124. How Teton Turns Data Into Better Resident Care

Matt sits down with Katie Grant, President of U.S. Operations at Teton, for a really thoughtful conversation about what it actually means to bring AI into senior living in a way that works.

Katie brings a unique perspective to the table, with over 20 years as a nurse and experience across just about every corner of senior care. That background really shapes how she thinks about technology. Not as something flashy or “innovative for the sake of innovation,” but as a tool to make life easier for caregivers and safer for residents.

A standout moment is the discussion around privacy. Katie is very clear that for Teton, privacy is the foundation. Instead of focusing on “computer vision,” she frames it as ambient monitoring that looks for patterns and safety signals without identifying individuals or recording their lives. That clarity is key when building trust with residents, families, and staff.

Resources:

• Sagora Pilot Story
• Connect with Katie on LinkedIn. 
• Follow Teton on LinkedIn and learn more on their website.

About Teton:

Teton is a healthcare technology company that uses AI and privacy-first monitoring to help senior living communities detect risks earlier and improve resident care. Their platform analyzes patterns like movement, sleep, and behavior to surface meaningful insights Instead of adding more systems, Teton integrates into existing workflows, helping teams respond faster, document more accurately, and ultimately shift from reactive car.e to proactive, preventative support. 

Find us online:
Website
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LinkedIn
 

Transcript

Matt Reiners: Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech. I am super excited for our guest here today. Her name is Katie Grant, and she is the president for the US at Teton. Teton uses real-time privacy, conscious computer vision and AI to create a digital picture of daily care and trends. Over time, helping senior living teams spot risk earlier, strengthen documentation and support proactive person-centered interventions across communities.

Katie, thanks for joining me here today. 

Katie Grant: Thanks Matt. Good to see you. 

Matt Reiners: You as well. Um, so Katie, a place I always like to start with new guests because I know you've been in the industry for a little bit. I'm curious, like what is your story and how did you end up in senior living? 

Katie Grant: [00:01:00] Yeah, so my background is actually as a nurse. I have held a nursing license for over 20 years, and in that time I worked in all aspects of senior care as an ad, regional operations, sales, you name it, I've done it in the industry. And in that time I saw firsthand how hard, uh, frontline care is and how often leadership is making decisions with incomplete information.

Technology entered the picture because I became kind of obsessed with this idea and this question of how do I use my clinical and operational experience to drive impact at scale, not just in the building, not just across dozens, but hundreds and as many residents and caregivers as possible. Um, that's kind of what pulled me into senior living tech.

It wasn't the shiny AI or innovation theater. It was just this belief that if you give care teams clear signals and you remove friction, you can change outcomes for residents and the experience for staff. 

Matt Reiners: I love that. And I didn't know you've been a nurse for over 20 [00:02:00] years. That's pretty awesome. You start when you were like five or something.

I, I like, yeah. Yeah, there you go

Katie Grant: basically.

Matt Reiners: There you go. Um,

Katie Grant: you nailed it.

Matt Reiners: There we go. Hey, that's what I'm here for. Um, and, and Katie, I'm curious from your perspective, 'cause like a lot of the times we hear senior living le leaders say they want to be more proactive and from your take, like what does that actually mean in day-to-day care?

And what's the difference between prevention, prediction, and early intervention? 

Katie Grant: Hmm, great question. So these have all become kind of these buzzwords, haven't they? Like we're just throwing around these words, um, out there in the market. So, in day-to-day care, proactive usually means three things. First, fewer surprises.

You catch subtle change before it becomes a 2:00 AM emergency. And second would be faster clarity when something does happen. So everyone knows what happened, when, and what to do next. Third, the care plan evolves based on what's actually happening, not what we [00:03:00] hope is happening. Um, I was listening to David Lafferty's episode recently and one thing that he said really stuck with me.

He described innovation as being done best when it's invisible. When it just works, it fades into the background and it makes care safer. And that's actually how I think about proactive care. It's not about layering more dashboards, it's about embedding earlier signals into systems that teams are already trust and use.

Um, on the follow-up part of your question, the prevention prediction, early intervention terminology, I like to keep that pretty simple. Prevention is the outcome. The fall that never happens. Prediction is the capability, the system noticing patterns that often show up before an incident or a major decline.

An early intervention would be the action staff taking small changes today, so you avoid a bigger problem tomorrow. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. I love that and I love how, uh, you know, [00:04:00] referencing back to past episodes, David laughed at it. Yeah. Innovation should be invisible and in the background. Um, and to your point, a lot of those words are just being thrown around.

