Podcast Episode Description: One of the words that easily come to mind when describing the year 2020 is “disrupted”. Our daily routines, our way of working, our communications with others, have all been disrupted in a major way. While disruption often has a negative connotation, creative minds see it as an opportunity for outdated industries to adapt and overcome.
Tod Petty and Jimmy Carrion, along with special guest Matt Haywood from Tazergy, a leading senior housing technology systems company, talk about how the disruptions caused by COVID-19 can bring about innovative new ideas in the senior housing industry.
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Tod Petty (00:22):
Hi, it’s Friday, October 30th, 2020. And you are about to enter the No Sales Zone. I want to welcome you to Senior Housing Unfiltered. I am Tod Petty, your host, along with Jimmy Carrion, my podcast associated business partner. We are here again, highlighting another impact maker this month, and a thought leader, making a difference in the senior housing industry, Jimmy.
Jimmy Carrion (00:44):
Yes, absolutely. Welcome to today’s broadcast. We are conversing with all types of people, entrepreneurs, leaders, activists, and other heroes from the senior housing world. Today, our guest is a hidden gem who has driven innovation and technology for over a decade. And in many ways, is responsible for the technology emerging in existing and new buildings all over the USA. Matt Haywood with Tazergy will join us sharing his dreams, experiences, and passion over the last decade in senior housing. But first, let us discuss where we are in the industry in a COVID-19 world and what we can expect in the next few months.
Tod Petty (01:23):
Wow, Jimmy, that’s great. Over the past several months, as we’ve all negotiated and navigated our way through this pandemic, one thing has become exceedingly clear. If you’re going to survive, you must adapt. Let me say that again. This is important. If you’re going to survive, you must adapt. It doesn’t take long Jimmy, if you’re in leadership to learn this principle through truism or a lesson, but decades come and go and some leaders have forgotten how to adapt.
Jimmy Carrion (02:00):
Absolutely. I spoken to many industry leaders and some feel like they have reached the end of the road, achieved all they want to or needed to achieve. And they suddenly find themselves having to relearn old lessons. Only this time, the lessons are going to cost them a lot more.
Tod Petty (02:15):
Yeah, that’s certainly been the case for leaders this year. This year leaders have been caught flat-footed in the face of COVID-19. Their lack of growth and development suddenly on display for everyone to see, whether it’s through bad decisions or a lack of leadership support. Times like the past few months revealed the truth that leaders who stop learning, they stop leading. I’m going to say that again, too. I like that. This is very important for the audience to understand and myself to understand every day: when we stop learning, we stop leading. So since my entrance in senior housing in 2000, I have been passionate about speaking about leadership deficit and how we need to raise up more and better leaders to create a better industry and world. So, we’ve shared this message in many different platforms in the past. And our enterprise has seen tremendous responses, but our voice alone will not be enough to turn the tide. Now with everything that has happened in 2020, the world itself seems to be calling out for everyone to step up to the plate and lead the way. It’s going to take everybody.
Jimmy Carrion (03:23):
It’s definitely gonna take everybody. Our team has worked diligently to bring this podcast and speaking events and leadership material to your home or office, laptop, phone, iPad. There’s all kinds of things. You can listen to now.
Tod Petty (03:35):
That’s a lot of devices.
Jimmy Carrion (03:38):
Absolutely. This is the year it’s critical for more leaders to invest in themselves and developing the leaders around them. We are convinced that 2021 will probably be the year that leaders of all stripes will answer the world’s calling to lead.
Tod Petty (03:51):
So it’s a dichotomy, but ironically enough, the global crises is revealing unending opportunities for each of us to answer the world’s call to be likable change agents, right? For the good. And senior housing will echo and amplify this call moving forward.
Jimmy Carrion (04:07):
Yeah. And I’m incredibly excited about the feature interviews coming up, as well as some behind the scenes conversations with some thought leaders outside of our industry. Tod, you have always said we should look outside of our own industry for new, fresh, bold ideas.
Tod Petty (04:23):
Yeah, I just want to take a moment here and look at this. Think about this question, where are big ideas born from? Are they inside the industry? Is it, is it right around us? I really believe that if you want to transform your business and our industry, we must look outside the industry for new ideas and we’ll be talking about three simple strategies, common to big ideas in a future podcast. So we’ll just take a brief look at those- one is violating industry norms. We started talking about that last week, appealing to the industry malcontents. I really liked that line, because people are just malcontent about average. There’s an enemy out there called average that must be defeated and we want to appeal to those people that want to defeat it. And we want to be true leaders, not just an alternate in the world today. So Jimmy, the best businesses are always about something in addition to making money. Oh, we just lost a lot of people. Oh, look at that. I mean, that’s the reality. I mean, it’s great to make money. Money fuels the engine of development, but there’s gotta be something more than just making money. At least in the minds of the patrons, besides services we offer, great businesses tend to be about something… You know, a grand idea. A mission, positioning, philosophy… One thing that everybody can hook into. You do not want to miss the episode coming up where we talk about this. And Jimmy, you cannot miss that episode because you have to record it. You have to be there.
Jimmy Carrion (06:01):
That is absolutely right. And I wouldn’t want to miss it, and I can’t repeat this enough, but you know, we want our audience to understand we’re doing this because we want to add value to you and see you grow in leadership and really make a difference in the industry that sometimes is stuck in ancient cultures. This is the year that you need to invest in your leadership and in the development of leaders around you. The world has shown us the desperate need for good values and good character to stand up and show the way forward.
New Speaker (06:29):
Yeah. In 2020, you know, since March, we can no longer expect to move forward by staying where we are- doing nothing, waiting for something to change. So I’m inviting our audiences to join us each month in the no selling zone and become a leader who will change the senior housing world.
