Data-Driven Approaches to Improve Senior Living

Data-driven approaches have become standard across many industries, but some still need to catch up for using Big Data. Health care has slowly embraced digital transformation and data analytics, but senior living facilities have room to improve under that umbrella. If more long-term care (LTC) organizations adopted data initiatives, they could significantly improve their patients’ standards of living.

Almost a quarter of LTC providers report having “very little” ability to access and share patient data electronically. Nearly a third still rely on email or fax for these processes, and 18% are entirely manual. Consequently, data analytics remains an area of untapped potential for many of these facilities.

Personalizing Care

Individualized care is one of the most promising applications of data analytics in health care and senior living is no exception. Using machine learning to analyze electronic health records would enable LTC organizations to tailor care to individual patients.

AI can analyze patients’ medical history and larger trends among similar cases to determine what steps may result in the best health outcomes for each patient. Personalized plans of care like this have yielded favorable results, such as 12% reductions in emergency room visits and 8% increases in medication adherence.

As more LTC facilities use data analytics to personalize care, they’ll generate more data on which steps work best for different cases. This data will lead to long-term improvements, making AI an increasingly reliable personalization tool.

Accelerating Emergency Response

Data-driven approaches can also help senior living facilities respond faster to any emergencies. Wearables and other Internet of Things technologies can track health factors like heart rates, body temperatures and more, analyzing this data in real-time to monitor for abnormalities. As soon as anything falls out of acceptable parameters, they can alert medical staff.

AI can often detect trends in data and interpret signals earlier and more accurately than humans. As a result, these early warnings could lead to unprecedented improvements in emergency response times, significantly improving patient outcomes.

In a 2022 study, 86% of patients agreed their health-monitoring wearables improved their health and quality of life. Even without emergencies, these results suggest implementing data-centric technologies can improve standards of living and satisfaction in LTC.

Streamlining Operations

LTC organizations can also achieve less critical but still essential benefits from data initiatives. Transitioning from paper and manual processes to embrace electronic data and automation will boost organizational efficiency and lower costs.

Analyzing data on workflows like response times, patient surveys, incident numbers and similar information can reveal where organizations can do better and where they’re doing well. These insights, in turn, guide more effective decision-making on reorganizing workflows or editing policies to improve standards of living or reduce costs.

As LTC organizations become more cost-efficient, they can lower patient costs. Those savings are crucial, considering 90% of American adults don’t have long-term care insurance, despite more than half needing such care. Using data-driven approaches to lower end costs will make these essential services more accessible.

Considerations for Data Analytics in Senior Living

Senior living organizations hoping to capitalize on data’s potential should keep a few things in mind. Interoperability is among the most important, as these businesses implement a wider range of electronic devices and services. Almost 90% of clinicians consult multiple electronic systems to access patient information, hindering efficiency, so LTC facilities should look for consolidated solutions providing a single access point.

Cybersecurity is another critical concern. There were over 700 major health care data breaches in 2022 alone, exposing millions of patient records. As LTC organizations increase their electronic data usage, they must adhere to strict access policies and implement advanced security safeguards to prevent these breaches.

Finally, senior living facilities must remember data-driven approaches only yield reliable results if the data itself is accurate. Investing in data verification and cleansing systems is a worthwhile endeavor to prevent losses from inaccurate or incomplete records.

Data Initiatives Can Boost Senior Standards of Living

When LTC organizations capitalize on their data, they can improve standards of living for their patients and make their companies more efficient. These advances benefit both the organizations themselves and their customers.

Data-driven approaches to senior care present a massive opportunity to the industry. As more LTC facilities become aware of and act on this potential, it will transform the sector for the better.

How AI Has Enhanced Cloud Computing

AI is here and is not going away. The value of the AI market is only set to increase, with it estimated to surpass a value of $89 billion a year by 2025, and an important part of this market will be AI that powers cloud computing. AI and cloud computing are already impacting our lives, with the prevalence of digital assistants like Alexa, Google Home, and Siri, and cloud computing is not only a cost-effective data storage and processes solution but a vital part of the adoption of AI.

Combining AI with cloud computing is bringing about a revolution in cloud computing systems, enabling massive networks of supporting data which can learn and improve all the time. For businesses, this means an organization can become more insight-focused, strategic, and efficiently managed. The cloud brings agility, greater storage, and cost reduction; AI brings speedier data management and smoother workflows.

AI infrastructures, combined with public cloud, private cloud & hybrid cloud, bring about numerous benefits, including:

  • Cost-effective functions
  • Improved data management
  • Rise in productivity
  • Intelligent automation
  • Insights that go deeper
  • Enhanced security
  • Reliability and flexibility

And here are five additional ways in which AI has a positive impact on cloud computing:

  1. AI means a cloud can be self-managed with all routine activities automated and monitored, making overall functions more sophisticated and accountable. More data can be fed into the cloud computing system with AI, and predictions can be far more accurate, too. “The name of the game, fundamentally, is advancement, power and support,” says Justin Leigh, a tech writer at Research papers UK and Writinity. “The integration of AI will lead exponentially to better outcomes.”
  2. AI enhances all aspects of data management, boosting query accuracy of databases, improving performance, and saving on resources. Plus, AI means businesses can cope with far larger volumes of data, as it can help organize digital data and streamline its storage. Real-time monitoring and accounting will be strengthened, and risks and malware can be quickly identified and dealt with.
  3. Both AI and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) improve productivity, especially when it comes to businesses’ performance in personalization, security, and customer service, adding value to their enterprise and for their clients. Consumer behavior can be tracked along with fluctuating, real-time demand. Using the Saas model, the ability to host data and accommodate complex software requirements is not only easier, but having vast amounts of valuable data on cloud, with greater access, is truly seismic.
  4. AI brings down costs and lessens the chance of errors. Because AI minimizes human action and influence, there is less risk of error with an AI cloud computing model. The system becomes self-learning, meaning an upsweep in quicker decision making, with less people having to be involved. Of course, this will lower costs and increase efficiency. “We will always need people, but an AI integrated cloud module affords a business the best assistance in service and value,” says Bob Carol, a blogger at Draft beyond. “This highly effective model can do it all – analyze both demand and available resources and identify a business’s competition & associated trends in the market, all without the risk of user error.”
  5. AI provides more security. The AI and cloud computing combined model will automatically improve the security of both resources and data. Not only does it dispense with the need for human interference, but it can also immediately detect any suspicious events or cyber interference and block them. A business’s exposure is thereby automatically reduced as they will have a system in place to do everything for them.

AI and cloud computing have the power to revolutionize businesses at each and every tier, with limitless potential in an ever-expanding technological landscape. Key processes, deep learning, scaling a business at every level and every function, and integrating all data seamlessly and swiftly will only serve as a positive impact on businesses in these exciting times for growth and innovation.