It's, I, I'm amazed by the amount of buzz marketing words now that I'm kind of on this technology consultant, uh, side of it, where I kind of see that through and through every single day. Um, mm-hmm. And I'm wondering with like your background and your experience, which are some of those early risk indicators that you think are most useful for teams?

Is it fall risk, mobility changes, time in room patterns, toileting frequency, sleep disruption. Something I didn't even mention here. And I'm curious from your take too, um, like how do you avoid some of those false alarms or some of the noise you might just be hearing with some of those stuff? I.

Katie Grant: Yeah. Yeah, that's. All good questions. The, the like. Simply put, the most useful signals are the ones that are insightful and actionable. Mobility change. You mentioned that's a big [00:05:00] one. Not just they fell, but their walking pattern is changing or they're unsteady at night. Nighttime behavior matters a.

Increased bathroom trips, restlessness, unusual time awake or repeated room exit. Those are all valuable signals. Time and room patterns can matter, but only if you contextualize it. So a residents routine is changing is the point, not the absolute number. If they're spending more time in or out of their room and what that looks like, not necessarily, um, that, that it's happening and, and noise happens when you alert on everything.

Um, 

that's how you lose trust fast. So the trick is personalization and thresholds that match the resident and the building. You want fewer alerts, but better ones. The goal is not always more data, it's the right nudge at the right time. 

Matt Reiners: I love that way of thinking of it. It's, you know, definitely feels like quality over quantity, you know, some of those alerts [00:06:00] and you know, I would imagine if you were to look at the way I wander around my house during a workday, uh, you know, there's probably not some good indicators there.

'cause sometimes I'm doing laundry all day, every day. Hopefully listeners. And Amber, my boss does not hear that one. But hey, we're, we're productive nonetheless. Um, and. I'm wondering too, 'cause like some of these technology solutions that are coming out, um, can make people nervous and, you know, I'm thinking about like computer vision, right?

Like how do you explain privacy conscious monitoring in a way that's credible to families, residents, staff. And what would you say are some of those guardrails that are non-negotiable? 

Katie Grant: Yeah. For us, privacy is not a feature. It's the foundation of what we've built. Um, instead of saying computer vision and talking with families or staff, I would say ambient monitoring, and then explain what that means.

In plain English, we're looking for patterns and safety related events, not trying to identify a person or record their entire life. Like you wandering around during the [00:07:00] workday and doing laundry,

the guardrails that matter. Um, I'm pretty firm on these, uh, personally and as kind of how we've built this is there are no personal identifiers. Um, there's no stored raw footage and processing is designed to minimize exposure. Again, the point is insight not surveillance. 

Matt Reiners: Mm-hmm. 

Katie Grant: And. Maybe most importantly, clear consent and transparency with residents and their families.

That level of clarity builds trust across the market. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. No, I love that and I love too, 'cause your point, right, it's the insights and not necessarily, uh, needing to know every single thing about an individual and like how they're actually doing that. But to your point of the question before that, it's like getting the n the right nudge at the right time, right?

Mm-hmm. Um, and just allowing for a smarter workforce. And you know, I think anybody that's been in senior living, whether on the operator or the technology vendor side, it's always that other complaint of, you know, [00:08:00] another platform, another technology use. Uh, you know, another thing to use, um, and I'm wondering from like your perspective, like what does it take to integrate AI into existing clinical workflows so teams aren't toggling between systems, and what makes integration succeed or fail in the real world?

I. 

Katie Grant: Integration succeed when they respect how work actually happens. Not to reference David again, but his episode was golden and uh, and he talked about this. Care teams live in their EHR and their operational routines. If your product forces them to swivel chair between systems, it becomes optional. And optional gets ignored.

Um, successful integration can look like key events and context showing up where documentation already happens. Um, you remove double charting wherever possible. So nobody wants to document in one spot and then do the same thing in another, and you make it easier to do the [00:09:00] right thing, not harder. Um, simply put, failures usually happen when the integration is technically connected but not operationally useful.

So they've got a marketing blast out there, right? It's live. We have an integration, but when you look behind the curtain, there's no operational value there. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. And I, I find sometimes too when, uh, technology vendors hype up their integrations, it's not necessarily an integration and it's just downloading a CSV from one and putting it into the other.

It's like, sweet. Thanks. Uh, great. 

Katie Grant: Matt, 

Matt Reiners: you 

Katie Grant: nailed it. Yeah, you said it, not me. 

