December 30, 2024 • 31 mins
In this engaging episode, Amber Bardon, CEO of Parasol Alliance, shares invaluable insights on how technology can serve as a powerful competitive differentiator in senior living communities. She discusses the importance of strategic assessments, fostering a positive tech culture, and the need for robust systems to adapt to the changing landscape of senior living requests and challenges.
• Technology as a competitive differentiator in senior living
• Amber Bardon's journey in the senior living tech industry
• Parasol Alliance's mission to transform community operations
• Addressing challenges with strategic technology assessments
• Importance of fostering a culture that embraces technology
• Future trends in technology for senior living communities
• Exploring falls prevention and process automation solutions
• The necessity of robust Wi-Fi for effective tech integration
• Encouragement for communities to invest in holistic tech strategies
Learn more at:
https://www.facebook.com/ParasolAllianceIT/
https://www.instagram.com/parasolalliance
https://www.linkedin.com/company/10195935
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amber Bardon (00:07):
I think that communities need to think about
technology as a competitivedifferentiator.
Every other challenge thatwe're having in this industry we
talk about workforce, you know.
We talk about just staffing,you know anything that's a major
issue dining, things like thatthey all are going to come back
to technology in some way as thesolution, and I think that you
(00:30):
know.
Going back to what I saidearlier, communities need to
start thinking about how they'regoing to address this.
You talk about ruralcommunities.
How are they going to survivein competition with a community
down the road that does havewall-to-wall Wi-Fi and they
don't have that?
And residents moving in want tohave Alexa and they want to
have all these things they havein their home today and they
can't provide that.
That's going to be acompetitive differentiator
(00:51):
amongst the new wave of seniorsthat are coming in.
John Hauber (01:01):
Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast
.
If you are an owner operator,investor, developer or buyer of
senior housing, you've come tothe right place.
The best way to stay connectedwith us is to sign up for our
weekly newsletter athavenseniorinvestmentscom.
This podcast doesn't existwithout you, our community.
(01:23):
Thank you for listening andreach out to us anytime.
Kelsie Heermans (01:32):
Welcome back everyone.
I'm Kelsey Hearmans and it's mypleasure to welcome you to
today's exciting conversation.
Joining us as host is thefantastic John Haber, who will
be leading an engagingconversation with none other
than Amber Barden, the CEO ofParasol Alliance.
Amber is a visionary leaderdriving innovation and
(01:53):
technology solutions for seniorliving organizations.
Without further ado, I'll turnit over to John to get us
started.
John Hauber (02:02):
Thanks, Kelsey Amber.
welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
You're welcome and you've hadsuch an inspiring career.
I've looked over your websiteand all the awards that you've
received Pretty amazing.
Can you start off by sharing alittle bit about your journey?
How do you go from working insenior living to founding
Parasol Alliance?
(02:22):
From working in senior livingto founding Parasol Alliance?
Amber Bardon (02:25):
Well, thank you so much for having me, john.
I've been in senior living foralmost 20 years, which seems a
little bit hard to believe, and,as you probably know, people
who are in this industry,they're lifers.
So you meet a lot of peoplelike me that have been in the
industry for a long time and Iactually got my start working
for a provider.
So I came into a senior livingcommunity at a very entry level
(02:46):
IT position at the help desksenior living community in
Chicago and I ended up workingthere for nine years and I got
promoted several times and thatcommunity happened to have every
type of senior living servicesavailable.
So home health, community-basedservices, hospice, hud services
available.
So home health, community-basedservices, hospice, hud AL, il.
Skilled transportation, adultday you know really everything
(03:09):
that you can think of.
That's you know on offer in themarketplace.
And so just by doing projectsand working with all the
different departments, coming inthird shift and training nurses
, I got to understand thebusiness side really well and
then, through my evolution inworking for that provider you
know, got onto the leadershipside and saw the real
(03:30):
opportunities there are to havetechnology be seen as a partner
to the organization to enhancethe service offering, the staff
experience, the residentengagement, and that's what led
me to found Parasol Alliance.
John Hauber (03:45):
And that was in 2015,.
You founded Parasol Alliance,correct?
Amber Bardon (03:49):
Yeah, so Parasol Alliance was started in 2015.
And, as you probably know frombeing an entrepreneur yourself,
a lot of what happens is basedon who you know and your network
and how critical that is.
And I was introduced to the CEOof Chicago Methodist Senior
Services, bill Lowe, and I toldhim my idea to start a business
(04:12):
in this industry and he had theidea to go out and find
providers to invest and startthe company, and so he helped me
go out and talk to differentcommunities and different
organizations and the idea thatwe were telling all these
different providers is thatevery senior living community
needs technology, so why not owna piece of it and provide that
(04:34):
service to yourself and thenalso use that as a vertical
integration strategy to go outand provide that service to the
marketplace?
And so that was really theconcept behind Parasol Alliance
and that's where the allianceand the name comes from, and we
ended up with five differentorganizations that became
investors and partners instarting the company.
John Hauber (04:53):
Well you've.
You now serve what?
45 communities across ninestates.
You have 80 employees.
You're expanding into Canadaand the UK.
What's been the key to scalingyour vision so effectively?
Amber Bardon (05:08):
I think there's two pieces to that, and I like
to think of us as a disruptor.
I think that we have a verydifferent business model and I
think we're a disruptor on theservices that we offer, and then
I also think we're just adisruptor on the people that
work for us in our culture, andI think those are two things
(05:28):
that are very different, but Ithink those are the key to our
success in different ways, and Ican dive a little bit more into
those.
Is there one you want?
John Hauber (05:36):
me to yeah, so you know you deliver services like
help, desk support, resident ITassistance, security.
Let's go into those servicesthat you do bring to the table.
Amber Bardon (05:47):
Yeah, so I just said a moment ago a little bit
of a bold claim that I considerus to be a disruptor, so let me
just explain what I mean by that.
So when I started the company,I didn't really know anything
about an MSP or managed serviceprovider.
I didn't really know what theytypically provide or what they
typically do, and when I decidedto build this business model
that we have, I really came atit from the perspective of what
(06:09):
do senior living communitiesneed and what do they not have
today.
And I got some of thatinformation from my own
experience, but also fromtalking to some of the other
potential investors that we had,which was about 15 communities
originally, and I asked all ofthem what is the number one
issue you have with technologysupport whether you're in-house
outsourced and they all saidstrategy was their biggest pain
(06:29):
point.
Their CFO was making decisions.
They'd go to a conference,they'd meet a vendor, they'd buy
the product.
It wasn't successful.
They don't know what they don'tknow.
They didn't have the resourcesto hire a CIO, and so it was
interesting that that was thebiggest pain point, and that was
also something I experienced atthe community I worked for and
I had built a strategicassessment there, and so that
(06:50):
became the core of our businessmodel and part of our value
proposition.
So we begin every engagementwith our clients with a
strategic engagement, strategicassessment, and it goes way
beyond just what you think of astraditional IT, and so our
vision statement is actuallytransform technology, culture
and senior living, and the waywe do that is really through
this assessment process.
(07:11):
So we look at every component oftechnology operations, business
systems, network systems,security, all the low voltage
nurse-caller access cameras, allthe resident technology and
innovation, and we tie all thesethings together in a roadmap
that gives the community astep-by-step guide, year over
year, over a period of threeyears, of all the work that they
need to do in those areas, andthere's a lot of benefits to
(07:34):
that.
