization, and so that makes. My job and my life a little bit easier because it's no longer convincing why we should do something. It's more about who can we partner with, who's gonna be the right partner for X, Y, z. 

Matt Reiners: Makes sense. And then Dillon, my final question for you.

Any emerging trends in AI and technology I believe will have the biggest impact on senior care and healthcare in the next, say five to 10 years? Sure. 

Dillon Painter: I think robotics is gonna continue to carve out its space in senior living. You're seeing it now specifically in dining rooms. I see that one continuing to grow.

I actually, for the first time, and maybe I'm late to the game here I had a robot interact with me at Kroger. I've never had that before. And, I've had a number of conversations specifically on robotics and senior living and I do think that's gonna continue to rise. Predictive analytics.

[00:23:00] This is gonna be a game changer for everyone, but specifically managers like priority life care, where we can make decisions proactively in real time. Whether that's staffing, whether that's resident care. You are gonna continue to see predictive analytics being at the forefront of trends when it comes to AI and technology in senior living, I believe.

And then this last one is interesting to me. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's natural language processing NLP for short. And basically this is. This is voice enabled AI systems. So think chat bots or virtual assistants I think this is gonna continue to make a rise. So for example, NLP can provide companionship to a resident.

It can read the news to a resident and ask follow up questions that stimulate those cognitive functions and creates that cognitive engagement. And. We're [00:24:00] gonna be able to get early signs of health issues such as dementia based on what we're hearing or what they're hearing. I think it's gonna continue to promote independence.

These NLP you can set daily tasks, you can set reminders to call your family. I really do think that those are gonna continue to rise. And I oftentimes, I was telling a buddy at the home office. I think back to when I watched Star Wars and they could just tell the ship, Hey, I want this, and the ship would go communicate it to someone in the back.

I think there's gonna continue to be a rise in, these AI, virtual voice enabled systems, creating seamless communication between seniors, caregivers, and staff. And I'm really excited to see the rise of that specifically. 

Matt Reiners: I love it. Dillon, I learned a lot on this conversation today. I know our listeners will as well.

So again, just so grateful you moved back to Fort Wayne, joined the rinks at uh, priority Life Care and just doing [00:25:00] some super meaningful work. What you're doing on a day-to-day basis is not only improving quality of life for your residents, but probably saving lives too. So thank you my friend.

Dillon Painter: Yeah, thanks Matt. I really appreciateit.

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