Matt Reiners: Hey, that's, that's why I'm on this side. So it's all good. It's all good. You, I can be the voice of reason for a lot of these technology vendors now. Okay. Um, and I'm wondering too, 'cause like, obviously like. In partnerships like an EHR integration.

I know, uh, last month you guys had announced inter interoperability with August Health. Like from your perspective, like what does meaningful interoperability look like from an operator's [00:10:00] perspective? What should be automatic, what should be prompted, and what should never interrupt staff? So I love giving you multifaceted questions here, Katie, so, mm-hmm.

Yeah, 

Katie Grant: no problem. I have a good memory. So it's working. Uh, I really like a, a simple framework. So you mentioned automatic. These would be those high confidence events that generate documentation without extra steps. Something simple like a fall, creating an entry directly in the EHR. Um, some things that would be prompted would be more like emerging risk patterns, that merit review, like meaningful changes in mobility or sleep, those should surface as a prompt, not a page full of charts or back to that dreaded dashboards of death.

Right? This should be a simple prompt that says. Uh, your attention is needed here. Um, things that should never interrupt. I, I guess I would say anything that's low confidence or anything that forces staff to stop care, to manage [00:11:00] tech, so popups that feel like an alarm clock for your brain and distract from the work that you're actually doing on the floor.

Also, the last, you know, kind of plug as we're talking about integration is bi-directional matters. If the monitoring system does not know things like census changes and the EHR does not get the right context back, you end up again with this kind of integration theater that isn't useful for anyone. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah, I've seen some scenarios and I've heard of some scenarios where it wasn't something was, you know, prompted as being, uh, integrated.

It was definitely not bilateral. And this platform started sending out notifications about the community to family members whose family members, unfortunately, had passed away six months beforehand. Mm-hmm. And, you know, they say it was synced with their EHR, it was just one push out of the EHR. Months ago, and it just wasn't set up for success.

And, you know, just, uh, created some uncomfortable [00:12:00] conversations that no one really wants to have. Uh, and so. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think the companies and tech vendors such as yourself that you know will play nice in the sandbox are looking to set up this interoperability and ultimately make life easier for the people working.

The communities will continue to set themselves up. You know, I've been in some communities recently where I was talking to some staff and they had 12 different apps on their phone and nothing talked to one another. So it's just like, how can you, you know, if, if your focus is to deliver care and deliver a.

Client, resident experience that's positive, but you're just getting bogged down with all this technology. It's just like, you know, what is the priority there and how are you getting set up for success? 

Katie Grant: Yeah, absolutely. It's slowing everything down instead of empowering them to provide better care.

Matt Reiners: Exactly. It should allow them to work smarter and be more effective and efficient, and not just dragging out some of the things, things that I've continued to see it taking place. 

Katie Grant: Absolutely. 

Matt Reiners: I got a two part question here [00:13:00] for you. 'cause I'm sure you know, you've worked with communities on the bleeding edge of innovation, some that have been on the opposite side.

And I'm curious, like, why do some communities embrace innovation while others resist it? And I'm curious if, like, what are the leadership behaviors and change management steps that reliably drive adoption without creating fear among frontline staff? 

Katie Grant: Yeah, I, I know this is a theme that comes up a lot on your podcast.

The tech doesn't transform culture by itself. Leaders do so. The pattern almost never is good stuff versus bad stuff, right? It. They all show up to do a good job and to do their best work every day. It's more clarity, prioritization, and ultimately connecting with the value of what you're rolling out. The communities that adopt, well usually do a few things.

Um, they tie the technology to a purpose that staff already cares about, like fewer resident events, less [00:14:00] chaos, more confidence on shift, if you can help them tie that in. You're gonna win. Uh, another really basic one is they name an owner, a real leader who drives the partnership forward, whether that's an ed, a memory care director, the nurse for the community, but somebody has ownership of that project and, and they get praised when things are going well and they have accountability when it goes off the rails.

Um, and then they train to scenarios, not features. Um, instead of, here's what you do when you get this insight works a lot better than, here's where to click and here's where you, you know, take these three clicks to get to this place. Um, and they build psychological safety. I talk about this in nearly everything I do, but this is huge.

Staff need to know, know that the tool is there to support them, not to police them. Uh, we have a dedicated CSM team that helps. Guide these actions. They support staff. They go out to visit. They're helping [00:15:00] them to see the impact, and they're actually listening when they have feedback. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah, I love that. You know, I think a lot of the times when I see innovation, you know, someone a CEO might go to a conference, fall in love with something and then never really clearly defines who's gonna run with it and own it and like embrace it.