So that can become the ITbudget.
It brings people together interms of resources and projects
that we're going to agree towork on, because you see a lot
of silos with this to marketdoing that over there and this
community doing that over there,so it gets everybody on the
same page as far as what thevision is, and then it gives you
a path to execute.
So I would say ourdifferentiator is that we start
with that and then we work withour clients to execute that.
(07:57):
We don't just have a break fixmodel.
John Hauber (08:00):
If you went and surveyed and you probably have
surveyed your clients, you'vebeen doing this for quite a
while what would they say thetop three issues that they're
currently having in today, 2024,2025, what are the top three
issues that they're having?
Amber Bardon (08:15):
So the number one finding I have, having done more
than 100 strategic assessmentsat more than 70 communities, is
business systems assessments atmore than 70 communities is
business systems.
So a lot of times we'll workwith a community or an
organization and their ITinfrastructure is usually pretty
solid.
Either they have in-house IT oroutsourcing and you know their
server switches.
All that is up to date Notalways, but a lot of times it is
(08:37):
, but no one owns the businessapplications.
And so what we're looking forthere is opportunities to make
sure you have the right systems,that you're optimizing the
systems you have already, thatthey're integrated, that we're
getting rid of spreadsheets,that we're optimizing processes,
start to finish.
So, for example, taking anadmissions process and making
that really efficient againstthe technology, because a lot of
(08:59):
people want to jump toinnovation, but unless you work
through this, you can't takeadvantage a lot of the
innovation out there.
You want to use to innovation,but unless you work through this
, you can't take advantage a lotof the innovation out there.
You want to use AI to generatereports and data and analytics.
Well, if your systems, if yourinformation, is all in
spreadsheets or it's on paper,or it's in 10 different systems
and none of the data fieldsmatch, it's very difficult to
get to that.
So I would say business systemsis, across the board, the
(09:21):
biggest opportunity that I find.
I think the second one is thetechnology culture at the
organization, because a lot ofleadership is not on the same
page about what is thetechnology culture and how does
that organization want to usetechnology.
No one expects to spend lessmoney on technology.
(09:42):
Everybody is planning to spendmore money on technology.
Everybody is planning to spendmore money on it.
And not everyone is on the samepage about what does that mean
for the staff experience, forthe resident experience, and how
do we plan to address painpoints.
And I think that is something aleadership needs to get in
alignment on and have a goodplan moving forward.
And then I would say the thirdone is security.
(10:03):
I think I have to say thatbecause it's just the world we
live in today and I think mostcommunities are being pushed to
security by their cybersecurityinsurance companies or they're
just having the painfulexperience of having an attack
or something like that thatthey're starting to realize this
is a necessity.
John Hauber (10:21):
All those services and what you bring to the table,
and your awards and yourrankings don't come about easily
, and so one thing that reallystands out is your award-winning
culture.
Parasol Alliance is recognizedas the happiest IT company and
has received 28 Best Place toWork awards.
(10:44):
That's amazing.
Can you tell us what sets yourculture apart?
Amber Bardon (10:49):
This is one of my favorite things to talk about,
and I've done a lot ofpresentations and I've spoken to
a lot of different groups aboutbuilding culture, and I think
there's a lot of specificstrategies and tactile things
that you can do when it comes tobuilding a great culture, but I
think all of those come down tojust a couple of key ways of
(11:10):
thinking about culture.
So, first of all, you have tobe very intentional about
building culture and you have tohave buy-in from your C-level.
It's very difficult toimplement a great culture if the
CEO doesn't believe in it andthey don't want to be a part of
that.
It can't just come from HR.
I think the second thing is totake the time to listen.
So listen and engage with staff.
(11:32):
So I meet with every single newemployee and I let them know
about our financial performance,what our strategic goals are.
I just personally take the timeto talk to them and share
information and answer theirquestions when they start.
And then something else we do iswe do town halls twice a year
where we had mandatory meetingswith every employee, where we
ask them questions about whatare we doing well, what can we
(11:53):
do better.
So I think, showing that you'rewilling to take the time to
engage with them.
And I have spoken tocommunities or even
organizations that are doingthis, that are very large and
have three shifts, and some oftheir that are doing this that
are very large and have threeshifts, and some of their CEOs
are doing this and they'recoming in all three shifts and
meeting with staff.
So it doesn't just have to bean IT company that can do this,
but the third piece of that isaccountability and following up.
(12:15):
So taking what you're hearing,being available to listen, but
then telling them what you'regoing to do about it and then
following through.
So we take all of that feedbackand we present it back to our
team and we tell them what theaction items are and then we
report on that every month.
John Hauber (12:29):
That's wonderful, and I noticed that you also give
your employees their day off ontheir birthdays.
Is that what I heard from?
Amber Bardon (12:37):
Yeah, they get.
So we have a.
W hav a lot of little thingswe're doing, but we give
employees their birthday off.
We have unlimited time off.
We also have a mental healthday once a quarter that they get
points in our wellness app fortaking off a mental wellness day
once a quarter.
So a lot of little strategieslike that that we do.
John Hauber (12:56):
You also use Slack, so tell me how you use Slack
within your organization.
Amber Bardon (13:01):
Well, I think the tools that you're using has to
be part of your technologyculture strategy.
Well, I think the tools thatyou're using has to be part of
your technology culture strategy.
So you don't want to implementsomething like a Slack or Teams
without a strategy and policy onhow to use it effectively,
because otherwise it just turnsinto, you know, sort of a free
for all and it can be somethingpeople suddenly have to check 24
hours a day and jump toimmediately and it can be
disruptive or just ignored ifthere's no guidelines.
(13:23):
So Slack is definitely alifeblood of our company.
So we are 100% remote.
So, as you mentioned, we'recurrently at about 80 employees.
We've always been 100% remote,so we really have a lot of
guidelines around theexpectations of being on Slack,
how you use it.
So, for example, we don't wantany work done in Slack, so we
don't want to ask someone to dosomething.
There needs to be a ticket thatyou're linking it back to
(13:50):
something to track your time togo back to.
I don't allow people to useSlack after hours, so we're a
24-7 company, but if you need tocontact someone after hours,
you are not supposed to post inSlack, because I don't want
people thinking they have to login and check in.
There's a list to call them ortext them or whatever their
preference is if you absolutelyneed to contact someone after
hours.
So I think having a lot ofthose guidelines can help make
the tool really effective.
John Hauber (14:10):
What's interesting is that part of your culture
also is a commitment totransparency, but also
empowering your employees.
And then you have implementedEOS, which is Entrepreneurial
Operating System, which we alsodid, starting in 2024, and
investing in ongoing employeedevelopment.
(14:31):
When did you implement EOS?
Amber Bardon (14:34):
Pretty much from the beginning.
We were much smaller back then.
We self-implemented.
I love the EOS book because youread a lot of business books
and they're very generic and ithas such a step-by-step process
guide on how to implement theframework.
So, yeah, we've always been EOS.
You know some slightmodifications to the way we do
(14:54):
it, but I think that's been ahuge part of our success.
John Hauber (14:58):
And so what other areas of employee development
have you implemented internally?
