The importance of resident engagement in senior living communities cannot be overemphasized. Engaged residents tend to have improved mental and physical health as compared to their peers who refrain from participating in activities or interacting with fellow residents.
However, activity planning is often difficult from a logistical perspective. Activity directors may feel pressure to come up with new innovative ways to boost resident engagement, not to mention having to communicate with residents and families about upcoming events and important calendar dates.
Developing new events will always require creativity and thoughtful planning. However, leveraging senior living software to help with communication and organization can help activity directors focus the majority of their energy where it’s needed: on making sure residents are engaged and happy. New, thoughtfully designed technology is one of the best ways to boost senior living resident engagement, as we will see in the following article.
Having to balance the backgrounds, interests, physical limitations and personalities of senior residents makes for a difficult job when it comes to activity planning. When activity directors find an event or activity that is well-liked by residents, it’s important that they recognize why this particular activity was effective for resident engagement and integrate those principles into future activities.
It should be said, however, that activity directors’ time should not be spent on attempting to reinvent the wheel. Once they’ve implemented a successful activity, said event can become a regular part of the residents’ routine. As we’ll see in the next section, using the best available technology to highlight these events on resident calendars makes the process incredibly easy.
Well-designed senior living software can make creating a calendar for residents and families a breeze. Through the use of apps and other technology, activity directors can plan, modify, and alert interested parties about upcoming events. These notifications can be sent through TVs, computers ,tablets, phones, and other smart devices. Additionally, for residents and families who prefer the good old-fashioned way of taking in information, effective senior living software makes it easy to print out schedules and calendars.
The process of creating these calendars needs to be easy. As was stated earlier, activity directors are incredibly busy. Therefore, they shouldn’t have to waste time trying to navigate complicated apps and software that ends up taking more time than it saves. The ability to repeat successful events by simply copying and pasting the activity to a later date is crucial for the success of a senior living app. Old activities should be able to be stored in a bank of previous activities so that they can be modified and pasted onto a future date. Additionally, creating new events with descriptions and promotional materials to get residents and families excited should be simple to design as well.
There are many people who need to be made aware of upcoming events and activities.
Effective senior living software can make delivering these notifications extremely straightforward. Apps and programs can send notifications at regular intervals to remind all parties of upcoming activities. Further, this software should enable easy printing of flyers and reminders about activities, for those that may have forgotten about the events.
A few elements of effective senior living software with regards to event and activity calendars include:
There’s no doubt about it: activity directors in senior living facilities have a difficult job. Planning, organizing, and adjusting activities requires constant attention, but the importance of hosting effective engagement opportunities cannot be understated.
For this reason, it is essential to have senior living software that makes their job easier, while also allowing easy multi-directional communication between residents, family, and senior living facility staff.
