Winners in the 2022 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards were announced yesterday afternoon in a virtual presentation that was the culmination of a McKnight’s Tech Awards + Summit that also included three webinars.
Thirteen awards were bestowed across four categories in the Senior Living track during the ceremony, which also included awards in Skilled Nursing and Home Care tracks as well as Best in Show and Tech Partner of the Year honors.
Senior Living winners
Winners in the four categories of the Senior Living track are listed below.
Innovator of the Year
The Innovator of the Year category recognized technological innovation that made a difference in the provision of care or services or the bottom line.
Winning Gold was John Knox Village, Lee’s Summit, MO, for “Using Technology to Reduce Falls and Improve Lives.”
The award recognizes John Knox Village’s use of VirtuSense’s VSTBalance System, which is at the center of the community’s Fitness Level Experience, or FLEX, program designed to help residents enhance their overall health and reduce the risk of falls. The assessments conducted through the technology have resulted in 62 residents being referred to the Village’s physical therapy team for specialized assistance. More than 8% of residents have improved their gait, and 75% of re-screened residents have improved their sit-to-stand abilities. The FLEX program has helped create a continuum of care between the fitness center and the PT program, helping to keep residents independent longer.
Other award winners in the Senior Living track’s Innovator of the Year category:
- Silver: Amity Senior Living, Pittsburgh
- Bronze: LCS, Des Moines, IA
Quality
The Quality category recognized the use of technology to improve the quality of care or services.
Winning Gold was Friendship Village Senior Services, Sr. Louis, for “Improve Quality of Life.”
The award recognizes Friendship Village’s use of falls prevention technology by VirtuSense, which uses artificial intelligence to assess each resident’s ability to walk, sit and complete other motions. Friendship says that the community has seen a 65% increase in attendance at its balance classes among users, and 90% of those who have undergone an initial balance assessment have seen improvement in at least one of five test areas at the six-month follow-up. Ninety percent of those who have undergone the assessment also report an increase in activity level and happiness, according to Friendship.
Other award winners in the awards in the Senior Living track’s Quality category:
- Silver: The Goodman Group, Bethesda, MD
- Bronze: IntegraCare, Wexford, PA
Building Bridges
The Building Bridges category recognized the use of technology that improved connections between staff members and residents and/or their families.
Winning Gold was Virtual Senior Center and Selfhelp Community Services, New York City, for “Virtual Senior Center, a world of engagement.”
Selfhelp is a New York-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to maintaining the independence and dignity of seniors and at-risk populations through a spectrum of senior housing, home health care and social services. Via computer or television screen, users can access the Virtual Senior Center to learn about resources available to them. Computer classes are provided to those who need them. The platform also facilitates remote monitoring and telehealth services, and a new initiative works toward diversity, equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ older adults.
Other award winners in the Senior Living track’s Building Bridges category:
- Silver: Friendship Village Senior Services, St. Louis
- Bronze: Cypress Cove, Ft. Myers, FL
Keep It Super Simple
The Keep It Super Simple category recognized simple but effective applications of technology that improved the provision of care, services or operations.
Winning Gold in the category was Westminster-Canterbury on Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach, VA, for “WCB Geeks: Cyber-Seniors Solving Their Neighbors’ Tech Challenges”
In the WCB Geeks program, a small but mighty group of residents who are former tech industry executives assist the community’s IT department by helping their fellow residents with less complex technology issues. The Geeks have set up hundreds of residents on the community’s resident hub digital portal so that they could access information about activities at the community, dining services and current events. In addition to helping address community tech issues quickly and enabling the Geeks to use their IT skills, the group helps foster friendships that may not have developed otherwise.
Other award winners in the Senior Living track’s Keep It Super Simple category:
- Silver: Asbury Communities, Frederick, MD
- Bronze (tie): Brookdale Senior Living, Brentwood, TN, and Social Call, a Front Porch Community Service, Glendale, CA
Award winners were chosen by a 25-member panel of experts who assessed entries for their overall value in improving resident care and services, impact, relevance, execution and creativity.
Two more awards
The winners of two more awards, Best in Show and Tech Partner of the Year, also were announced.
The Best in Show award was chosen from all winners in all three tracks of the competition: Senior Living, Skilled Nursing and Home Care.
Winning the award was ConcertoCare of San Antonio, TX, for its proprietary Patient3D platform, the Gold winner of the Building Bridges category of the Home Care track of the competition.
The goal of the software is to close patients’ existing care gaps. To achieve this aim, the platform helps ConcertoCare’s teams with three tasks: assimilate large quantities of complex data from multiple sources; analyze data to generate insights around a patient’s needs; and manage the care delivery workflow and streamline communication between care teams, patients and caregivers.
The Tech Partner of the Year award was new to the McKnight’s Tech Awards in 2022.
RecallCue won the award, for the RecallCue Dementia Clock and Connect.
RecallCue is a two-app solution. The first, RecallCue Day Clock, turns a tablet computer into a “hands-off” day clock. The second app, RecallCue Connect, lets anyone, no matter where they are, communicate with a loved one, with the ability to send messages and photos, set alarms and reminders, play music, share files and conduct two-way video calling.
Other award winners in the Tech Partner of the Year category:
- Silver: Kami Vision
- Bronze: National Health Care Associates
Additional finalists in the Senior Living track and for the Tech Partner of the Year award are listed here.
More information about the award winners is available in the virtual awards presentation and will be featured in upcoming articles in the free McKnight’s Senior Living Daily Briefing e-newsletter (sign up here), the McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Daily Update e-newsletter and the McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse e-newsletter as well as in the print magazines of McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.
The webinars and virtual awards presentation of the 2022 McKnight’s Tech Awards + Summit will be available for on-demand viewing for a year at https://www.mcknights.com/100422techawards. Free registration is required.
The 2022 winners also will be feted at an in-person event Oct. 17 in Denver. For more information and to register for the event, click here.
See McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Home Care for more information about the winners in the Skilled Nursing and Home Care tracks, respectively.
The Platinum sponsor of the 2022 McKnight’s Tech Awards + Summit is KARE. Gold sponsors are iN2L + LifeLoop, IntelyCare and Saiva.