Amber Bardon (15:04):
So we have a lot of those different engagement
strategies like I talked aboutwith the town halls.
We also do surveys.
We have a wellness app sopeople can actually earn points
which they can use to translateinto money or gift cards and
things like that.
So that's where people getpoints for things like taking
the mental wellness day,participating in different types
of wellness activities.
(15:25):
I'm going to the doctor once ayear.
We also have something calledParasol Academy.
So this is career development,because you know, we want to
give our employees a chance togrow.
So we do two different types ofmentoring.
So every employee, every newemployee, gets a new employee
mentor for 45 days, and that'sjust another peer for them to go
to, to not have to ask theirmanager questions.
(15:45):
We do new employee socials too.
So we bring our new employeesback after a quarter and ask
them what they liked aboutonboarding, what can we improve,
and the mentorship is thenumber one thing they really
like.
We also have a professionalmentorship program.
We built up a list of everysingle position in the company
and then what skillset you needto be able to specifically move
into that role, so that it'svery clear.
I want to be a network engineer.
(16:06):
I need to have these 10 skills.
T i And then
e t we h wehave a link to where they can
get training so they can golearn how to do that skill.
So it's a very clearly laid outcareer development path and it
works.
So we do promote people and aspeople start to see that
happening, they understand thatif they do that they put the
work in, that they will see thepromotion happen.
John Hauber (16:30):
That's great.
I mean that number one.
You're listening to them,you're giving them development
opportunities, you're using theEOS system, you're running on
all cylinders and it seems likeyou're doing extremely well.
So let's go back and revertback to your clients, and you're
known for creating strategicroadmaps.
I know we got into that just atad, but let's talk about the
future.
(16:50):
Okay, so here you are.
You're working with all thesecommunities.
How do you keep them abreast tothe changing technology in the
marketplace?
Because, as you know, over thenext year, two years, three
years, it's just going toexplode in terms of the speed of
technology and the use ofartificial intelligence.
(17:11):
So how do you use thoseroadmaps to achieve your
clients' long-term goals?
Amber Bardon (17:17):
Yeah, I think it's a great question, and I think
we hear a lot of buzzwords rightnow because a lot of this
technology is emerging, so AI isa great one.
I mean, how many conferenceshave you been to where people
talk about AI?
The thing is, is not a lot ofpeople are successfully using AI
yet, and I think that theydon't.
You know it doesn't mean onething.
(17:38):
There's so many things that AIcould mean.
So AI could mean that we have anote taker on this Zoom call
that's taking notes for us.
Or it could mean that you havea data analytics tool that's
giving you generative AI answersbased on what's in your
database.
It could mean that you have asoftware, like a resident
engagement app that has AI builtinto it that's doing advanced
(17:58):
analytics and reporting.
So I think, how do we captureinnovation in the roadmap?
I like to think of it as apyramid.
So we need to make sure we'retaking care of the basic IT
infrastructure, then we need towork on our business
applications and make sure thoseare solid.
We need to think about theresident technology, and then we
have innovation at the top.
And so I think when you build aroadmap and you have an IT
steering committee.
(18:18):
You need to think about it on aquarterly basis of what are the
priorities this quarter that weneed to do and where does
innovation fall on that scale?
So it doesn't make sense tostart a falls prevention project
now or do something thatrequires Wi-Fi if we don't have
Wi-Fi in our building yet.
And so what are some of thethings infrastructure we need to
do to build that?
(18:39):
So it goes hand in hand as faras how we stay updated.
So that's a little bit abouthelp our clients know when to
implement innovation and whatinnovation is right for them.
As far as, like, what's outthere, we also have a podcast
called Raising Tech, so we havea lot of technology innovators
on that.
You know, going to conferences.
We get introductions, like on aweekly basis.
(18:59):
We always have vendors new intothe space coming to us because
they've heard about us wantingto let us know about what's out
there.
But again, I think you have tobe careful because you don't
want to get caught up in goingout and getting something
innovative without understandingthe use case for it.
How are you going to support itonce it's in?
Who's in charge of it?
Like, what are the you know thesecurity risks, like I think it
(19:20):
has to.
You don't want to like.
I'm a certified project manager, so I'm very project management
focused on what are therequirements, what's the use
case, what's out there, andlet's make sure that we can
match these up together ratherthan just jumping into something
.
John Hauber (19:32):
I spent 12 years in high tech years ago during the
dot-com boom and such, and yes,you have to have that one person
within the organization.
That's going to be the go-toperson, the individual that
interfaces with your team.
That's going to be the go-toperson, the individual that
interfaces with your team, or itjust gets convoluted.
No one knows who owns what andthe project never gets off the
(19:53):
ground correctly.
So you know you exclusivelyserve the senior living industry
with a full range of managed ITservices.
What unique challenges dosenior living communities face
in adopting and managingtechnologies outside what we've
already spoken about, and howdoes Parasol Alliance help
address those needs?
Amber Bardon (20:15):
Well, I think the big one that we haven't
discussed is Wi-Fi, and Iactually do a whole presentation
called the Wi-Fi crisis,because I think this is a big
area that no one really knowsquite what to do about it.
A lot of the technology outthere is going to require
enterprise wall-to-wall Wi-Fiand it's very expensive.
So we estimate $2 a square footand that's been pretty accurate
in the projects that we've done.
Estimate $2 a square foot andthat's been pretty accurate in
(20:38):
the projects that we've done.
No one's really sure how toplan for that, how to pay for
that, how to support it, how tomanage it, and we see a use case
for it, both with the residentscoming in wanting to stream and
have Wi-Fi available, but thetechnology we want to use both
for staff and residents that canget them to the level they need
to be.
So I think you know it all goesback to the roadmap for me to
(21:00):
understand where you want to goand what you need to do to get
there, including how do youdesign the backend
infrastructure to support thistechnology?
John Hauber (21:11):
Amber, you mentioned residents and staff in
regards to IT.
There's another third componentthat I've heard that isn't
being taken care of very well,and that's those families coming
in that are wanting to accessthe internet in the community
along with telehealth right.
So what have you heard on thatside in regards to not only the
(21:32):
resident and staff experience,but the family or doctor or
whomever is coming to visit theresident?
Amber Bardon (21:39):
I think that's a good point and it isn't
something that's talked about alot.
You're right, from a communitystandpoint, having access to
Wi-Fi and things like that.
I think that goes back to theWi-Fi piece, but I think this
sort of brings up sort of aparallel issue in that I think a
lot of the vendors in seniorliving need to come together and
have better integration amongstthemselves to be able to
(22:01):
provide a comprehensiveinformation to families and to
residents, so you can implementa resident engagement app and a
family member can have access tothat to see what's going on
there, but that doesn't alwaystalk to the medical record
system to see the care records,which doesn't always talk to the
nurse call system or the diningsystem, and so I would really
(22:22):
love to see the senior livingvendor environment come together
to help solve these challenges,because everybody has their
little piece and then alsounderstand the challenges
actually in the communities thatthey're dealing with to have
the infrastructure to supportthese systems.
John Hauber (22:38):
I agree.
I mean especially in the ruralareas.
Can you imagine the challengesfor an assisted living community
that doesn't have fast internet, such as fiber or something
else?
How can they manage 70different connections at the
same time?