Tod Petty (06:48):
The world is calling and we are answering the call by bringing the best leadership development material available wherever you are. All you need to do is visit our webpage, Senior Housing Unfiltered, or you can search for us in the Apple Podcasts app, download Senior Housing Unfiltered and secure your seat at the table.
Jimmy Carrion (07:08):
Absolutely. And just to add to that, not just Apple podcasts, but Spotify and I Heart Radio and LinkedIn and everywhere else where you listen to your podcasts, you can find us there. Well, Tod, it’s time to get started. We have a lot to talk about. I want to introduce Matt Haywood with Tazergy. Matt. Thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us. Welcome.
Matt Haywood (07:29):
Thank you for having me.
Jimmy Carrion (07:30):
So uh, tell us a little bit about yourself. So the people here can learn a little bit about you.
Matt Haywood (07:36):
Let’s see. I guess I am an entrepreneur. I’m passionate about my family my faith and relationships. I’m definitely passionate about my company and, and certainly the industry that we are privileged to serve in.
Jimmy Carrion (07:56):
That’s fantastic. Well, we’re happy to have you, and I know before we started here, we were discussing some topics. So Todd, I want you to bring it up and see what you have.
New Speaker (08:08):
Yeah, Jimmy. So the topic today is: “disruption must take place for innovation to have space”. And I, before we started the podcast, Matt, I was thinking about an article back from Senior Housing News back in September 24, 2014. I have it right here, right here: “Texas developer sees competitive edge and super high tech community,” Super high tech. And that was Katy, Texas. And we had partnered together. I had, I garnished some funds and we created a low voltage budget or secret stash, the secret stash. And we implemented technology that Senior Housing Hews would later say it was the most technologically advanced building that had been built. And we deployed technology that had not been available before. And I credit you. I know you don’t, but I credit you with the architect of that entire experience. And I wanted to talk about, you know, how we went from 2008 sitting at NIC, listening to the powers that be, talk about this thing called wifi and how a couple people were putting it in their buildings. But that was really ridiculous because no one would use it and older people didn’t need it. We might put it in the lobby for those to log in, but they saw no need for it. And you know, we’ve said to be competitive, we have to put this in. The world’s changing. We put this technology in, and then it just exploded with people, you know, putting it in their buildings as well. We all, we really got credit for being the innovators with the message because we did it. And we were just talking about this thing that was coming.
Matt Haywood (09:50):
Right.
New Speaker (09:50):
And that’s, that’s how it works. You talk about, you know, what the next wave is and you can own the message. And so we had that building and then everybody followed and now we’re here in 2020 and innovation is changing again. And some people are kind of stuck doing the same thing, and it’s changing. I thought we could have a conversation about that today.
Matt Haywood (10:09):
Great. The title that you introduced, as far as the disruption must occur, right? In order for innovation to have space, I think everybody can see the 2020 that that is a truth, right? I mean, look at the adoption of video conferencing, of working from home. Call centers. People in, in, across the globe, people were working from home. I was on tech support calls hearing roosters in the background.
New Speaker (10:49):
[Laughter]
Matt Haywood (10:49):
You know, dogs, too. Yeah. You know, and, and varying quality of, of conversations. But I always asked them, like, did you ever, in your wildest dreams, ever think you’d be working from home? The answer is always no. Right. So I just…
Tod Petty (11:08):
Yeah, good point. So entrepreneurs were saying that I don’t like this idea of working from home. Cause people will not be productive.
Matt Haywood (11:14):
I can’t control it. It’s going to be out of control. If I let people…
New Speaker (11:17):
People won’t work.
Matt Haywood (11:17):
Correct.
Tod Petty (11:19):
We talked to developers even, like, can we get conference rooms for the staff to come in and have remote meetings with them to help guide operations? And it was like, no, no, we’ve got to be there. We’ve got to be right in front of them to make sure things happen. And they were opposed to it. I mean, people were, were still gravitating toward bigger and larger offices and congregating together and creating corporate environments where they could direct the care and the monitoring of services. That’s all changed.
Matt Haywood (11:48):
For sure. Yeah. No, I mean, you, can’t, can’t go a community, you know, essential employees going into a community. If you need to go in you know, there’s, there’s testing and PPE that needs to be worn. And, and rightfully so, you know, so, technology has been the, the thing, the go-to that this industry has, to overuse the word, “pivoted”, right? So how many times do we hear the word pivoted this year? We’re going to pivot. Okay. some of us it’s, it’s how we operated. We operated off of this technology, you know, this, this is now an opportunity. A space has now been created because of this disruption for people to adopt, you know, and so what is, we talk about new normal and new things. It’s like, well, I don’t know a new normal. Change is the only constant, right?
Matt Haywood (12:44):
So, so how can we embrace learn, grow, get behind our teams, connect with technology, connect through technology, and really make our teams, the people that we work with, make their lives better and, and ultimately make the lives of our residents better? You know, isn’t, isn’t that what senior living is about, right? It’s, it’s creating a resident experience that the resident is, is engaged, wakes up happy, healthy. The families are, are, are happy. You know, we’ve got engaged team members. I, you know, utopia, my glass is half full all the time, but that’s, that’s, that’s my perspective of why do technology. Do technology to help drive connection.
New Speaker (13:30):
Right. So that’s interesting because in order to really do that, though if we look at the last few years, there seems to be the herd is rushed toward adopting cool and sexy technology in the building.
Matt Haywood (13:44):
If you build it, they will come.
New Speaker (13:45):
They will come. And it’s the newest and latest really almost like, gadget. Let’s put a variety of things that have been put in the buildings and six months later, right. They’re outdated.
Matt Haywood (13:54):
Yeah. So were not used or forgotten.
