By: Sarah Adams | Client Success Specialist

August 9, 2022

With K4Community, community staff members can now create and manage events in their community better than ever.

With our robust events feature, staff can go beyond simply creating event calendars. You have the ability to manage sign-ups and waitlists, track attendance (even from your mobile device), and learn more about your residents’ interests through our newest Data and Insights feature. Once an event is created, staff can seamlessly make event information accessible via Voice, Mobile App, Digital Signage, Direct Broadcast (in-room TV), as well as add to printable calendars. Put another way, staff enter events into K4Community one time and the event information is shared in multiple ways so that residents can stay connected with their community. We like to call it, “create once, publish everywhere.”

However, event management is only as good as the events themselves. And we are here to help! According to one of our recent Data Insights Reports, 89% of residents say a variety of content/experiences to choose from is important to them.

Below are five examples of standout events that are sure to increase your community’s engagement and resident happiness. Each of these options can be streamed virtually in order to meet the expectations of all who might be interested or benefit from these offerings – even from the comfort of home.

“Virtual experiences provided a dependable and scalable way to curb resident social isolation while in quarantine. While residents are eager to return to socializing in-person, a hybrid offering of both virtual and in-person events will meet the new expectations for residents who want to maintain that connection to community programming while at home.” – K4Connect’s Summer 2021 Data Insights Report

 

Guest Speaker Lecture Series

Consider scheduling a variety of popular to unusual topics to appeal to different resident interests! A free community service offered by AARP provides guest speakers

 who speak to a wide range of subjects. You can find more information by visiting AARP.org. 

Teaching Kitchen

Spice things up for your residents by introducing a teaching kitchen! This can be a great opportunity to introduce healthy lifestyles, unique cultural dishes, or even revisiting basic cooking techniques. Who doesn’t love good food?

DIY Tutorials

A long time favorite, DIY tutorials can be as simple or as creative as you wish to be. A few examples are basic woodworking, painting, or even creating suncatchers!

Creative Writing Club

Writing is an art form that belongs to everyone, no matter the age or skill level. Provide a creative outlet to your residents through a writing club. Each week, new writing prompts or creative writing techniques keep residents engaged and connected with each other and themselves. 

Cultural Diversity 

In order to lean into your community’s equity, diversity and inclusion, consider partnering with local organizations or universities to expand inclusive cultural programming and services for residents. 

Looking for more inspiration? Reach out to a client success specialist for a one on one consultation via this link. 

By: Sarah Adams | Client Success Specialist

July 15, 2022

Resident safety is a primary advantage of living in a care community. Thanks to new advances in enterprise technology in the senior living industry, residents are increasingly gaining access to smart home systems — designed specifically for seniors — that further promote independence and greater well being.

At K4Connect, our mission is dedicated to continuing these advancements in a market that is not only helping the residents of today, but also in preparation for the generations to come; all in partnership with the senior living communities we serve. Below, we will dive into three key benefits of K4Community Smart Home.

Resident Check-In

With K4Community Resident Check-In, residents benefit from a passive check-in system that works behind-the-scenes to keep staff aware, while promoting resident independence and happiness. Delivered through integrated smart home devices and voice activation with Amazon Alexa, residents simply move about their home and community teams are alerted of daily resident activity through our software-based system.

• Delivered through voice activation with Amazon Alexa, motion-sensing light switches or night lights
• Automated reporting for staff is viewable via desktop or mobile in the K4Community Team Hub
• “Away” settings available for when residents are not at home (e.g., gone on vacation or at a doctor’s appointment)
• Reduces false resident alerts, saves staff time & resources

With this automated well-check system, residents feel safer and community teams increase daily efficiency — a win-win.  In fact, one K4Connect community partner is able to automatically perform 97% of its wellness checks on a daily basis, leaving only 3% of the resident population to manually check on. Hundreds of senior living residents also took part in a K4Connect survey about this solution, resulting in 80% saying K4Community Resident Check-In makes them feel safer and 89% applauding the convenience of the tool. 

Motion Scenes

With the assistance of motion scenes, residents can customize lighting and/or temperature in their home based on their individual preferences. Automated home features can aid residents by empowering them to manage settings in ways that are easiest to manage for them. Please note, the ability to customize motion scenes is based on the current smart home features installed in the home. However, a few examples include:

• When a Smart Motion Dimmer detects motion in the bathroom from the hours of 9 p.m. to 8 a.m., the lights turn on to 20%
• Between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., a Smart Thermostat automatically adjusts to 68 degrees
• When a Smart Motion Switch detects motion, the lights turn on

This customizable element of our smart home automation solution creates a personalized technology experience that encourages increased usage and value over time.