And that's where you come inand you bring a great service to
(23:00):
the marketplace and it shows onhow many communities you're
currently working with and soyou're at the forefront of
technology and senior living.
What trends or opportunitiesare you seeing right now, amber?
Amber Bardon (23:13):
I just want to go back to a point you made,
because I think this is sort ofpart of answering your question,
but I think that communitiesneed to think about technology
as a competitive differentiator.
Every other challenge thatwe're having in this industry we
talk about workforce, you know.
We talk about just staffing.
You know anything that that's amajor issue?
(23:34):
Dining, things like that theyall are going to come back to
technology in some way as thesolution, and I think that you
know.
Going back to what I saidearlier, communities need to
start thinking about how they'regoing to address this.
You talk about ruralcommunities.
How are they going to survivein competition with a community
down the road that does havewall-to-wall Wi-Fi and they
don't have that?
And residents moving in want tohave Alexa and they want to
(23:56):
have all these things they havein their home today and they
can't provide that.
That's going to be acompetitive differentiator
amongst you know, the new waveof seniors that are coming in to
these communities.
So I think that's definitelysomething that they need to look
for again is just thinkingabout it differently.
So transforming the way wethink about technology as
something that we're seeing outthere and that that is
imperative to have a plan inplace.
(24:18):
You know we talked about AI.
I think that's a big one.
We wrote a white paper on AIit's on our website where we
talked to all the vendors in thespace and interviewed them
about how they're incorporatingAI.
The other really big one we'rehearing is falls prevention, and
there's a lot of aspects tofalls prevention.
So again, I feel like peoplemeet a vendor that does falls
and they go out and buy it, butthere's so many different
components to falls, based onthe level of care, based on are
(24:40):
you assessing pre-fall, duringthe fall, after the fall,
monitoring.
You have to consider all thosecomponents and, again, make sure
you're picking the rightpartner for what you need.
And then I think the otherthing we're hearing a little bit
is like robot processautomation and business
intelligence, which I think hasbeen lacking in our industry for
a long time, and now we'restarting to see some real
(25:00):
solutions come out around that.
John Hauber (25:02):
When you say business automation, what would
you like to see?
What are you seeing out therethat you really like?
And you don't have to namecompany names, it's just what
are you seeing in terms of thetechnology that excites you?
You've been in this businessfor quite a while.
You've been in the seniorliving space even longer.
What are you seeing in 2025,either here or coming out in the
(25:24):
future?
Amber Bardon (25:25):
I think there's two parts to it.
So there's process automation,and there are tools out there
that can automate processes foryou.
So, example you get a PDF fromthe hospital for an admission
packet, it can scan the PDF foryou, it can data, enter the
information into your EMR orwhatever.
I think there are some cons tothose and I think you have to
evaluate them carefully, andsome of the companies out there
(25:46):
doing that haven't been able togive me examples of where
they've actually been successfulwith that.
And to me, this honestly goesback to the bigger problem I
talked about with.
Each vendor has a piece of whatthey do and none of them talk
to each other, and so if we canjust get the systems to talk to
each other, I think it wouldsolve a lot of that need for
process automation.
And then I think on the otherend, it's getting the data out.
So business intelligence, andso some of this can be AI and
(26:08):
then some of it is, you know,dashboards, kpis, and sit on top
of all with it, because thedata fields don't match or they
have a lot of spreadsheets, andso this is where, going back to
my you know my point earlierabout the business systems have
to be really aligned and I wouldsay I wouldn't try to build
(26:30):
this in-house.
I would outsource it to avendor who has developers on
staff and has a lot ofexperience, because every single
place I've seen it in-housethey've mostly failed at it and
spent a lot of money on it.
John Hauber (26:41):
It gets into making sure that that company you're
outsourcing to has the safetyand security required so that
that data doesn't getcompromised right.
Hipaa data and other data.
Amber Bardon (26:54):
Yeah, I feel like it seems alluring to have this
idea that I can buy Power BI anddo it myself, and then you get
down the road of having threePower BI people and not really
getting very far.
And I've seen it more than oncebecause it is a little bit more
complicated than you wouldimagine.
John Hauber (27:16):
Any question that I haven't asked you?
Amber Bardon (27:20):
I think I would just, you know, resummarize.
You know if someone islistening to this and they're
thinking, you know where do Istart or what do I need to do
first.
I haven't considered thesethings that we're talking about
on this episode.
The very first thing to do isto establish what your
technology culture is, which Italked about earlier.
So I don't need to recap that.
(27:45):
But I think you need to have aconversation at the leadership
level about where do you seeyourself on the technology scale
and where do you want to be.
So that's the very first thingis because I've been at sites
where I've been in a room with10 people in leadership and none
of them agree on that question.
So it is an important thing.
And then, secondly, is come upwith your plan on how you're
going to get there and make sureyou're building out the all the
components that you need to doto be successful with that.
And then, thirdly, you know,don't get swayed by something
(28:07):
that's the latest and greatest.
You know, make sure you vet itthoroughly and, you know, make
sure that that company is goingto be around, that they're a
good partner and that they aregoing to do you know what's in
your best interest and not justtry to get you on the latest
thing out there.
John Hauber (28:25):
Let's back out of IT real quick and I just want to
get your.
You're in many communities, youhave a podcast on tech, you're
at conferences and such.
Where are the opportunities forinnovation in senior living?
Amber Bardon (28:36):
The biggest opportunities are process and
system optimization andintegration.
And then you know, workforceautomation is a big one through
technology, which is easier saidthan done in some cases, but
there are opportunities that arecoming out.
So you know, for example, inskilled it's very difficult to
do because you have certainstaffing counts you have to
maintain and things like that.
(28:56):
But you can do little things,like a community in Indiana
that's putting a sensor on theadult diaper so that the staff
know when to change them, sothey're not having to manually
check them all the time.
And I think there'sopportunities to streamline the
back-end administrativeprocesses of staff that can help
with workforce that don'tdirectly impact staff or jobs
(29:17):
directly.
And then, I think, the abilityto start making data-driven
decisions, you know, by gettingyour data in accurately and then
getting your data back out andthen using that for your
business.
And I think, lastly, just usingtechnology to improve the
resident experience.
You know isolation is a big one.
(29:37):
Resident engagement is a bigone.
How can we help improve theresidents' lives through
technology?
John Hauber (29:43):
Yeah, how can we get each one of our residents to
have an aura ring or a galaxyring or an apple ring so that
the technology can tell us threedays in advance whether or not
someone is starting to get sick,based on the level of
temperature of their body,things like that?
I think that being able to makea decision based on the data
that you're gathering and beingallowed to gather on that
(30:05):
residence.
So, amber, it's been incrediblehearing about your journey,
your company's culture and theimpact you're making in senior
living.
Before we wrap up, what advicewould you give to leaders
looking to build a thrivingorganization like Parasol
Alliance?
Amber Bardon (30:23):
I mean, for me it's all about that culture,
like we talked about.
And again, we are aservice-based company, so you
know we're not manufacturingwidgets and selling them.
So our services are our peopleand so that's another reason why
it's so critical.
But I just think that if youremployees you know, you
mentioned we want to be thehappiest IT company in the world
and that's because when youremployees are happy and they
love coming into work every day,what they're producing is going
(30:46):
to reflect that.