New Speaker (13:57):
They were not used, they can’t be adopted. The staff doesn’t have time or whatever the case may be. So, you know, one of the things, I think, is going to be very important, moving forward is to have a, an infrastructure that allows the deployment of wifi throughout the entire campus.
Matt Haywood (14:17):
For sure.
New Speaker (14:17):
Overcoming any restrictions that would stop it and having significant bandwidth. So whatever technology we put in the buildings can be deployed, we can rip it out and put something new in. And particularly, I think it’s important with independent living and active adult, these new communities that are gonna come up to serve a younger generation that’s not needing a higher level of care, so they can bring in medical technology to age in place without having to go to, necessarily, a medical model with all of the devices and opportunities coming out with telehealth, the delivery of medication. So, that means budgeting and wifi is going to have to be very robust in the communities moving forward,
Matt Haywood (15:04):
Connectivity is crucial. Stable, reliable connectivity is even more crucial. You know, not all wifi is created equal. It’s essential to, when you’re talking about strategy, it’s important to partner with the right people, not only internally, but externally, right? As an operator, I think that one of the challenges that I see. It’s a friction point. When do you hire and own the internal talent? Where do you outsource, to rely on somebody outside? You know, the risk as well. I need them internal because then I can control them. And it’s, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting paradigm because, can you really control an employee any more than you can control a partner?
Jimmy Carrion (15:53):
And let me bring it back to Wi-Fi, right? Because I remember, you know, in growing up and your grandparents, Oh, no, we’re not going to use Facebook. They’re not going to use this technology. They’re not going to want an iPad. And I, you can’t take away the iPad from my grandparents. Right?
Matt Haywood (16:08):
They’re probably like a two or three device.
Jimmy Carrion (16:10):
Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, what’s, so everyone can understand the importance, because I know development in the past this, you know, we’ll get wifi in the common areas. That’s all we need. We don’t need it in the rooms. Why would we need it in the rooms?
Matt Haywood (16:26):
Right.
Jimmy Carrion (16:26):
I’m just wasting money. So what, if you can go into detail a little bit about the importance and what it affects when you don’t have wifi. And the advantages of having wifi in the rooms and throughout the entire building.
Matt Haywood (16:40):
Right. Todd referred back to, you know, 2008 at a conference, right? Where we used the term wifi. And I think back in the industry, it’s like, oh, we have wifi. Right? And that, how do you know, like what, what flavor of wifi do you have the good, the bad, or the ugly, you know? And it’s like, well, I, I just need you to come. Can you just sign, move in? And I’ve got wifi. That’s, that’s what I’ve got. You know, it was that crucial thing. There’s, there’s a whole lot that goes into wifi. It’s science, it’s physics, it’s wavelengths. Right? So when I say all, not all wifi is, is created equal, it isn’t. The other thing about wifi is that can you, as an operator, limit the number of wireless devices that are within range of your community? Like, can you, can you turn devices off or can you tell people to turn their wifi off? Or can you tell them to leave? Or can you tell, you know, your, your team members that are coming in, “Hey, when you come into community, turn your cell phones off and don’t have wifi on.” You can’t.
Jimmy Carrion (17:46):
Right.
Matt Haywood (17:46):
So there’s, so your wifi has to perform and respond to all the devices that are within range of it, regardless of whether devices are connected. Does that make sense? That’s kind of the rub for wifi. We’ve probably all been in coffee shops where you’re sitting there and you’re like, signal, I got five bars and you might say, “well, your bandwidth sucks.” Or your throughput. Right. Like, I can’t do what I need to, it, it actually might be that the engine that’s driving, that AP can’t respond to the number of requests because it just can’t handle the data that’s coming through. So to your question about what do you need in a community to say wifi there or connectivity, you have IOT, you have RTLS. Some RTLS uses wifi.
Tod Petty (18:35):
So, real time location services?
Matt Haywood (18:39):
Right.
Tod Petty (18:39):
And we’re gonna talk about that. How it relates to COVID-19 and contact tracing for before we end this podcast?
Jimmy Carrion (18:47):
Absolutely. We’ll bring it back around.
Matt Haywood (18:50):
Yes. In order for those things to work, you need to have a, I’d say, an ecosystem, a homogenous ecosystem. You can’t say, Oh, we’ve got, if you want to name one cable provider, like Xfinity, you drive around, you see all the Xfinity wifi hotspots. Well, if you were to just put a bunch of Xfinity hotspots cable modems in there, it’s not one ecosystem that you can wander down your hallway and not drop a phone call, right? It is not an enterprise-grade network where you can connect various devices and get data.
Tod Petty (19:25):
And it might not hand off as you move from one location to the next.
Matt Haywood (19:27):
If you want to sit and stream, it’s great. If you want to be connected on a phone call, talking with a resident’s family, as you get off the elevator and walk down the corridor to go visit a resident on the third floor, you can’t rely upon a publiccarrier-grade network to be your enterprise dependency.
Tod Petty (19:56):
Yeah, that makes total sense, Matt. And I think in the minds of developers entrepreneurs, as they were trying to create a property, a community, in senior housing, they looked at the devices that were going to be functioning, just that, to determine what they needed, and in an effort to cut costs, just addressed those things.
Matt Haywood (20:18):
Right.
Tod Petty (20:18):
And when you went beyond those things, the bandwidth was not sufficient. The coverage was not sufficient to allow the community to evolve. And so the world we’re in now is, we have people successfully aging. There’s going to be this bifurcation of who’s going where, right? So AL memory care residents will be higher acuity levels. They’ll, they’ll need more care. They’ll go there. And anybody underneath that is going to want to go to a place to avoid that. If they are not that sick and they’re going to need to, in order to successfully age, they’re going to want to be able to be in their rooms and stream Netflix. They’re going to want to do telehealth, now that’s becoming readily available, in their rooms. Not even a suite. Talk to their families. If they need medication, the pharmacy can come in, put a machine on the wall that will deliver meds based on the time, because it’s tied to the wifi.
