Senior Housing Investors
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Senior Housing Investors
Advancing Senior Wellness through Technology and Design with Tod Petty
Embark on a visionary exploration of senior living with Tod Petty, the marketing maestro at Fynn.io, as we unpack the seismic shifts in technology and healthcare that promise fulfilling futures for our elders. Discover how the industry is pivoting towards a value-based care model, emphasizing wellness and longevity, and why it's crucial to meet the impending housing demands of the next decade. John Hauber's conversation with Tod covers the essential role of data analytics, and the critical insights from his podcast, Senior Housing Unfiltered, arming investors with the knowledge to capitalize on the forthcoming senior housing boom.
Picture a world where managed Wi-Fi, RFID door locks, and digital signage are not just amenities but vital components in the ecosystem of senior living, enhancing the sensory experiences and overall well-being of residents. Witness the strategic implementation of these technologies through the lens of concierge sensory design and learn how these investments aren't merely future-proofing facilities but actively contributing to the success of aging gracefully and independently.
Listen in to grasp the profound implications of AI and healthcare partnerships in the senior living sector, where predictive analytics could become the norm, improving care and extending the ability of our aging population to live more autonomously. John and Tod discuss the synergy between senior living facilities and third-party healthcare services, where technology amplifies the capacity for predictive healthcare insights. Don't miss Tod's engaging narrative of his journey and influence within the industry, poised at the brink of a new era of innovation and growth.
We want to live long and die short. We don't want to live short and die long. And some of the older models it's like 65, 70, someone gets diabetes, they get COPD, they have congestive heart failure and they spend the next 20 years dying. They have COPD, they have congestive heart failure and they spend the next 20 years dying. We want to live robust, vibrant lives because we have the right programming in the buildings, we have the right technology so that you know we're doing real well. We live into our 80s and maybe I get ran over by the bus and I'm gone and when the innovation, the technology, the healthcare, all has to combine to give them the opportunity not just to be maintained and die but to age well and age successfully. And let's slow this aging process down as much as we can for a new generation of seniors.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. If you are an owner, operator, investor, developer or buyer of senior housing, you've come to the right place. The best way to stay connected with us is to sign up for our weekly newsletter at havenseniorinvestmentscom. This podcast doesn't exist without you, our community. Thank you for listening and reach out to us anytime.
Speaker 3:Welcome back everyone. Today, john Haber has a fascinating conversation with Todd Petty. Todd has an impressive background as the president, coo and CEO of multiple large companies in the senior living industry, such as Lloyd Jones, aviva Senior Living and Thrive Senior Living. Most recently, todd has become the Chief Marketing Officer of Growth and Strategy for Finn Technology. Listen in as him and John dive into multiple important topics in senior living.
Speaker 2:John Thanks, kelsey. Today we have an amazing guest. His name is Todd Petty and Todd is the Chief Marketing Officer at Fin Technology, a senior housing, healthcare data and analytics company that optimizes resident well-being, cost and NOI. Todd is an enthusiastic and visionary leader who drives innovation, impact and solutions in the sector. A seasoned veteran in the senior living industry of over 20 years, todd has successfully overseen all facets of development, operations, marketing, acquisitions, dispositions for the companies he has led For the past 25 years. He has expanded and managed four different senior living portfolios, developed resort-style communities, created a middle market solution and implemented state-of-the-art technology to enhance resident safety and quality of life. Todd blends both sales and operations experience, delivering a balanced approach of driving NOI, customer experience and employee satisfaction at the forefront of the business. Welcome to the show, todd.