To install personalized scenes for a smart home system, residents or staff can reach out to our K4Support team who will happily edit your settings remotely. 

Access via Remote, Voice, or App

In addition to these great features, residents can access their Smart Home systems through a variety of user interfaces, including a remote, K4Community Voice, or through the K4Community Plus App — whichever works best for them! 

• Senior-friendly remotes are programmed by the K4Connect team to operate all smart lighting in the home.
• The integrated K4Community Voice and Smart Home experience turns into an incredible accessibility tool for residents of nearly all ages and acuity. For example, if a resident home is equipped with K4Community Smart Home lighting, you might not have realized that Alexa can adjust the lights for you! 
• K4Community Plus allows residents to operate their smart home controls directly within the mobile or web application from anywhere in the home.

Smart home is clearly no long an amenity of the future or reserved for luxury living, it’s more accessible and adaptable than ever before. We at K4Connect can’t wait to see where home automation advancements for older adults take us next!

Tips and Tricks

• If at any point smart lights in a home are changed (added, removed, or moved to a different location), please contact our K4Support team by either emailing Support@K4Connect.com or by calling (855) 876-9673

“When we can use our voice, it really does break down barriers. Voice-first technology is extremely interesting because it reduces the friction of technology adoption.”

By: Sarah Adams | Client Success Specialist

June 27, 2022

Thanks to Amazon’s groundbreaking release in 2014, scores of people have become familiar with the term “Alexa.” Alexa is a virtual assistant that can help users with a variety of tasks, such as reporting the weather and news, playing radio stations, and more. But did you know that Alexa can be of great service in senior living as well? With K4Community Voice, Alexa voice assistance is brought to life for senior living residents of all ages and acuity, promoting independence and empowerment.

“When we can use our voice, it really does break down barriers. Voice-first technology is extremely interesting because it reduces the friction of technology adoption.”

– Sheri Peifer, Chief Strategy Officer, Eskaton

With K4Community Voice, communities can opt for K4Community enterprise-managed Alexa devices for the most capabilities. Our enterprise Amazon Alexa integration allows residents to confidently and securely experience voice technology. No personal information or individual accounts are required as K4Connect anonymizes devices to ensure your privacy is kept intact. Alternatively, as we know many residents are already using Alexa in their homes, and residents have the ability to download the K4Community Public Skill to their own Alexa device. Today we will cover commands you might not have known that will apply to both scenarios. 

*Please note: you are only able to fulfill the commands listed below if the community has published the necessary information to K4Community.

“Alexa, what are the events for today?”

By simply asking “Alexa, what are today’s events?” residents are seamlessly provided a list of the day’s events. Additionally, residents are able to ask about future events as well. For example, “Alexa, what are the events scheduled for this Saturday?” 

“Alexa, what’s on the menu for Friday?” 

Similar to events, Alexa has the ability to read menu items when requested. Alexa gathers menu information from posts created in the Post Manager in Team Hub. Specifically, Alexa reads the text in the description of the post. This gives community staff the greatest flexibility on how and what Alexa reads.

“Alexa, has the mail arrived?” 

Have you noticed this button on your Team Hub’s home page, but aren’t entirely sure what it means?

By pressing “Notify Residents,” residents are able to call on Alexa to report whether the mail has arrived. When used consistently, this feature works to foster further independence for residents as they can rely on Alexa for accurate and timely information. 

Built in by Amazon, Alexa features a variety of standard features; such as reporting the weather, setting alarms, sharing fun facts, and more! Additionally, enterprise-managed devices are able to opt for community-specific phone numbers for Alexa to dial by voice command. For example, “Alexa, call the Front Desk.” This popular feature is not only easy to use, but also relieves the burden from residents to dial by phone if there is an urgent need. 

If you are a community staff member and have not been taking advantage of these opportunities for your community, give it a try! For more information or for resources available to provide to residents, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

**Bonus: Smart Home Specific Commands**

Please note: Smart Home commands depend on the availability of connected devices/services in your specific community. If you are unsure of your community’s current setup, please contact K4Connect Support.