And I think it kind of goes back to that culture thing of like, to your point of like you just, a lot of it's change management. You gotta make sure that you're defining who's owning that. Um, and making sure that they're set up for success. I also see too, the people that I find that are more innovative, see it as how it can help with overall occupancy sales and marketing, speaking to this potentially younger client that might be coming down the road.

And I do find that they might have a little bit higher level of risk tolerance. Innovation requires risk, and I find that the ones that are understand, that, understand that, uh, all pilots will succeed are the ones that will, you know, not everything's gonna be successful, but making sure that you're giving, it's.

On a shake and making sure that you're trying it out. I do find that there are the ones that are gonna set themselves [00:16:00] up for success. Um, 

Katie Grant: totally agree. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah. And I'm wondering, so uh, last question here, Katie. If you were advising an executive team that's evaluating ambient monitoring, what are some of the practical ROI metrics you insist on?

Um, some ideas I have, but of course, tell me what you agree or disagree with. Would be like response time, documentation, quality, staff efficiency, reduced incidents, reputational risk. Um, so of any of those jump out to you and then I'll ask the second part of that question. So I lied saying it was the last question, but Yeah.

Katie Grant: Uh, a, a part two, what's really interesting you ask about ROI, because I feel like this is another one of those kind of buzzwords that are, that are out there and everybody has an ROI story I was meeting with. An operator last week and she was like, if I was getting these millions and millions of ROI dollars from all of these companies that promised it, I'd be rolling in cash right now.

Right. Everyone has an ROI story, so, uh, I like to get [00:17:00] really to. Specific on some of those, um, things that you can expect and, and I kind of put it in three buckets. So number one, you've got your safety and clinical outcomes. That's going to include some of the things you mentioned, like falls, it's gonna be sleep patterns, response times, ER visits, and overall resident health.

Uh, and then another bucket is that operational efficiency. So time saved on documentation, care level accuracy, staffing efficiency, and overall better shift to shift continuity. Um, you know, if you can reduce the cognitive workload on caregivers retention and job satisfaction tend to follow. Uh, and that third bucket is that reputation and business.

So family confidence. Occupancy influence, length of stay, impact and risk reduction. And when we look at this, yes, in competitive markets, being able to show how objective care insights can become a part of the sales story. 

Matt Reiners: [00:18:00] I love that. And it's, yeah, it's so funny 'cause you know, when I think about it, everyone's got that ROI calculator and how much money, every technology solution will save someone.

And you know, if they're all investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in this, to your point, they'd be like, uh, Scrooge McDuck swimming in all the money. I'm thinking of that one gif that I always send to people, or I don't even know if Scrooge McDuck, but I, I digress. Um, and I'm, I'm wondering from your perspective too, 'cause we talk about ROI and obviously I think when a lot of people implement any sort of technology.

If there's a thought of, okay, we're gonna start seeing this tomorrow, right? And, but obviously that's, that's just not the case. And I'm wondering from your perspective, like what is a reasonable timeline to see impact of a technology solution? 

Katie Grant: Yeah, I mean it's, there's, there's two buckets. So for, you know, if implementation is real and the technology works as promised, you should see some early operational signals in weeks or months, not necessarily quarters, uh, or years.

Length of [00:19:00] stay shifts are going to take a bit longer. You need a broad enough data set and time to show a genuine impact. Um, and, and I have an example. We just this week you may have seen, had Argentum publish our Sagora pilot story. So our pilots normally run about 90 days after, after go live. And uh, in that story on Argentum, they showed a 95% improvement.

Response time and a 74% reduction in monthly fall incidents, plus an 83% drop in a PRN sleep medication, medication usage with a specific resident case. So that's in that small window of 90 days. Um, being able to show impact on multiple pieces and. It would be silly for us to come in and say we impacted, you know, months and months of length of stay.

At this point we have enough of those short term impacts that build a longer term partnership story. Um, so some of that is incredibly fast, but it does show what's possible [00:20:00] when workflow and adoption are really tight. 

Matt Reiners: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, to your point, there is some immediate things you can see and that's some awesome stuff.

We'll make sure to link to that, uh, case study. 'cause we love case studies and you know, I think it's always the story that gets people bought into this industry, but those. Studies really get to showcase the impact. So Katie, I can't think of a better person to be at the helm overseeing the US operations for Teton.

I know every time our paths have crossed, it's been a, a positive and you're just, uh, an awesome human being and the industry is better because of people like you. So, uh, thank you for taking the time today to, uh, share some more information with our listeners. 

Katie Grant: Oh my gosh. Thanks Matt. I really appreciate your kind words and the feeling is mutual.