Speaker 1:Hey, John Pleasure being here. What an honor to be with you and to be able to share with the investors and all the guests of your podcast. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is the first time I've had a guest on that actually is a host of another podcast. So give us a little introduction into Senior Housing Unfiltered. I understand you relaunched it and love to have a little snippet real quick on what that podcast is about and how it benefits the senior housing space.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, thank you, john. I think it's very similar in its mission and what you're trying to achieve and, having spoken with you, to go out into the market with a no sell, no-spend zone, if you will, to try to provide value to the market and give them an understanding of the evolving landscape that is changing. I mean, our goal is to make a difference in our hearers' lives, to equip them with what we believe is the emerging future, because we need to get ready for 2030. The greatest opportunity of a lifetime is before us. We're out of housing in 2030. And, with the senior housing changing to a value-based care model, the middle market has such a deep need now. Senior Housing News calls the middle market the new black Data analytics is shifting into high gear. We need predictive analytics. All these things are emerging and we want to help guide people to what that might look like so every person can participate in the boom of senior housing in the years to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great mission. As Nick mentioned in one of their reports, 775,000 units need to be built brand new, built by 2030. To be built brand new, built by 2030. We put out a paper called $1 trillion worth of investment is needed by 2050 to cover housing for our most vulnerable populations. Do you have anything you want to address as it relates to that? Because you were a developer, you have developed, and so how, in this environment, with interest rates pretty high, how do we entice developers to come into the marketplace and develop product for great operators, great owners, great investors in this space?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great question, john, and I think the key is that we have a lot of information that's being shared today and much of it is historical, which is good. We look at what happened and what we needed to change and what has gone on historically and that's reporting, and that's good. And then we have information of where we're at right now. We kind of just live in that zone of high interest rates, floating debt. In that zone of high interest rates, floating debt can't get deals done, but we don't really look at beyond that. When this thing unfreezes and things change, where are we at?
Speaker 1:Well, we were already short of housing in 2030, going into the pandemic, because everybody's 65 and older in 2030. Every baby boomer now is 65 and older and there's not enough housing with everything in the pipeline five years ago to meet the need and we were all excited and people were jumping in. So then, as pandemic hits and development stalls way below what was anticipated, it stalled it and then, with the rising interest rates shutting down most of the development world, we're stalled even more. So now we're even further behind of what housing was going to be needed in 2030 as the baby boomer explosion enters the market and is in need of senior housing. So not only that that we have this great need that's even bigger now for investors to anticipate, but we also have a very different demographic group. Years ago, you could look at the trajectory and there were maybe four or five models. There were people moving into active adult 55, it was new. There were people moving into independent living and then they went to assisted living and then maybe memory care, maybe skilled, and it was a very linear line. Well, all that's compressed now because the baby boomers are not settling for the traditional housing that their moms and dads settled for. So now we have people moving in younger, for lifestyle and 55 plus even independent living, whose goal is successfully age and never have to move out of that environment into assisted living. They want to age in place, they know that resources are available for innovation to keep them there, using innovation in the way AI is going to change the world and they want more resort type environments, more connection with one another.
Speaker 1:We have explosion, though, of people that are living longer as well, and, statistically, everybody over 85, one in two has dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Association, and one in three has Alzheimer's, and most of the folks we know are moving into assisted living. They are needing they have memory loss and they need care, and they're declining with comorbidities and they need an environment where they can age safely and securely and have some successful aging with hope of family reconciliation as they get going into the sunset of their life and passing on. And it's a very different model and all these things are becoming very compressed as technology allows us to age in place. And third, I would say that investors that are looking for a opportunity to be part of a very strategic shift. We know that because of the changes in regulations, with legislatures allowing people to age longer in assisted living with a primary goal of not having their beneficiaries and, quite frankly, their loved ones go to skilled nursing, the skilled nursing model is going away. We would rather our loved ones age longer and stay in assisted living, which means regulations are having to change slightly.
Speaker 1:A health care model is emerging and not only that, but CMS is now encouraging people to age in place and help prevent episodic health care events. I mean, the traditional model was we don't really do a whole lot until someone has an event. They go to the emergency room, they're admitted, they stay a week in the hospital, spend $30,000. We get them back to baseline and then they go home again.
