Trends in Long-Term Care Technology

Senior care providers are usually not the first to adopt new technologies, with limited resources to dedicate to integrating a new system and an intense focus on maintaining resident care. However, the modern age of technology is making it increasingly easy to incorporate new technologies into any business, including long-term care organizations. To help your organization identify new technology trends that may be coming to your business, here are some trends in information technology for long-term care facilities.

• The Cloud: Movement to the cloud allows business a level of mobility and protection you simply can’t get with either paper documentation or location-locked data. With the cloud, you can upload your data to your system, then access it from anywhere at any time. Your provider keeps information safe and secure from any disaster, and your business doesn’t need to worry about misplacing data or losing information.
• Virtualization: The virtualization of your organization’s systems can save a great deal of money and improve efficiency. Instead of hosting everything at a single location, your desktops, servers and applications can be virtualized, making them more accessible for both use and repair. This can help your back office employees experience improved functionality and speed.
• Resident Monitoring: Resident monitoring technology is steadily improving, allowing care providers to track the activity and health care data of residents in real time by collecting information from residents’ monitoring devices. With this technology, your health care providers can stay on top of resident activity without shadowing them or devoting a great deal of human labor.
• Interactivity: Technology is becoming more pervasive in the world, and long-term care facilities are no exception. Not only are many long-term care facilities incorporating devices in their customer service, like interactive pads and touch-screen televisions, but many are also offering technology classes and accessible wifi so their residents can stay engaged with technology.

• Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence and social robots are expected to take an expanding place in health care, supplementing the services provided by doctors and nurses. By monitoring vitals, eating, drinking and medication, these robots can help seniors stay active and keep on top of their routines more effectively, without needing to employ a full-time human caretaker.

In short, long-term care organizations will soon be able to be more effective with less work, providing better care for their residents while reducing back-office labor and increasing their speed and responsiveness. These new technology trends in the long-term care market will make a significant difference to elder care in the future, so it’s essential that health care providers be aware and prepared for them.

Learn More About Prelude

Prelude Services is an information technology management business, providing education on information technology trends in business and helping long-term care providers secure their applications. Established in response to the increasing demand among long-term care facilities for information technology resources, Prelude now serves over 700 facilities across 40 states, providing solutions and consultations that are valuable to our clients’ futures. We can do the same for your business. Contact us today to learn more about the IT technology trends in long-term care and how to prepare for them.