“Alexa, dim the lights to 30%” 

K4Community Voice turns into an incredible accessibility tool for residents when integrated with our Smart Home solution. If y

ou or a friend’s residence is equipped with K4Community Smart Home dimming lights, you might not have realized that Alexa can dim the lights for you! Simply ask Alexa to dim the lights to your preferred preference,in percentage format. For example, you can say: “Alexa, set the Kitchen Light to 80%” or “Alexa, set the Bathroom Light to 20%.”

“Alexa, set the living room thermostat to 70 degrees”

Likewise, K4Community Smart Home packages typically include a smart thermostat. If you or a friend’s residence is equipped with a smart thermostat, simply ask Alexa to set the thermostat to your preferred degree setting. 

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Need Assistance? As always, if you are in need of assistance please contact our Support Team by either emailing support@k4connect.com, or by calling (855) 876-9673. 

Not yet a K4Connect customer? Reach out here to schedule a demo or to learn more about our K4Community Digital Signage solution and more ways we can help your community create great technology experiences today.  

Hear directly from our customer success expert on making the most of digital signage in your senior living community.

By: Sarah Adams | Client Success Specialist

June 20, 2022

K4Community Digital Signage enables staff to engage, entertain, and communicate with residents and guests through text, images, and videos on monitor displays across the community campus. This digital communications tool delivers high-quality and dependable experiences for residents while saving staff time, resources, and costs associated with traditional, printed and manual communications. And with access to hundreds of professionally designed digital templates, creating content to distribute through this channel is a breeze.

Engage with Residents

K4Community Digital Signage is an excellent resource to leverage when working to build communication with current residents. Digital signage is a dependable, centralized location of upcoming events, dining information, and more. K4Community Digital Signage ensures residents stay up to date no matter where they are in the community, and staff members have a centrally managed, high-quality communication tool that seamlessly delivers content to TVs across the entire campus.

If digital signage is new for you, a simple tool to try first is K4Community’s calendar widget. The calendar widget is located in the Content Creator and can import all published events from your Events Manager directly to digital signage displays around your community. You can choose from a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar widget. Widgets provide constantly up to date information without the hassle of re-editing a document if event details are changed. 

Want to know more? Below we will cover four simple strategies used to upgrade your communication from good to great through efficient utilization of your community’s digital signage.

Provide Helpful Information for Staff

Do you have a break room or staff lounge? Improve staff engagement and morale through personalized digital signage just for them. Celebrate work anniversaries, highlight staff accomplishments, or simply take a moment to tell someone you appreciate all they do for your community and residents.

Utilize Signage for Friends & Families During Visiting Hours

Help bring your community to life for visitors by highlighting the depth of activities and events, photos of residents, and much more.

Welcome Prospective Residents

Does your sales and marketing team have a scheduled visit for a prospective resident touring your facility? Strategize this opportunity in order to create a warm welcome for your visitor and help them envision themselves making your community their home.

FAQ’s:

This is all new for me, where do I begin? The K4Connect Learning Center is a great place to start when beginning your K4Community journey. For current customers, reach out to your customer success manager or contact our Support Team for more information.

Not yet a K4Connect customer? Reach out here to schedule a demo or to learn more about our K4Community Digital Signage solution and more ways we can help your community create great technology experiences today.  

Need Assistance? As always, if you are in need of assistance please contact our Support Team by either emailing support@k4connect.com, or by calling (855) 876-9673. 

“Discover the numerous benefits of the most recent K4Community updates.”

By: Diana Gore | Product Marketing Manager, K4Connect

April 6, 2022

K4Connect is proud to deliver exciting new technologies and features to senior living communities and operators with this quarter’s K4Community release. 

This quarter, our team focused on features that benefit residents, their family members and community staff in the areas of:

• Amazon Echo Show with NEW features for community staff, residents and their families
• Targeted Content and Resident Groups in the K4Community Plus App/Web and Voice
• Resident Check-in Enhancements that increase safety for residents and provide more flexibility for staff teams
• K4Community Plus App/Web Updates that improve the personalized experience 

Here’s how our newest features and updates improve the lives of residents and their family members, as well as increase staff efficiency in senior living communities.

1. NEW Amazon Echo Show Features

We are excited to deliver a multimodal experience for older adults with our Amazon Echo Show integration. This integration increases resident independence while keeping them connected and informed.

The hybrid touch and voice device includes dynamic video and voice calling, customizable ambient content, daily event and activity information, and more.  