Speaker 1:And the new model that's emerging is if we can monitor the residents through their vital signs or through their therapeutic management or through telehealth, and, as machine learning helps us predict residents decline, these things, with home health and other things we can have in the assisted living community will help us predict and prevent an episodic healthcare event, thus saving Medicare money and us participating ultimately in some of the reimbursement that they're going to reward us, because they would rather pay to keep us out of the hospital than expensive hospital adventures. So all these changes offer a great opportunity for investors that want to come into the space that has a very strong long model of good returns but shifting slightly to a healthcare model, and those that are prepared and those that are equipped will have great opportunity to have to be part of something that there'll be more demand than there probably will be housing in the next few years. John.
Speaker 2:So you bring up a great point as it relates to change, and so the model is on the verge of changing. Wellness versus health care, successful aging versus managing decline currently within the AL IL memory care communities that enhance resident life and really enhance their well-being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question, John. I think it is so interesting to watch our industry and I think human nature and I include myself in all this. We seem to want to get in one ditch or the other and the goal is to be moderate. Let all things be done in moderation to hit that middle stride. And I remember 14 years ago, as the internet, ipads, computers were becoming more prevalent, we were having discussions at some of the variety of the trade associations of is this a trend? Should we jump on this wave we see coming in, or should we not? And the conventional wisdom was no, we're not going to get involved in this, because seniors don't like tech and innovation. They will never use these iPads. It's expensive to put Wi-Fi in our buildings. And why do it? Our residents just want to be comfortable three meals a day, a couple of snacks and good activities, and that was a great model, I guess, for the pension generation. But wow, did things change? And the folks that were forward looking enough to say you know what? I think we need to make a change here, and they begin to bring in, brought in the technology, and begin to put in Wi-Fi, campus-wide Wi-Fi, things like RFID door locks or easy ingress and egress of the doors with a card, just like hotels. Campus-wide Wi-Fi that anybody could log into and have good bandwidth and download and get to the internet access control around the building to secure it, even real-time location services so we know where our residents are at. Being able to put digital signage in to broadcast what we're doing in our communities, to get credit for it and reassure the caregivers and the loved ones mom's having a great experience here, loved ones, mom's having a great experience here. Maybe music throughout, even aromatherapy, all affects the five physical senses. I like to call it concierge sensory design, because all these things contribute to our biochemistry. They release chemicals in us that make us feel good in a lot of different ways. And as these things entered into the communities, we changed the climate and the atmosphere of what was going into senior housing and people saw the value of it. I think people said, look, we got to get into this because everyone else is in it likes to wait. I kind of like to see the wave coming in, john. If I see the wave coming, I really like to get on it and ride it. I kind of like to own it and say we participated in bringing it. I'm more that guy than the guy waiting on the beach for the wave to hit. And now we've got a pool of water and then we're all jumping in.
Speaker 1:But seeing around 2014, 2015, the thought thinking was oh, this is the way to go. Innovations come into the space and we're going to put everything we can in the buildings. And so people brought in good stuff. People brought in sensors to document movement, and we've got cameras to document when a person falls and look back on it. We have devices that will talk to you, alexa. We have all different types of technology in the building and we almost were just overwhelmed with the technology that came in the buildings and maybe ahead of the time, because not every senior can embrace it. Everybody's different.