John Hauber (30:48):
That is correct.
So, amber, thank you forjoining us and sharing your
story.
Your company is really ashining example of how
innovation and culture cancreate meaningful change in the
senior living industry.
So, for our listeners, if you'dlike to learn more about
Parasol Alliance and the amazingwork Amber and her team are
(31:10):
doing, be sure to check outtheir website, located, amber,
where ParasolAlliancecom.
Okay, thanks for tuning in andwe will see you next time.
Have a great holiday season.
I think that communities need to think about
technology as a competitivedifferentiator.
Every other challenge thatwe're having in this industry we
talk about workforce, you know.
We talk about just staffing,you know anything that's a major
issue dining, things like thatthey all are going to come back
to technology in some way as thesolution, and I think that you
(00:30):
know.
Going back to what I saidearlier, communities need to
start thinking about how they'regoing to address this.
You talk about ruralcommunities.
How are they going to survivein competition with a community
down the road that does havewall-to-wall Wi-Fi and they
don't have that?
And residents moving in want tohave Alexa and they want to
have all these things they havein their home today and they
can't provide that.
That's going to be acompetitive differentiator
(00:51):
amongst the new wave of seniorsthat are coming in.
John Hauber (01:01):
Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast
.
If you are an owner operator,investor, developer or buyer of
senior housing, you've come tothe right place.
The best way to stay connectedwith us is to sign up for our
weekly newsletter athavenseniorinvestmentscom.
This podcast doesn't existwithout you, our community.
(01:23):
Thank you for listening andreach out to us anytime.
Kelsie Heermans (01:32):
Welcome back everyone.
I'm Kelsey Hearmans and it's mypleasure to welcome you to
today's exciting conversation.
Joining us as host is thefantastic John Haber, who will
be leading an engagingconversation with none other
than Amber Barden, the CEO ofParasol Alliance.
Amber is a visionary leaderdriving innovation and
(01:53):
technology solutions for seniorliving organizations.
Without further ado, I'll turnit over to John to get us
started.
John Hauber (02:02):
Thanks, Kelsey Amber.
welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
You're welcome and you've hadsuch an inspiring career.
I've looked over your websiteand all the awards that you've
received Pretty amazing.
Can you start off by sharing alittle bit about your journey?
How do you go from working insenior living to founding
Parasol Alliance?
(02:22):
From working in senior livingto founding Parasol Alliance?
Amber Bardon (02:25):
Well, thank you so much for having me, john.
I've been in senior living foralmost 20 years, which seems a
little bit hard to believe, and,as you probably know, people
who are in this industry,they're lifers.
So you meet a lot of peoplelike me that have been in the
industry for a long time and Iactually got my start working
for a provider.
So I came into a senior livingcommunity at a very entry level
(02:46):
IT position at the help desksenior living community in
Chicago and I ended up workingthere for nine years and I got
promoted several times and thatcommunity happened to have every
type of senior living servicesavailable.
So home health, community-basedservices, hospice, hud services
available.
So home health, community-basedservices, hospice, hud AL, il.
Skilled transportation, adultday you know really everything
(03:09):
that you can think of.
That's you know on offer in themarketplace.
And so just by doing projectsand working with all the
different departments, coming inthird shift and training nurses
, I got to understand thebusiness side really well and
then, through my evolution inworking for that provider you
know, got onto the leadershipside and saw the real
(03:30):
opportunities there are to havetechnology be seen as a partner
to the organization to enhancethe service offering, the staff
experience, the residentengagement, and that's what led
me to found Parasol Alliance.
John Hauber (03:45):
And that was in 2015,.
You founded Parasol Alliance,correct?
Amber Bardon (03:49):
Yeah, so Parasol Alliance was started in 2015.
And, as you probably know frombeing an entrepreneur yourself,
a lot of what happens is basedon who you know and your network
and how critical that is.
And I was introduced to the CEOof Chicago Methodist Senior
Services, bill Lowe, and I toldhim my idea to start a business
(04:12):
in this industry and he had theidea to go out and find
providers to invest and startthe company, and so he helped me
go out and talk to differentcommunities and different
organizations and the idea thatwe were telling all these
different providers is thatevery senior living community
needs technology, so why not owna piece of it and provide that
(04:34):
service to yourself and thenalso use that as a vertical
integration strategy to go outand provide that service to the
marketplace?
And so that was really theconcept behind Parasol Alliance
and that's where the allianceand the name comes from, and we
ended up with five differentorganizations that became
investors and partners instarting the company.
John Hauber (04:53):
Well you've.
You now serve what?
45 communities across ninestates.
You have 80 employees.
You're expanding into Canadaand the UK.
What's been the key to scalingyour vision so effectively?
Amber Bardon (05:08):
I think there's two pieces to that, and I like
to think of us as a disruptor.
I think that we have a verydifferent business model and I
think we're a disruptor on theservices that we offer, and then
I also think we're just adisruptor on the people that
work for us in our culture, andI think those are two things
(05:28):
that are very different, but Ithink those are the key to our
success in different ways, and Ican dive a little bit more into
those.
Is there one you want?
John Hauber (05:36):
me to yeah, so you know you deliver services like
help, desk support, resident ITassistance, security.
Let's go into those servicesthat you do bring to the table.
Amber Bardon (05:47):
Yeah, so I just said a moment ago a little bit
of a bold claim that I considerus to be a disruptor, so let me
just explain what I mean by that.
So when I started the company,I didn't really know anything
about an MSP or managed serviceprovider.
I didn't really know what theytypically provide or what they
typically do, and when I decidedto build this business model
that we have, I really came atit from the perspective of what
(06:09):
do senior living communitiesneed and what do they not have
today.
And I got some of thatinformation from my own
experience, but also fromtalking to some of the other
potential investors that we had,which was about 15 communities
originally, and I asked all ofthem what is the number one
issue you have with technologysupport whether you're in-house
outsourced and they all saidstrategy was their biggest pain
(06:29):
point.
Their CFO was making decisions.
They'd go to a conference,they'd meet a vendor, they'd buy
the product.
It wasn't successful.
They don't know what they don'tknow.
They didn't have the resourcesto hire a CIO, and so it was
interesting that that was thebiggest pain point, and that was
also something I experienced atthe community I worked for and
I had built a strategicassessment there, and so that
(06:50):
became the core of our businessmodel and part of our value
proposition.
So we begin every engagementwith our clients with a
strategic engagement, strategicassessment, and it goes way
beyond just what you think of astraditional IT, and so our
vision statement is actuallytransform technology, culture
and senior living, and the waywe do that is really through
this assessment process.
(07:11):
So we look at every component oftechnology operations, business
systems, network systems,security, all the low voltage
nurse-caller access cameras, allthe resident technology and
innovation, and we tie all thesethings together in a roadmap
that gives the community astep-by-step guide, year over
year, over a period of threeyears, of all the work that they
need to do in those areas, andthere's a lot of benefits to
(07:34):
that.
So that can become the ITbudget.
It brings people together interms of resources and projects
that we're going to agree towork on, because you see a lot
of silos with this to marketdoing that over there and this
community doing that over there,so it gets everybody on the
same page as far as what thevision is, and then it gives you
a path to execute.
So I would say ourdifferentiator is that we start
with that and then we work withour clients to execute that.