Jimmy Carrion (21:16):
Right. Or it’s at the front desk, or at the front door.
Tod Petty (21:21):
Yes. Yes. So just having it in, in the common areas and it is no longer going to be adequate for a person to successfully age. And we have to, we have to ready for that. Is that a fair statement?
Matt Haywood (21:33):
Oh, for sure. I mean, there’s, there’s platforms that are out there that just can’t exist without an enterprise-grade network. The data has to flow, right? It has to be one network in order to get from point A to point B within your community and then to get out to the internet, you know, and it has to be dependable and reliable. It can’t be the kind of thing that you’re asking your executive director or your maintenance director to go run and power site and something. It’s not going to work by buying a bunch of wireless access point routers and plugging them in, right. Intentionality, right? As an operator, you, you need reliable, dependable, consistent wifi connectivity as a foundational building block.
Tod Petty (22:22):
So, can you help the audience and Jimmy and I understand where the disconnect is because we’re seeing many people getting into this space. A lot of them do not have healthcare backgrounds, but they are able to build beautiful buildings, which is important. And so they come into this space and when they begin to program the community so that it’s able to function, this is something that’s overlooked in the development process. Why is that I can go into buildings, we’re visiting buildings now we’re looking at acquiring, there’s all of a sudden, a lot for sale. It’s interesting. They’re two and three years old. And when we walk in the building, the tech, the technology does not meet the demand of the devices.
Matt Haywood (23:11):
Yeah. I tend to I mean, we are Senior Housing Unfiltered, I tend to see an operator, and in my recommendation, an operator needs to know what they want, what they need in order to deliver that care. And if you need connectivity, then you need connectivity and you need to be able to communicate if there’s certain systems, technologies that you, as an operator, know you need in order to deliver the care that your capital partner is expecting you to care that you’re going to be, then you need to say, I need this. And you don’t. And you need to say without passion, pride, or prejudice, like, this is what we need. And you’re not, you’re not blowing their dollars. You know, you’re actually preserving their dollars because you’re saying, listen, you hired me to run this place to lease it up, to stabilize, to deliver great care.
Matt Haywood (24:07):
These are the systems. These are the platforms that I have determined. And if you want to have a conversation with me about the manner in which I’m doing, and the method, then let’s do that. But let’s not do that at the development table, while we’re trying to get this building out of the ground and with all due respect, please, please don’t VE those components out of my ability to deliver care.
Tod Petty (24:28):
Right. And when you say “VE”…
Matt Haywood (24:30):
Value engineering.
Tod Petty (24:32):
You’re talking about value engineering, thank you.
Jimmy Carrion (24:35):
Let me dig a little deeper in here. It’s the lack of knowing what kind of wifi and technology that they need, would you say it’s just a lack of programming and that these developments just live in an Excel sheet and they don’t have thought process behind the healthcare and the programming in the model of actually operating these buildings? And it’s just another building that returns an X amount of numbers?
Matt Haywood (25:01):
No, it’s a fantastic question. And I’d say the simple answer is, yes. One of the ways that we help transcend or sidestep that, or partner with a developer, is to say, listen, we can give you a budget for what a network or wifi would cost you. To put in so that they can give, you know, I call it, let’s paint the ball field. Let’s give them the ballpark. So they know approximately the size of what needs to be invested. And if they choke and what it’s like on that number, then we talk about it, right. It’s better there than going in, sharpening a pencil and pouring a whole bunch of effort into building this bill of materials and engineering, this beautiful thing. And then them say, why can’t I just go to Best Buy? I mean, Radio Shack doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why it’s still things around. But, you know, can’t, I just go buy that stuff and put it in, you know? Yes. But do you want it to work? They don’t care because they’re not running it. They’re turning to the operator. You know? So that’s, so what we’ve said is help you with the budget so that we’re trying to get them out of being the shopper, right. Trying to ’cause they, they feel that their job is to, to buy, to spend the dollars wisely, right? So they try to become a buyer of technology, but that’s not their gifting. Right. In order to buy it, you’ve got a network that has to be engineered, right? You can’t just, if you want to go price shop a network, what you need to do is hire somebody to engineer your system, and now let’s go price it. No different than a building.
Matt Haywood (26:37):
You go hire an architect, you put together a set of plans and specs, and then you, you might send it out to the street and go get a few GCs, get some numbers back. But our network and wifi, it’s different. It’s like, Hey, go get somebody. Oh, well, let’s take theirs. And to send it over there, how you give me a number for that one? Well, why is there a different than this? Well, that’s a different manufacturer. Do you know the difference between the manufacturer? Who were you going to trust to help you make a decision on a foundational building block of what you, as an operator, what your residents need and expect? I think you’ve, you’ve been at operators before where the residents complain, the staff complains, connectivity is sub sub par.
Tod Petty (27:19):
Well, exactly. So what if what you just described has not happened, and we’re looking at cost driving the entire solution, then there’s a win, right? When we get the lowest cost solution, the problem is once you open up and you’re taking care of residents, your care staff can’t log onto the wifi in order to provide medication and document through an electronic health record. And when they move down the hallway, there’s not an adequate handoff to the wireless access point.
Matt Haywood (27:52):
So they park their med cart, run down to the elevator, deliver meds.
Tod Petty (27:55):
Now we have a COVID 19 pandemic.
Matt Haywood (27:59):
You don’t pay them hourly, right?
Tod Petty (28:00):
Of course not, it’s just a small salary.
New Speaker (28:05):
[Laughter].