Speaker 1:And so where I see a real systemic shift, if you will, of what we need to do is I would, rather than spending a lot of money on technology and bring anything out over time brings tremendous value to the investor that's holding and wants a building that is timeless, or for a person that wants to build a building and have it positioned in the next few years for someone to come in and purchase that building at a good multiplier, and someone has a great asset and they can then grow as the technology changes. And what I'm speaking specifically of and I don't want to digress too much here but I'm talking about managed Wi-Fi. Quite frankly, I know folks who come into the space and really excited that they're bringing guest Wi-Fi in, that it's campus-wide. But I've tried to log on sometimes, john, and it's a download of two megabytes. I can't even it won't download. Too many people are on it. But if we could put in and invest the rather than buying a lot of devices, invest the dollars in managed Wi-Fi in a building. Now I can put managed Wi-Fi in the building and every one of my residents that comes in can have their own firewalled Wi-Fi access and I can give them 50 megs of download and I can even make it membership-based. If I'm an active adult, if I'm in independent living, I could provide a standard gold package and give you 50 megs of download and 130 channels and maybe access to your community during the day. But if you want the platinum membership, it's $395 more. Maybe it's 100 megs of download and maybe it's 260 channels. You have 24-hour access. Membership-based is another way of changing the way the world we're in. But once you have managed Wi-Fi, then you can help someone successfully age John, even someone moving into a 55 plus or an independent living.
Speaker 1:I'll give you this one quick example and I'll pause and move on. But a person moving into 55 plus and all of a sudden has a need for med management Like I can't keep up with my meds and the daughter, the son's there saying we got to move Todd out and he's got to go to AL where they provide medication Done correctly, I could be partnered with a pharmacy and say, hey, let me get John from the pharmacy down the road. He partners with us. I want to have a conversation with him. And John could speak with them and say I'm going to put this great box on your wall in your room. It's tied to your managed Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:We're going to package your medicine for about $1,000 a month. It will drop your meds, just like Wemo turns the lights on three times a day and all you have to take it Todd, and you don't need to move out of here. And then, when I do the math, John and I'm doing $1,000 for my meds. That's a lot of money, but a rent and a 55 plus plus the $1,000 meds is still $2,000 than assisted living, and that gives me an opportunity to age in place and not go to assisted living until I have to.
Speaker 1:And there'll be a day, if I live long enough, I'll want to go there, but in the meantime, the shift is let's help our residents age successfully. Let's help our residents age with confidence. And I love this book I read years ago. It talks about we want to live long and die short. We don't want to live short and die long. And some of the older models it's like 65, 70, someone gets diabetes, they get COPD, they have congestive heart failure and they spend the next 20 years dying. We want to live robust, vibrant lives because we have the right programming in the buildings, we have the right technology so that you know we're doing real well.
Speaker 1:We live into our 80s and maybe I get ran over by the bus and I'm gone and when the innovation, the technology, the health care, all has to combine to give them the opportunity not just to be maintained and die but to age well and age successfully. And let's slow this aging process down as much as we can for a new generation of seniors.
Speaker 2:That's great. I mean the bottom line baby boomers want to live a longer life that is disease free and where they can really have a purpose in their lives. So if I were an investor, a developer, and I'm going to develop my first facility and I came to you, todd, and said, hey, todd, you've got a lot of experience on the development side, operational side. Todd and said, hey, todd, you've got a lot of experience on the development side, operational side, all aspects of senior housing what would you tell them If you were also part of that investment group? How would you spell out exactly what you would do today to be prepared for the future baby boomers to come into the marketplace?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to assume, John, that when I'm working with this investment group it's like someone like you. So I already know that you have a tremendous building that has great flows for the residents, it has tremendous common area space, it has lots of lighting and all the things we know from a building real estate standpoint. We need to successfully age age. Not everybody understands that, but folks that have done the research understand that there are certain things that can be done in a building that really enhance the experience. The building can make a big difference and I like to call that progressive engineered environments where we have large hallways. We have air turning over in the building frequently, you know, to mitigate pathogens in the air. We have a lot of lighting that creates vitamin K and helps with winter depression. Quite frankly, because the lights are coming in, there's a lot of safe places to walk to create movement, because we know steps. We know people that walk every day. Just 20 minutes twice a week is almost equivalent to an SSRI antidepressant that a doctor might prescribe for you. So why don't we walk? And we can monitor it and we have walking clubs. So I'm going to assume our building looks like that. The second thing I want the investors to help me with and let me to deploy is I want to bring in a successful aging platform. I want to be able to bring in something that takes all things into consideration of our residents, to give them the best opportunity to succeed. And if you look at the market right now, john and I appreciate what we've done, but most people, even at their websites, what they're advertising that they do are the regulations Three meals, two snacks, 24-hour watchful oversight, know the general condition of the resident and get help when they need it and a secure and safe place for the resident. I mean, that's what the law requires and I appreciate them as amenities that we're focusing on. But there needs to be a wellness plan, not just oversight. There needs to be a wellness plan that can give us the very best opportunity to achieve successful aging. So I'd want a plan that could help me monitor and give the potential for a resident to sleep well so they're getting their deep, their REM sleep, their light sleep. Sleep contributes to mood, sleep overcomes depression and sleep affects our biochemistry.