(07:57):
We don't just have a break fixmodel.
John Hauber (08:00):
If you went and surveyed and you probably have
surveyed your clients, you'vebeen doing this for quite a
while what would they say thetop three issues that they're
currently having in today, 2024,2025, what are the top three
issues that they're having?
Amber Bardon (08:15):
So the number one finding I have, having done more
than 100 strategic assessmentsat more than 70 communities, is
business systems assessments atmore than 70 communities is
business systems.
So a lot of times we'll workwith a community or an
organization and their ITinfrastructure is usually pretty
solid.
Either they have in-house IT oroutsourcing and you know their
server switches.
All that is up to date Notalways, but a lot of times it is
(08:37):
, but no one owns the businessapplications.
And so what we're looking forthere is opportunities to make
sure you have the right systems,that you're optimizing the
systems you have already, thatthey're integrated, that we're
getting rid of spreadsheets,that we're optimizing processes,
start to finish.
So, for example, taking anadmissions process and making
that really efficient againstthe technology, because a lot of
(08:59):
people want to jump toinnovation, but unless you work
through this, you can't takeadvantage a lot of the
innovation out there.
You want to use to innovation,but unless you work through this
, you can't take advantage a lotof the innovation out there.
You want to use AI to generatereports and data and analytics.
Well, if your systems, if yourinformation, is all in
spreadsheets or it's on paper,or it's in 10 different systems
and none of the data fieldsmatch, it's very difficult to
get to that.
So I would say business systemsis, across the board, the
(09:21):
biggest opportunity that I find.
I think the second one is thetechnology culture at the
organization, because a lot ofleadership is not on the same
page about what is thetechnology culture and how does
that organization want to usetechnology.
No one expects to spend lessmoney on technology.
(09:42):
Everybody is planning to spendmore money on technology.
Everybody is planning to spendmore money on it.
And not everyone is on the samepage about what does that mean
for the staff experience, forthe resident experience, and how
do we plan to address painpoints.
And I think that is something aleadership needs to get in
alignment on and have a goodplan moving forward.
And then I would say the thirdone is security.
(10:03):
I think I have to say thatbecause it's just the world we
live in today and I think mostcommunities are being pushed to
security by their cybersecurityinsurance companies or they're
just having the painfulexperience of having an attack
or something like that thatthey're starting to realize this
is a necessity.
John Hauber (10:21):
All those services and what you bring to the table,
and your awards and yourrankings don't come about easily
, and so one thing that reallystands out is your award-winning
culture.
Parasol Alliance is recognizedas the happiest IT company and
has received 28 Best Place toWork awards.
(10:44):
That's amazing.
Can you tell us what sets yourculture apart?
Amber Bardon (10:49):
This is one of my favorite things to talk about,
and I've done a lot ofpresentations and I've spoken to
a lot of different groups aboutbuilding culture, and I think
there's a lot of specificstrategies and tactile things
that you can do when it comes tobuilding a great culture, but I
think all of those come down tojust a couple of key ways of
(11:10):
thinking about culture.
So, first of all, you have tobe very intentional about
building culture and you have tohave buy-in from your C-level.
It's very difficult toimplement a great culture if the
CEO doesn't believe in it andthey don't want to be a part of
that.
It can't just come from HR.
I think the second thing is totake the time to listen.
So listen and engage with staff.
(11:32):
So I meet with every single newemployee and I let them know
about our financial performance,what our strategic goals are.
I just personally take the timeto talk to them and share
information and answer theirquestions when they start.
And then something else we do iswe do town halls twice a year
where we had mandatory meetingswith every employee, where we
ask them questions about whatare we doing well, what can we
(11:53):
do better.
So I think, showing that you'rewilling to take the time to
engage with them.
And I have spoken tocommunities or even
organizations that are doingthis, that are very large and
have three shifts, and some oftheir that are doing this that
are very large and have threeshifts, and some of their CEOs
are doing this and they'recoming in all three shifts and
meeting with staff.
So it doesn't just have to bean IT company that can do this,
but the third piece of that isaccountability and following up.
(12:15):
So taking what you're hearing,being available to listen, but
then telling them what you'regoing to do about it and then
following through.
So we take all of that feedbackand we present it back to our
team and we tell them what theaction items are and then we
report on that every month.
John Hauber (12:29):
That's wonderful, and I noticed that you also give
your employees their day off ontheir birthdays.
Is that what I heard from?
Amber Bardon (12:37):
Yeah, they get.
So we have a.
W hav a lot of little thingswe're doing, but we give
employees their birthday off.
We have unlimited time off.
We also have a mental healthday once a quarter that they get
points in our wellness app fortaking off a mental wellness day
once a quarter.
So a lot of little strategieslike that that we do.
John Hauber (12:56):
You also use Slack, so tell me how you use Slack
within your organization.
Amber Bardon (13:01):
Well, I think the tools that you're using has to
be part of your technologyculture strategy.
Well, I think the tools thatyou're using has to be part of
your technology culture strategy.
So you don't want to implementsomething like a Slack or Teams
without a strategy and policy onhow to use it effectively,
because otherwise it just turnsinto, you know, sort of a free
for all and it can be somethingpeople suddenly have to check 24
hours a day and jump toimmediately and it can be
disruptive or just ignored ifthere's no guidelines.
(13:23):
So Slack is definitely alifeblood of our company.
So we are 100% remote.
So, as you mentioned, we'recurrently at about 80 employees.
We've always been 100% remote,so we really have a lot of
guidelines around theexpectations of being on Slack,
how you use it.
So, for example, we don't wantany work done in Slack, so we
don't want to ask someone to dosomething.
There needs to be a ticket thatyou're linking it back to
(13:50):
something to track your time togo back to.
I don't allow people to useSlack after hours, so we're a
24-7 company, but if you need tocontact someone after hours,
you are not supposed to post inSlack, because I don't want
people thinking they have to login and check in.
There's a list to call them ortext them or whatever their
preference is if you absolutelyneed to contact someone after
hours.
So I think having a lot ofthose guidelines can help make
the tool really effective.
John Hauber (14:10):
What's interesting is that part of your culture
also is a commitment totransparency, but also
empowering your employees.
And then you have implementedEOS, which is Entrepreneurial
Operating System, which we alsodid, starting in 2024, and
investing in ongoing employeedevelopment.
(14:31):
When did you implement EOS?
Amber Bardon (14:34):
Pretty much from the beginning.
We were much smaller back then.
We self-implemented.
I love the EOS book because youread a lot of business books
and they're very generic and ithas such a step-by-step process
guide on how to implement theframework.
So, yeah, we've always been EOS.
You know some slightmodifications to the way we do
(14:54):
it, but I think that's been ahuge part of our success.
John Hauber (14:58):
And so what other areas of employee development
have you implemented internally?
Amber Bardon (15:04):
So we have a lot of those different engagement
strategies like I talked aboutwith the town halls.
We also do surveys.
We have a wellness app sopeople can actually earn points
which they can use to translateinto money or gift cards and
things like that.
So that's where people getpoints for things like taking
the mental wellness day,participating in different types
of wellness activities.
(15:25):
I'm going to the doctor once ayear.
We also have something calledParasol Academy.
So this is career development,because you know, we want to
give our employees a chance togrow.
