Seventy-four percent of senior living organizations invested in infrastructure related to high-speed internet connectivity and wired / wireless capabilities in 2018, according to a new survey by Ziegler.
The specialty bank polled 100 chief financial officers and financial professionals in December. Almost 62% of participants represented single-site organizations. The LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies provided input.
Multi-site organizations (76.3%) were more likely to have invested in so-called ICT (information and communication) infrastructure than were single-site organizations (72.1%), according to survey responses.
ICT infrastructure investments also topped the list when the CFOs described where their organizations plan to invest in technology in 2019, at 37%. In fact, such investments have led Ziegler’s survey since 2012, the first year it polled CFOs about technology-related investments, although the percentages have decreased over time (90% in 2012, 86% in 2014, 81.1% in 2016 and 74% in 2018).
The other highest-ranking technology investment plans for 2019 involve resident / client access to the internet and social networking sites (36%), workforce / staffing scheduling systems (33%), telehealth / telemedicine (33%), electronic health records / electronic medical records systems (33%) and electronic point-of-care / point-of-service systems (29%).
EHRs / EMRs and electronic POC / POS systems also have been in the top five since the survey’s inception, Ziegler said. Automatic fall detectors have consistently ranked at or near the bottom every year.