Speaker 1:Then we want to program in place for hydration. The number one reason for a resident leaving an assisted living and ended up in an emergency room is they're dehydrated. Dehydration can lead to UTI. Dehydrated dehydration can lead to uti urinary tract infection which leads to exacerbated dementia, which looks like it's memory loss or dementia, long-term dementia, and that's what the staff usually jumps to the conclusion, but it's short term with a uti. But can we avoid it all? Together with a hydration program which might be as simple as serving a glass of water at all, the residents' meal, just not their beverage of choice.
Speaker 1:I want software that will help verify the delivery of medication and, with AI coming and maybe we talk about this I want software that's going to continually analyze my residents' mood and behavior, their vital signs and let me know before they decline so I can intervene, because I do not want an episodic healthcare event and them having to go to the hospital. I want to track movement through really cool looking watches or sensors because we have to keep the residents moving. I mean, harvard Health did a study and showed that early onset dementia at 55 and 60 years of age was reversed when the client started walking. Because they were very sedentary, because walking created blood flow to the frontal lobe cortex. It created more blood flow that helped feed the brain. That reduced the dementia. I want to set goals for them and again, this is part of that concierge sensory design.
Speaker 1:Not just put digital signage in the building for the sake of. Oh, we're going to give them announcements and the hotel has it, and isn't it cool? Which is what I hear from many developers. But no, we're putting in digital signage because systematically and programmatically, we're going to take pictures and images of the residents participating in events and singing with Barry Mantle or Neil Diamond, of having their birthday celebrated, being in the walking club, because I want credit for it. And when my families come in and maybe mom doesn't remember last night when Neil Diamond sang Sweet Caroline to them, they already forgot the family can see it and when they see it they go wow, this is awesome. And it helps cast those imaginations down in the family's mind when mom maybe is not totally accurate of what she's saying. And they know this is the very best place for mom.
Speaker 1:Brain, healthy nutrition I'm not going to make them give up their hot dogs and hamburgers, but I think the new generation is understanding health and we know there are foods that can feed our brain. Health. And then positive psychology. The entire environment has to help the senior have positive psychology, an elevated mood, just broadcasting on digital signage that you're going to have the mariachi band there for Cinco de Mayo and then announcing it every day, even if they're like, oh, I'm just tired of hearing about this.
Speaker 1:I mean that is setting goals, that is giving our loved ones goals of something that's going to happen. And when goals are in play, the neuroscience shows that dopamine is released in their bodies. With no goals, no dopamine, they may have the serotonin and they may be chill, but you and I, you know, and I know you, john, the minute you're finished with goal one, you already got another goal, and I figured you probably, once you achieve the goal, you're like you know, I want to do more, you want to be on the next thing because of those happy chemicals that drive you and give you quality of life. So these are some of the things. A successful aging, a wellness program, must live in the community so that the residents are attracted to it, they participate, that and we give them an opportunity to age well. That's one thing that I would like to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fantastic, and you know, what's interesting is that, you know, here I am at my age and I've embraced not only technology, but I've embraced a ring on my finger that tracks my sleep. It gives me scores. About a month ago it told me, two days before I got sick, that I was going to get sick because my body temperature went up. Then I was introduced by another owner operator in the senior housing space, who also believes in wellness, to a company called Viome, v-i-o-m-e, and Viome takes your blood, it takes your fecal matter and it takes your saliva. And one thing I didn't understand is that your gut, it has enzymes and everything else, and if your mouth is not healthy, then that could affect your health.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that and so, thank God, my test came back that I had a healthy mouth.