Tod Petty (28:05):
So they get frustrated. Then you have clients in there, even in the common area that are trying to log onto your wifi. Assuming it’s quality like a hotel, they can’t log in, or they log in, and they’re logged in, but then when you test the speed, it doesn’t even register because there’s no bandwidth, right? So that’s frustrating. A telephone service is cut off because their voice over internet protocol, the wifi is not servicing them logging into the wifi via cell phones. But then this connectivity problem there. I’ve even been to, believe it or not, I’ve been in communities kind of like our mission statement that we talked on the wall that no one knew about, I’ve been in communities where they were passing out a Netflix login to 80 residents and they all couldn’t log in and they didn’t know why. And they didn’t even realize, of course, that everybody has limited numbers. Correct?
Matt Haywood (28:58):
It’s the same thing with your wifi key. Here’s your business, here’s your business network key handed to your executive director and all the department heads. And if a resident’s family walks in, Oh, the guest doesn’t work. Oh, here, try this key.
Tod Petty (29:10):
That’s right. But value engineering Matt, is not going to work, moving forward with a healthcare model. And I remember this year being at both the National Investment Center conference year prior, and also at ASHA. And there was a big announcement that the, the keynote messages were all about. Look, if you can’t run a healthcare model, then you’re going to be in trouble. It sucked the oxygen out of the room. Because most people coming in are not used to running a healthcare models.
Matt Haywood (29:42):
No, it’s resort.
Tod Petty (29:43):
It’s resort, resort, resort.
Matt Haywood (29:44):
Touchy, feely.
Tod Petty (29:45):
Yeah. So healthcare has been marginalized and it’s been commoditized and “Oh, anybody can do that.” We’re all about, you know, resort living. Now, the pandemic hits and we need response to this pandemic, this pathogen. We need to know how to quarantine residents. They need to be able to contact their loved ones through tablets. And no one’s prepared. And no one knows what to do because they’re trying to run a resort. And now it’s really a disadvantage.
Matt Haywood (30:17):
Disinformation. Disinformation, that actually works today.
Tod Petty (30:21):
It’s a disadvantage. So they’re not, they weren’t ready. They’re not ready. And they can’t, they can’t deliver. What’s being promised in the future is going to demand electronic health records, electronic medical records, a robust wifi for, for everything we’re talking about.
Matt Haywood (30:46):
I mean, you typically only have one resident at a community, right?
Tod Petty (30:50):
[Laughter.]
Tod Petty (30:50):
Well, we are seeing some communities like that. [Laughter.]
Matt Haywood (30:54):
That might be a good opportunity for a sale.
Tod Petty (30:57):
But I think the average is about 80% right now.
Matt Haywood (30:59):
So if you have 80%, would you say you’ve got your small communities, you’ve got your medium and your large communities, right?
Tod Petty (31:06):
Correct.
Matt Haywood (31:06):
And typically we’re multi-dwelling, multifamily, multi-housing, right? Like that’s, that’s what senior living is a member of. Right. That’s what our model is. So the challenge when it comes to network is you can’t put one device out and expect one device to serve all of your team, your residents. Right. You’ve got to have, you’ve got, if you’ve got 80 beds, you’ve got 80 rooms, you’ve got 80 doors, you’ve got ADP tax, you’ve got ADT stats, you know, you might need 80 Wi-Fi APs.
Tod Petty (31:43):
Right. Right,
Matt Haywood (31:44):
So, to walk in and think, well, you can, you can deliver a community with 80 doorknobs and 80 of the other stuff and say, well, we’re just going to do with two, is two APs good? Will that suffice? And then wonder why, you know, care and tracking, you can’t get it. You can’t, you can’t expect your operator to function better when they’re not equipped with the tools. And so that’s why we try to, to partner with our operators and help them make sure that they’re clear on defining what their strategy is, how they’re going to go after it and build this foundational building block. Right. And to realize that what we, where we are today and where you want to get to tomorrow is important, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna start. You might not be able to put 80 enterprise grade wifi access points out tomorrow because we only have one resident and you have 80 beds. So we’re going to start with one because we’re going to, we’re going to grow into it. So there’s a way to get phased. But again, what’s the goal? How do you want to get there? And let’s, and let’s pursue that.
Tod Petty (32:50):
Yeah. One of the things I really liked about you, Matt, and going back to our Katy building was you’ve always been very modality neutral. So, so you’ve not had a, you’ve not been in love necessarily with one particular piece of equipment. And we were able to have these design charrettes and technology where we invited several RFID door lock companies in and let them display the features and benefits of their product along with the developer and who was going to be the executive director and who was going to manage it. And we all had this design charette, and we looked at RFID, we looked at RTLS, we looked at video surveillance. We looked at what kind of music was going to be. And everybody got involved with signage, digital signage. And it’s like, Hey, whatever you want, we can deliver. And that’s really important on any project, because it could be a middle-market project that has the same features, but maybe not as the same depth and robustness.
Matt Haywood (33:52):
I think the volume’s turned down a little bit, you know? Right. Yeah, for sure.
Tod Petty (33:56):
And, and so those are the kind of, that’s the kind of education, though, that needs to take place with everybody involved in a project to make it successful.
Matt Haywood (34:03):
Absolutely. You know, if the developer is going to call all the shots right, then, then they, they hand over this, this building, you know, an inanimate object that an operator then makes it a home, right. You’re moving residents, you’re moving teams in there. And all of a sudden, now these systems, those are the expensive dollars, is what we say, right? The cheap dollars are your loan dollars, you know, get, get the stuff you need in behind the walls, get the core stuff that you really need so that you can, that you can start building, filling that, that community up and really, and really making it run. And even if you are, we are moving to a less resort style and a more healthcare model, it doesn’t mean that we can throw away the lessons that we learned from resort-style or still give those, those amenities. Right. As soon as we can go back into the communities, you know, we are going to be able to relate and sit with people and go back and say, Hey, come on into our community. You know, that’s one of the conversations we’ve had about how do you, how do you create flex spaces? You know, technology can, can open the door for that so that you’re not designing a static space.