So we do two different types ofmentoring.
So every employee, every newemployee, gets a new employee
mentor for 45 days, and that'sjust another peer for them to go
to, to not have to ask theirmanager questions.
(15:45):
We do new employee socials too.
So we bring our new employeesback after a quarter and ask
them what they liked aboutonboarding, what can we improve,
and the mentorship is thenumber one thing they really
like.
We also have a professionalmentorship program.
We built up a list of everysingle position in the company
and then what skillset you needto be able to specifically move
into that role, so that it'svery clear.
I want to be a network engineer.
(16:06):
I need to have these 10 skills.
T i And then
e t we h wehave a link to where they can
get training so they can golearn how to do that skill.
So it's a very clearly laid outcareer development path and it
works.
So we do promote people and aspeople start to see that
happening, they understand thatif they do that they put the
work in, that they will see thepromotion happen.
John Hauber (16:30):
That's great.
I mean that number one.
You're listening to them,you're giving them development
opportunities, you're using theEOS system, you're running on
all cylinders and it seems likeyou're doing extremely well.
So let's go back and revertback to your clients, and you're
known for creating strategicroadmaps.
I know we got into that just atad, but let's talk about the
future.
(16:50):
Okay, so here you are.
You're working with all thesecommunities.
How do you keep them abreast tothe changing technology in the
marketplace?
Because, as you know, over thenext year, two years, three
years, it's just going toexplode in terms of the speed of
technology and the use ofartificial intelligence.
(17:11):
So how do you use thoseroadmaps to achieve your
clients' long-term goals?
Amber Bardon (17:17):
Yeah, I think it's a great question, and I think
we hear a lot of buzzwords rightnow because a lot of this
technology is emerging, so AI isa great one.
I mean, how many conferenceshave you been to where people
talk about AI?
The thing is, is not a lot ofpeople are successfully using AI
yet, and I think that theydon't.
You know it doesn't mean onething.
(17:38):
There's so many things that AIcould mean.
So AI could mean that we have anote taker on this Zoom call
that's taking notes for us.
Or it could mean that you havea data analytics tool that's
giving you generative AI answersbased on what's in your
database.
It could mean that you have asoftware, like a resident
engagement app that has AI builtinto it that's doing advanced
(17:58):
analytics and reporting.
So I think, how do we captureinnovation in the roadmap?
I like to think of it as apyramid.
So we need to make sure we'retaking care of the basic IT
infrastructure, then we need towork on our business
applications and make sure thoseare solid.
We need to think about theresident technology, and then we
have innovation at the top.
And so I think when you build aroadmap and you have an IT
steering committee.
(18:18):
You need to think about it on aquarterly basis of what are the
priorities this quarter that weneed to do and where does
innovation fall on that scale?
So it doesn't make sense tostart a falls prevention project
now or do something thatrequires Wi-Fi if we don't have
Wi-Fi in our building yet.
And so what are some of thethings infrastructure we need to
do to build that?
(18:39):
So it goes hand in hand as faras how we stay updated.
So that's a little bit abouthelp our clients know when to
implement innovation and whatinnovation is right for them.
As far as, like, what's outthere, we also have a podcast
called Raising Tech, so we havea lot of technology innovators
on that.
You know, going to conferences.
We get introductions, like on aweekly basis.
(18:59):
We always have vendors new intothe space coming to us because
they've heard about us wantingto let us know about what's out
there.
But again, I think you have tobe careful because you don't
want to get caught up in goingout and getting something
innovative without understandingthe use case for it.
How are you going to support itonce it's in?
Who's in charge of it?
Like, what are the you know thesecurity risks, like I think it
(19:20):
has to.
You don't want to like.
I'm a certified project manager, so I'm very project management
focused on what are therequirements, what's the use
case, what's out there, andlet's make sure that we can
match these up together ratherthan just jumping into something
.
John Hauber (19:32):
I spent 12 years in high tech years ago during the
dot-com boom and such, and yes,you have to have that one person
within the organization.
That's going to be the go-toperson, the individual that
interfaces with your team.
That's going to be the go-toperson, the individual that
interfaces with your team, or itjust gets convoluted.
No one knows who owns what andthe project never gets off the
(19:53):
ground correctly.
So you know you exclusivelyserve the senior living industry
with a full range of managed ITservices.
What unique challenges dosenior living communities face
in adopting and managingtechnologies outside what we've
already spoken about, and howdoes Parasol Alliance help
address those needs?
Amber Bardon (20:15):
Well, I think the big one that we haven't
discussed is Wi-Fi, and Iactually do a whole presentation
called the Wi-Fi crisis,because I think this is a big
area that no one really knowsquite what to do about it.
A lot of the technology outthere is going to require
enterprise wall-to-wall Wi-Fiand it's very expensive.
So we estimate $2 a square footand that's been pretty accurate
in the projects that we've done.
Estimate $2 a square foot andthat's been pretty accurate in
(20:38):
the projects that we've done.
No one's really sure how toplan for that, how to pay for
that, how to support it, how tomanage it, and we see a use case
for it, both with the residentscoming in wanting to stream and
have Wi-Fi available, but thetechnology we want to use both
for staff and residents that canget them to the level they need
to be.
So I think you know it all goesback to the roadmap for me to
(21:00):
understand where you want to goand what you need to do to get
there, including how do youdesign the backend
infrastructure to support thistechnology?
John Hauber (21:11):
Amber, you mentioned residents and staff in
regards to IT.
There's another third componentthat I've heard that isn't
being taken care of very well,and that's those families coming
in that are wanting to accessthe internet in the community
along with telehealth right.
So what have you heard on thatside in regards to not only the
(21:32):
resident and staff experience,but the family or doctor or
whomever is coming to visit theresident?
Amber Bardon (21:39):
I think that's a good point and it isn't
something that's talked about alot.
You're right, from a communitystandpoint, having access to
Wi-Fi and things like that.
I think that goes back to theWi-Fi piece, but I think this
sort of brings up sort of aparallel issue in that I think a
lot of the vendors in seniorliving need to come together and
have better integration amongstthemselves to be able to
(22:01):
provide a comprehensiveinformation to families and to
residents, so you can implementa resident engagement app and a
family member can have access tothat to see what's going on
there, but that doesn't alwaystalk to the medical record
system to see the care records,which doesn't always talk to the
nurse call system or the diningsystem, and so I would really
(22:22):
love to see the senior livingvendor environment come together
to help solve these challenges,because everybody has their
little piece and then alsounderstand the challenges
actually in the communities thatthey're dealing with to have
the infrastructure to supportthese systems.
John Hauber (22:38):
I agree.
I mean especially in the ruralareas.
Can you imagine the challengesfor an assisted living community
that doesn't have fast internet, such as fiber or something
else?
How can they manage 70different connections at the
same time?
And that's where you come inand you bring a great service to
(23:00):
the marketplace and it shows onhow many communities you're
currently working with and soyou're at the forefront of
technology and senior living.
What trends or opportunitiesare you seeing right now, amber?
Amber Bardon (23:13):
I just want to go back to a point you made,
because I think this is sort ofpart of answering your question,
but I think that communitiesneed to think about technology
as a competitive differentiator.
Every other challenge thatwe're having in this industry we
talk about workforce, you know.
We talk about just staffing.