 

Highlight features include:

• Voice calling with community contacts (ex. front desk, dining, maintenance, etc.)
• Video and voice calling with fellow residents
• Video and voice calling with family and friends
• Customizable ambient home screen content to proactively alert residents of upcoming meals, upcoming events, or notices

2. NEW Targeted Content and Resident Groups

Drive higher impact engagements with content that speaks directly to different residents and interests. Ensure you are getting relevant content to the right group of residents with the added ability to create and manage resident groups. Zero in on your resident communications with the ability to segment communications and content with specific resident groups. Whether by care setting, special interests, committee membership or campus location, staff can better engage residents with more narrowed and customized communications. Additionally, this update enables more robust reporting and data insights around resident and staff usage.

New Features:

• Create and manage resident groups
• Add residents to specific group(s)
• Community staff can create and designate a piece of content, event calendars and/or menu information to be shared with desired resident groups.

3. Resident Check-In Enhancements

Our award-winning automated Resident Check-In feature gets even more powerful with an additional check-in and reporting window. Staff can now add a second alert report that will automatically be delivered to a customizable list of staff members at a scheduled time.   

New Features:

• Increased resident safety with reporting that captures remaining resident alerts from the first check-in window of the day
• Improved staff communications with the ability to customize recipients on each report

4. K4Community Plus App/Web Updates 

Residents now have more control over their personal information and can opt-out of showing their profile in the Directory of  K4Community Plus (App/Web). Don’t worry, if residents change their minds they can quickly and simply opt back in to showing their profile and connecting with other residents. 

Ready to learn more about K4Community? Book a demo today!

“Learn about four new, impactful K4Community updates.”

By: Diana Gore | Product Marketing Manager, K4Connect

January 18, 2022

K4Connect is proud to deliver exciting new technologies and features to senior living communities and operators through our K4Community solution. 

This quarter, our team focused on features that benefit residents, their family members and community staff in the areas of:

• Dining and Menu Communications – a NEW offering for community staff, residents and their families
• Segmenting content based on care setting in K4Community Plus
• Enhanced calendar widgets
• Integration updates

Here’s how our newest features and updates improve the lives of residents and increase staff efficiency in senior living communities.

1. NEW Dining and Menu Communications

Reduce redundant, time consuming work with our new menu communication feature. Following  our “create (enter) once, publish everywhere” philosophy, staff members now have a quick and simple way to communicate menu information via K4Community Plus, Voice, Digital Signage and Direct Broadcast. This robust and highly customizable feature enables senior living staff to save time as they create and share menu information. 

 

Highlight features include:

• Repeating menu options available to accommodate common menu cycles and reduce repetitive data entry
• Ability to automate dining and menu information via our newest integration with Grove Menus

2. NEW Content Segmented by Care Setting(s)

Ensure you are getting relevant content to the right group of residents with the added ability to segment based on resident care setting. Community staff can designate a piece of content, event calendars and/or menu information to be shared with desired resident groups. Additionally, this update enables more robust reporting and data insights around residents and staff usage.

3. Calendar Enhancements

Increased customization options with calendar creation widgets allows staff even more flexibility as they design calendars while still benefiting from time savings that comes with the automation of event data. Over 20 new designs were added to the content calendar giving staff more options to choose from.

4. Integration Updates 

In addition to seeing their dining/meal balance, residents can now see their FullCount and Volante transaction history in K4Community Plus. This gives residents easy access to their full transaction history enabling them to review information like date/time, amount and location of a transaction as well as image receipts, line items descriptions if applicable. 

Ready to learn more about K4Community? Book a demo today!

Cost-effective and time-efficient strategies to leverage the value of public relations for your community.

 

By: Lindsay Hull |Director of Media, Zer0 to 5ive

December 8, 2021

Public relations is a fantastic way for senior living communities to raise their awareness in the market through the credibility that comes through the press. At the same time, tight marketing budgets and already stretched staff bandwidth can make a potential public relations campaign seem out-of-reach.

However, there are several ways senior living communities can embark on an affordable and easy-to-implement public relations plan to help generate local and regional visibility — and, most importantly, drive occupancy. We’ll dive deeper into a few of them below.

1) Develop a simple process

While there are many routes a PR campaign can take, the best strategy for a team with limited resources to take is to keep it simple. Know from the beginning what you can and can’t do — how much time you can devote to public relations (you’ll find out that it’s harder than you think) and how much you can budget towards this type of work. That will help you formulate a manageable plan, which is the most important step to success in PR.