Tod Petty (35:20):
Do you mind if we segue into that? I think that would be an interesting topic for our audience. So we we’ve seen over the lastI don’t know, five or six years, maybe even eight, the creation of resort properties. And there was this kind of common strategy to create a, we’re going to go to the common area of the grand hall and to the right, we have a movie theater, and to the left, we have a salon. And then to the left next, we have a fitness room. And then next to that, we have an art studio and it was fairly innovative, but that’s, that’s somewhat, almost dated now, right?
Matt Haywood (35:55):
It’s also expensive.
Tod Petty (35:57):
It is expensive and quite frequently, those, those rooms do not get used. And so, you know, we talked several years ago that we saw a day coming, which is probably already here, where you’d have somewhat like a Hyatt Place experience, where you walk in the door, you get checked in at concierge desk, you go over, have a pizza and a beer. Then, they serve you the pizza and the beer. You need a ride to the airport, so the concierge jumps in and takes you to the airport. And that’s kind of what we’re seeing in space conservation now. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Matt Haywood (36:29):
Yeah. Certainly the projects, we love innovating, you know, so disruption, innovation, or we’re talking about space, you know, so the, the spaces in senior living we walk into these communities and you see these, these dead spaces. It’s very rarely, I walk in and see that a theater is occupied, except for movie night. So if you’re going to design a building and you’re going to have a theater, and you’re going to dump, let’s say on a good day, maybe 10 grand, just into maybe some technology. And then, I don’t know, are you building a community that’s a hundred bucks a square to build, or is it 250 bucks a square? So is, is the, you know, are we talking about a 200 square foot room, or we’re talking about a 600 square foot room, and that’s how much money you spent to build out this, this space that literally is used maybe once a week, I think we can do better. You know? And I think that the technology today, we’ve seen a huge push for video, you know, how do you get a resident and remote family engaged? You know, how do you get your remote teams engaged? And so certainly in order to design those spaces at a new construction project, it’s not something that we can just walk in and say, Hey, this solution works, all you have to do is plug it in and we’re good.
Tod Petty (37:43):
Or I just call you, or I even call Best Buy Geek Squad, to come in.
Matt Haywood (37:50):
You just buy, you, go grab one widget off the shelf. You walk in your community, plug it in. It’s done. Right. I mean, Alexa is not just like plug it in. You’ve got to step through some things just to set it. Right. You’re talking about an assembly, right? In, in your, in your space, you might have a display. You’re going to have a microphone, your video, you’re going to have internet. You’re going to have a computer, you know, and you’re going to need it to work. I mean, we’re sitting here in a room with a microphone and we all needed to be within range of the microphone. Right. Microphone matters.
Tod Petty (38:19):
Yeah. I hope it works. It was a special microphone, too, so that it can pick up all of us at the same time.
Tod Petty (38:29):
Jimmy’s going to click a picture of this and put it on the website so everybody can see our cool microphone.
Jimmy Carrion (38:32):
Yeah.
Tod Petty (38:32):
Second podcast. We able to upgrade, someone, donated us a good microphone.
Matt Haywood (38:37):
We had very silent drones flying around the three 60 panoramic of this whole thing. In order to innovate, it’s also not one-sided, right?, So in order to create flexible spaces that don’t fall flat, when a community opens, it can’t just simply sit on the shoulders of an architect and a developer. Right. It’s gotta be somebody who’s an operator that actually has some, some understanding of what this community is going to look like and operate like.
Tod Petty (39:04):
You’re right. Because every community is unique. And every community should have a unique value proposition. Something it offers that no one else potentially excels in.
Matt Haywood (39:13):
You hear it all the time. Like, you know that sometimes, as a developer shopping for an operator, they’re shopping for the right operator to run their buildings. Is that the right fee? Or is that the right operator that’s going to lease it up? Is that the right operator that’s just going to make them profitable so they can set it and forget it? You know, what is the right?
Tod Petty (39:33):
Well, it should be synergy, like-mindedness, a similar vision.
Matt Haywood (39:38):
One would think. It might just be money.
Tod Petty (39:41):
Well, there are some people that make decisions just on money, for sure.
Matt Haywood (39:47):
Some people prioritize money more than others. And that’s fine. You just need to know where on the spectrum it falls, but we’re talking about care, right. We’re talking about residents, like in order for a community to make it, we have to deliver care. We have to have people, we have to have stuff that works. And I think that’s what, that’s what the pandemic is, has made a lot of operators realize is like, “Oh man. Yeah. I knew that what we had, wasn’t good. And now we have to live with what’s not good because I can’t make it work in the midst of a pandemic.”
Jimmy Carrion (40:26):
That’s a very good comment, because, the pandemic and COVID definitely brought it to the front, but we have to remember that that’s not the only virus that’s been around. And we have to work and be better. And that brings to the point on wifi. Right. And I come from hotels. So wifi to me is, you know, I’m going to get the upgrade in every room, if you want the fast Wi-Fi. All that needs to work is computers. And people might look at it and say, “Oh, okay, great. Enough wifi for the computers to work and the cell phones to work and the phones to work.” But especially because you brought up the point of care and I want to get into a really good, really important topic, which is the wearables and RTLS- real-time location services- and how that doesn’t work if you don’t have wifi throughout the building. Your wearable doesn’t magically just pick up Xfinity out of somewhere and it just starts working. So, you know, Tod and Matt, if you guys want to get a little bit, you know, as an operator and, really just the value of having these wearables and video surveillance, door locks, contactless door locks. And just as simple as that, you know, to get wifi to work.