You know anything that that's amajor issue?
(23:34):
Dining, things like that theyall are going to come back to
technology in some way as thesolution, and I think that you
know.
Going back to what I saidearlier, communities need to
start thinking about how they'regoing to address this.
You talk about ruralcommunities.
How are they going to survivein competition with a community
down the road that does havewall-to-wall Wi-Fi and they
don't have that?
And residents moving in want tohave Alexa and they want to
(23:56):
have all these things they havein their home today and they
can't provide that.
That's going to be acompetitive differentiator
amongst you know, the new waveof seniors that are coming in to
these communities.
So I think that's definitelysomething that they need to look
for again is just thinkingabout it differently.
So transforming the way wethink about technology as
something that we're seeing outthere and that that is
imperative to have a plan inplace.
(24:18):
You know we talked about AI.
I think that's a big one.
We wrote a white paper on AIit's on our website where we
talked to all the vendors in thespace and interviewed them
about how they're incorporatingAI.
The other really big one we'rehearing is falls prevention, and
there's a lot of aspects tofalls prevention.
So again, I feel like peoplemeet a vendor that does falls
and they go out and buy it, butthere's so many different
components to falls, based onthe level of care, based on are
(24:40):
you assessing pre-fall, duringthe fall, after the fall,
monitoring.
You have to consider all thosecomponents and, again, make sure
you're picking the rightpartner for what you need.
And then I think the otherthing we're hearing a little bit
is like robot processautomation and business
intelligence, which I think hasbeen lacking in our industry for
a long time, and now we'restarting to see some real
(25:00):
solutions come out around that.
John Hauber (25:02):
When you say business automation, what would
you like to see?
What are you seeing out therethat you really like?
And you don't have to namecompany names, it's just what
are you seeing in terms of thetechnology that excites you?
You've been in this businessfor quite a while.
You've been in the seniorliving space even longer.
What are you seeing in 2025,either here or coming out in the
(25:24):
future?
Amber Bardon (25:25):
I think there's two parts to it.
So there's process automation,and there are tools out there
that can automate processes foryou.
So, example you get a PDF fromthe hospital for an admission
packet, it can scan the PDF foryou, it can data, enter the
information into your EMR orwhatever.
I think there are some cons tothose and I think you have to
evaluate them carefully, andsome of the companies out there
(25:46):
doing that haven't been able togive me examples of where
they've actually been successfulwith that.
And to me, this honestly goesback to the bigger problem I
talked about with.
Each vendor has a piece of whatthey do and none of them talk
to each other, and so if we canjust get the systems to talk to
each other, I think it wouldsolve a lot of that need for
process automation.
And then I think on the otherend, it's getting the data out.
So business intelligence, andso some of this can be AI and
(26:08):
then some of it is, you know,dashboards, kpis, and sit on top
of all with it, because thedata fields don't match or they
have a lot of spreadsheets, andso this is where, going back to
my you know my point earlierabout the business systems have
to be really aligned and I wouldsay I wouldn't try to build
(26:30):
this in-house.
I would outsource it to avendor who has developers on
staff and has a lot ofexperience, because every single
place I've seen it in-housethey've mostly failed at it and
spent a lot of money on it.
John Hauber (26:41):
It gets into making sure that that company you're
outsourcing to has the safetyand security required so that
that data doesn't getcompromised right.
Hipaa data and other data.
Amber Bardon (26:54):
Yeah, I feel like it seems alluring to have this
idea that I can buy Power BI anddo it myself, and then you get
down the road of having threePower BI people and not really
getting very far.
And I've seen it more than oncebecause it is a little bit more
complicated than you wouldimagine.
John Hauber (27:16):
Any question that I haven't asked you?
Amber Bardon (27:20):
I think I would just, you know, resummarize.
You know if someone islistening to this and they're
thinking, you know where do Istart or what do I need to do
first.
I haven't considered thesethings that we're talking about
on this episode.
The very first thing to do isto establish what your
technology culture is, which Italked about earlier.
So I don't need to recap that.
(27:45):
But I think you need to have aconversation at the leadership
level about where do you seeyourself on the technology scale
and where do you want to be.
So that's the very first thingis because I've been at sites
where I've been in a room with10 people in leadership and none
of them agree on that question.
So it is an important thing.
And then, secondly, is come upwith your plan on how you're
going to get there and make sureyou're building out the all the
components that you need to doto be successful with that.
And then, thirdly, you know,don't get swayed by something
(28:07):
that's the latest and greatest.
You know, make sure you vet itthoroughly and, you know, make
sure that that company is goingto be around, that they're a
good partner and that they aregoing to do you know what's in
your best interest and not justtry to get you on the latest
thing out there.
John Hauber (28:25):
Let's back out of IT real quick and I just want to
get your.
You're in many communities, youhave a podcast on tech, you're
at conferences and such.
Where are the opportunities forinnovation in senior living?
Amber Bardon (28:36):
The biggest opportunities are process and
system optimization andintegration.
And then you know, workforceautomation is a big one through
technology, which is easier saidthan done in some cases, but
there are opportunities that arecoming out.
So you know, for example, inskilled it's very difficult to
do because you have certainstaffing counts you have to
maintain and things like that.
(28:56):
But you can do little things,like a community in Indiana
that's putting a sensor on theadult diaper so that the staff
know when to change them, sothey're not having to manually
check them all the time.
And I think there'sopportunities to streamline the
back-end administrativeprocesses of staff that can help
with workforce that don'tdirectly impact staff or jobs
(29:17):
directly.
And then, I think, the abilityto start making data-driven
decisions, you know, by gettingyour data in accurately and then
getting your data back out andthen using that for your
business.
And I think, lastly, just usingtechnology to improve the
resident experience.
You know isolation is a big one.
(29:37):
Resident engagement is a bigone.
How can we help improve theresidents' lives through
technology?
John Hauber (29:43):
Yeah, how can we get each one of our residents to
have an aura ring or a galaxyring or an apple ring so that
the technology can tell us threedays in advance whether or not
someone is starting to get sick,based on the level of
temperature of their body,things like that?
I think that being able to makea decision based on the data
that you're gathering and beingallowed to gather on that
(30:05):
residence.
So, amber, it's been incrediblehearing about your journey,
your company's culture and theimpact you're making in senior
living.
Before we wrap up, what advicewould you give to leaders
looking to build a thrivingorganization like Parasol
Alliance?
Amber Bardon (30:23):
I mean, for me it's all about that culture,
like we talked about.
And again, we are aservice-based company, so you
know we're not manufacturingwidgets and selling them.
So our services are our peopleand so that's another reason why
it's so critical.
But I just think that if youremployees you know, you
mentioned we want to be thehappiest IT company in the world
and that's because when youremployees are happy and they
love coming into work every day,what they're producing is going
(30:46):
to reflect that.
John Hauber (30:48):
That is correct.
So, amber, thank you forjoining us and sharing your
story.
Your company is really ashining example of how
innovation and culture cancreate meaningful change in the
senior living industry.
So, for our listeners, if you'dlike to learn more about
Parasol Alliance and the amazingwork Amber and her team are
(31:10):
doing, be sure to check outtheir website, located, amber,
where ParasolAlliancecom.
Okay, thanks for tuning in andwe will see you next time.
Have a great holiday season.
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