2) Think local, local, local

Much has been stated about the decline of regional and local news media. However, there is still a vibrant audience for this type of news — and it’s an audience filled with potential prospects interested in finding a senior living community to eventually call home. 

According to Pew Research Center, an estimated 35.6 million Americans had either a print or digital subscription to a daily newspaper in 2020. A separate survey found that 24 percent of people above the age of 65 and 38 percent of those between the ages of 50-64 said they followed “local news” very closely. These findings are a good indication that local news is still alive and well and likely your greatest asset. 

3) Contacting local news

It does take effort to reach out to local news outlets. While there are services that can help you quickly find contact information for reporters, the cheapest and most effective way is to scour the names of reporters at local newspapers and TV affiliates. Most newspapers (like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) have an easy-to-access online list of reporters, what they report about, along with their contact information. Local TV stations (like WCCO-TV in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market) also have the same kind of contact information.

Where to find contact information for local publications online:

• Staff lists 
• Reporter bios (often hyperlinked in articles)
• Media or advertising kits 
• Newsroom general contact (this contact is often the hub for disseminating information to the appropriate reporter or writer)
• Tag news outlets or specific reporters in your social posts of local happenings at the community
  

However, it’s also important that you know who covers what. Research what reporters have covered the types of stories you’d like to appear in — reaching out to a sports reporter about the opening of a new community is simply wasting your time.

4) What’s a good story?

Local news outlets want news that focuses on people first. Keep that in mind when approaching reporters about a new community opening or a big happening in your community. 

It’s very possible to pitch a specific news event that impacts the lives of your residents. For example, a Raleigh TV station did a quick piece about seniors at The Cardinal at North Hills receiving 150 free Amazon Echo Dots that included video of residents opening these gifts — plus a mention of how it became the first voice-enabled senior community in the country.

Another way to attract local news is by inviting the local press to an event — like this article about a Halloween visit to an equestrian center planned by a California senior community and this segment about a tea party held at Georgia community during this past Mother’s Day. 

Examples of newsworthy community happenings:

• Community grand openings or campus expansions
• Promote your seasonal or unique programming; bonus if the local community can join to experience it! (new fitness programs, celebrated chef joining the dining team with a local inspired menu)
• Tech implementations impacting resident life (how residents are using tech to create new friendships, engage in new experiences)
• Leverage holidays to tell unique resident stories (Celebrate a resident veteran on Veterans Day, a former bakery owner on National Cookie Day)

5) Leverage Any Press Coverage

Getting coverage – placed articles or news segments – from your PR outreach is great. But what’s even better is knowing how to leverage your media coverage to drive interest in your community.

It’s certainly possible that someone might read an article or watch a local news segment about your community and decide to check it out. But it’s more likely that you’ll have to use your own efforts to translate a media appearance into occupancy.

The best way to do so is to make sure you have an “In The News” area located on your website that’s easy to find. (While this might seem simple, you’d be surprised how often this is not the case.) Those articles and segments will give visitors to your site a good idea of what to expect at your community — and if they like what they see, they may take the next step and ask you for more information about a possible move.

Also, including these appearances in any email blasts or newsletters you send out to prospects and potential residents can also have them click on a call-to-action. Newspaper articles and TV segments are almost always kept on an outlet’s website permanently, meaning you can always recycle any stories about your facility over time.

“Understanding the role technology plays in improving resident quality of life, augmenting staff challenges and creating meaningful community experiences.“

By: Natalie Jones | Director of Marketing & Communications, K4Connect

November 17, 2021

Over the past year, resident safety, wellness and satisfaction have been increasingly top of mind for both residents and staff. As senior living operators continue to navigate post-pandemic life in their communities, it is critical to understand and value the role technology can play in improving resident quality of life, augmenting staff challenges and creating meaningful community experiences.

In the K4Connect Fall 2021 Insights Report: Technology Trends Driving Resident Safety, Wellness and Satisfaction, data and survey responses strongly point to technology as a way to strengthen safety measures in resident homes, increase community-wide visibility and team productivity for staff, and expand wellness offerings for residents. The report also explores how residents measure their personal satisfaction and happiness in a senior living community. Check out the infographic for highlights of the report, and head to this webpage to download the report in full.