Matt Haywood (41:39):
For sure. We’ve worked with a few operators that were early adopters of RTLS. And one of the great things, what’s one of the pros, well, you could walk to the front desk and with the proverbial question is like, Hey, I’m here to see my mom, my dad. Right. Do you know where they are?
Tod Petty (41:59):
No. Somewhere in the building.
Jimmy Carrion (41:59):
How big’s your building? Don’t worry, they’re inside!
Matt Haywood (41:59):
So that’s, that’s begins the hunt, right? So simply, you can just type in their name. So with RTLS, we’re talking about you don’t need your resident to actively push a button or anything. RTLS is going to be a passive, it’s going to report and say, Oh, you know, as long as you’re wearing a device, a wearable, a pendant or watch or something, it’s going to report that device’s location within your wifi environment. And we say wifi, RTLS might use wifi. It might use some other, you know, Bluetooth, low energy. Some use a different wireless made by another, another company. So again, RTLS doesn’t necessarily mean wifi, but just to make sure that we’re clear, that was a benefit, right. Was just out of the gate, you can tell the visitor who’s coming in, where, where the resident is in your community. That’s a service that you can deliver. And that’s, that is hotel like, right. You walk in like, “Oh, I just provided service in a timely manner. We didn’t take very long. And now that person can go find them. They’re upstairs on the second floor in the activity room.”
Matt Haywood (43:26):
Thank you very much. Right now we’re in pandemic. And we talk about what else can we do with this system? You know, some of these devices needed to be developed because battery life is important. Right. And that’s, that’s the other key, right? Like a wearables gotta be powered, right. It’s gotta be online in order to be able to be detected. Otherwise it’s useless.
Tod Petty (43:45):
We had a client we’ve talked with the other day helping. And they had a, a nurse that worked in the community that worked at another community. She came into the community was exposed to a resident. She ended up testing positive for COVID. She was with one resident and there was concern that, okay, how far did this spread? And so, in what we’ve been talking about, putting in our buildings in the future is the ability with RTLS to go back and find out where the individual…
Matt Haywood (44:19):
Like a breadcrumb trail.
Tod Petty (44:19):
Exactly. Contract tracing.
Matt Haywood (44:23):
Where your staff went, where the resident went. Right. It’s correct.
Tod Petty (44:25):
So we can adequately test for that as well. And I remember we were on the cutting edge, I guess, of putting passive motion sensors in 2014, right? Because we realized that if we had these motion sensors installed and it was gathering data of how many times the resident got up at night, where did they go? They went to the bathroom. How long they were in the bathroom, how frequently they’re in the bathroom. If we could gather those analytics, then we could at least know, “Hey, they’re up all night, they’re sleep deprived. Maybe they’re not having exacerbation of dementia. Maybe they’re so sleep deprived and they need an ambien versus some more medication to control their dementia,” or may, maybe there’s other issues that we could suggest the doctor to look at. And those that was the original technology that RTLS would deliver on now as well.
Matt Haywood (45:24):
Correct. All of that is, Tod. That the piece that is like critically important, all this is possible. It’s not that difficult. It’s not like it’s Star Trek technology that’s far off. I hear operators talk frequently risk. If you’ve got the data and you don’t do something with that data, you are now at risk. So instead of going at risk, I see operators don’t go at risk.
Tod Petty (45:57):
Well, we don’t know where mom is at. Then we can’t be accountable for it. We don’t have a device to know where she’s at.
Matt Haywood (46:03):
So therefore, right. So, so, you know, in order for things to change, we have to kind of change everybody’s perspective, too. Right. So if we’re going to expect an operator to take risk for us and deliver care and do what we can’t. We can’t care for mom. That’s why they’re there. So then kind of trust you to do that. And I’ve got to get behind you. Right? We’ve got to get behind the operators. We’ve got to empower them. We’ve got to, we’ve got to help them solve this. And we’ve got to understand that they’re human too. And that we want them to take the risk, to try and put together something that ultimately delivers better outcomes. Right. Instead of, “Oh, you had that data available and didn’t do anything?” Well, my attorney is going to call you.”
Tod Petty (46:50):
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Haywood (46:51):
You know what I mean? Instead of like, maybe the question is like, how do we help that operator? Make sure it’s ops. Right. Operational. And it’s not easy. How often do you close your communities?
Tod Petty (47:05):
Never.
Matt Haywood (47:11):
I mean, they’re close. And you brought up a good point. In senior living, this isn’t the first pandemic that a community has experienced. Scabies, other, you know, flu, and diarrhea, like, like things tear through the community. And so, communities, operators are used to responding to shut downs, lock downs.
Tod Petty (47:39):
Quarantines. It’s hard to control.
Matt Haywood (47:39):
It’s part of the nature.
Tod Petty (47:45):
The good ones will have health care protocol in place, right?
Matt Haywood (47:48):
Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in senior living since ’99 in various capacities, mostly technology and into construction. But I’ve seen it, too. You know, where our corporate has to go into a community because it shut down because of scabies. I was like, “What’s scabies?” So if we can, through technology, help deliver that, that, that I think helps, helps an operator. But we also have to have to answer the question of how do we lower that risk concern, right? Like, I don’t want to go do this because if I have the data and I do nothing about it, or I didn’t respond in time now, now I’m liable. You know?
Jimmy Carrion (48:29):
Absolutely. I think it’s the operator’s responsibility to take that responsibility. We are responsible for the residents. And we see a lot of times where, you know, you’d put in the programming and you know, it happened, we know, we have to be responsible for that. And we just yeah, we just need to take charge.
Matt Haywood (48:52):
I agree. The vendors need to be part of that too. Like, you know, we talked about why can’t you just go to Best Buy and buy it? Because it’s not just something you just put in. We talked about engineering, you talked about designing and it’s not a finish line.
Matt Haywood (49:07):
It’s a starting line. You put in wifi, you put in these systems, it’s a start, right. You were using clipboards yesterday. You’re using electronic medical records today. You expect amazing. Well, why don’t we have the good data? We’ll because we just started getting the data in, you know, in a few months, we’re going to start to do that. So who’s massaging the data and making sure that you’re garbage in garbage out.
Tod Petty (49:31):
And this is the same process the hospitals went through 10 years ago when they adopted electronic health platforms as well. They had the same challenges.
Matt Haywood (49:38):
Correct. And you know, the hospitality, the hotel industry had the same sort of wifi challenge that senior living does. The hotel industry had the same problem with electronic locking is like, no, like how many, how many hotels do you go to these days, where you get a mechanical key.
Matt Haywood (49:51):
I think it’s just, when you go to the motel and you’re driving across the U.S. Did you get a square metal key that like cuts a hole through your pocket. Right. But on apps now it’s on your phone, correct? Yeah. I can just put an app on there, but senior living in order to accomplish that, there’s an operation side to it. Right. And that’s something that a vendor has to, has to be part of the equation. It’s not just a set it, forget it, walk away. And the same thing for an operator. Right. Because you’ve got people in your communities that are going to be running this and it’s got to work and you can’t have to have a special degree. So they’re just, it’s a partnership really, to help solve this. And I don’t want anybody to think, it’s like, well, if you buy the right access point, you’re good. It isn’t.
Tod Petty (50:34):
It can make a difference though.
Matt Haywood (50:36):
[Laughs.] For sure. But, remember, one can’t serve, you know, all 80 rooms. It’s just not going to reach, unless you’re got a community of mice and it’s very small, compact place.
Tod Petty (50:47):
I think we have time for one more example. Do we, Jimmy? You’re watching the clock.
Jimmy Carrion (50:52):
Yeah. I think we’re going to need, like, six more podcasts.
Tod Petty (50:55):
We’re going to have to do a continuation here.
Jimmy Carrion (51:00):
We’ll treat everyone to a mid month podcast. Let Matt talk freely, but yes, yes, let’s get one more topic in.
Tod Petty (51:13):
So I thought about our topic: disruption must take place for innovation to have a space. And so I remember prior to the pandemic, trying to suggesting that potentially increasing the bandwidth and the wifi so that it included the resident’s room for various reasons, but one particular reason so that we could power tablets, right. That older adults can have. Maybe we gave it to them when they came in the community. So they could be in continual contact with their families. And you know, this is risk mitigation on one hand because the state of Texas was allowing, it allows now, nanny cams. So residents, families can come in and with the residents’ permission where they can put a camera in the room and they can monitor all that’s going on and other states are moving toward adopting this. So if, if we actually had the ability to have a wifi, I mean, excuse me, a tablet, where the residents could talk with their families, then this would be one more way to connect with them, get their eyes on them.
Tod Petty (52:22):
And you know, some people might say, “Oh, I don’t, I don’t want to cause more confusion or more contact. We want to kind of control that.” I disagree with that. Quite frankly. I think it’s transparent. You’re going to deal with issues anyway. So, but the feedback I got was that, wow, they can’t use the tablets kind of reminds me of 20 2008. Oh, the elder adults can’t use the tablets. They don’t know how. They’re not going to use it. The family is going to want to come in. And so now we have disruption. Pandemic mandated shutdown in the communities, the families can’t come down. And, and so how do we fix that? Oh, great idea. Let’s get a tablet.
Jimmy Carrion (53:02):
Yeah.
Tod Petty (53:05):
See if the resident can use Facetime, can they use Skype? And so the adoption was much quicker in the midst of the disruption than it ever was prior to it, when people objected to it and thought it was less personal.
Matt Haywood (53:19):
I have staff using their own devices. Like that’s who we have serving in the communities. Right. They’re solving the problem as long as they have cell or wifi, they can do it. We’re bringing it to some place that they have connectivity.
Tod Petty (53:37):
My mom went from a Jitterbug when she was like, “This is really complicated. I don’t know this stuff. I’ll never be able to handle it.” So she liked the Jitterbug ’cause all those commercials, but once she was quarantined and we got her a smartphone and made it simple for her, we could FaceTime her any time. And that connection, even though remote and through virtual, still made a difference.
Jimmy Carrion (54:03):
It’s all about education. It’s all about educating.
Matt Haywood (54:04):
I, you know, the, the joke about the pastor’s wife, right? Blowing kisses to the pastor, it’s like, you know, keep it simple, stupid, right? That’s the KISS analogy. KISS. And that’s what we have to keep in mind when it comes to technology is that we are mindful of who’s going to be using the technology because the key is it’s got to be used if it isn’t used, there’s no point in putting it in. Right. Which is, which kind of goes back to our, like, if you build it, they will come. Well, that was, that was the resort. Like, we’ve got wifi, come on. Right. Well, we have connectivity. Right. And we have the care. Yeah. So you can come here and connect and we’ll provide care and we’ve got you. Right. And, and that’s, that’s what it needs to be. In my perspective.
Tod Petty (54:56):
There’s a great point.
Jimmy Carrion (54:58):
Matt, Tod, I think we could go for hours. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna have to..
Matt Haywood (55:03):
If we have enough snacks, we can do it.
Jimmy Carrion (55:06):
But I think this has been great.
Tod Petty (55:06):
This has been great. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.
Matt Haywood (55:11):
Thank you for having me
New Speaker (55:11):
Listen to our podcast when it comes out and we will talk to you soon.
Tod Petty (55:18):
Yeah. You guys please stay safe and we’ll have Matt back in the very near future to talk about some other unfiltered topics. Thank you guys.
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