Speaker 2:But basically, when they did this testing, they actually formulated a plan for me and a plan to take a very specialized for my body probiotics and prebiotics.
Speaker 2:It showed me exactly the foods I have to stay away from. It told me the foods I should be eating and it told me the foods that I should moderate and not eat as much as I used to. And then it gave me a vitamin mixture that was specific for my body, and I believe that this is the future of wellness within senior housing, where we bring someone in as resident and they're tested and then the care is formulated based on them alone. I don't know how much that would cost, I don't know whether or not that is feasible when people are coming and going, but is there anything you can address on that side, because we have artificial intelligence coming along that is speeding up the ability to create drugs much quicker than in the past. So how is AI, personalized medicine, values-based health care going to affect the experience of our populations that are living in our housing the experience of our populations that are living in our housing.
Speaker 1:John, I am convinced that machine learning, artificial intelligence, is the answer to the industry woes as they exist before, and industry woes specifically defined as how do I keep residents longer in my communities rather than shorter because they're? How do I have less turnover in my units? How can I have a reputation of wellness versus monitoring decline? I mean, it's the difference. I mean we're used to managing decline and we want to now shift to be discerning, predictive, proactive and prescriptive is everything you just said, with just one element. So artificial intelligence right now is multiplying every eight months and, even though it's a little clunky right now, what really is going to put this on? This will be no different than processing speed that doubled every eight months and we're doing something with the iPhone now that couldn't be done with a mainframe IBM computer that took, you know, two rooms up, affordable because Medicare's purposeful shift into aging successfully preemptive care to reduce cost. So what I see on the horizon and I really have a passion for the ownership groups out there that have three or less buildings I only say that because that's 75% of our senior housing industry, john because they are trying to figure out a way, how they make it, and the big guys kind of have deep pockets and there's maybe not as concerned, but how do they make it? And I believe all that everyone can play in the space stay in the space by incorporating AI. So let me be more definitive on that. Algorithms are now making algorithms and the advantage that AI has is so far beyond us and we should embrace it.
Speaker 1:Even three years ago, when my wife said maybe we should get a self-driving car, I was like no way, I don't trust machines. I trust me because I have a long time on this planet and I've been involved in a lot of traffic and I think I can drive better. But how short-sighted of me. A car that learned something by having an accident or identifying the road condition or traffic patterns, and maybe it has an accident. That information is going to the mothership and every baby born that's a self-driving car is going to download what that mothership knows. That's the beauty of algorithms. And so, as we move forward, machines are going to be able to do the things, john, that our staff cannot do. Be able to do the things, john, that our staff cannot do or our staff doesn't want to do, or we don't have the labor dollars in the budget for the staff to do it and our staffs don't want to be looking at data analytics and graphs. They don't have time. That's not what they're designed to do. They want to love and care for the resident so as our residents move in now, so we have solutions. I mean, obviously I love my solution. My solution is predictive of the resident's mood and behavior, forms a baseline and when it changes it alerts that the resident is declining. So the resident caregiver can now address it and we provide a playbook. If you add remote patient monitoring, like we're now monitoring our.
Speaker 1:So I use Withings at the house here. So it monitors my sleep with a pad Every morning. It tells me my time in REM, my time in deep and my time in light. How many times am I up, was I snoring and what's my sleep score? Withings tells me my steps from Apple. How many steps did I walk? My scale is telling me my vascular age based on electrical current going through my body when I step on the scale. It's got a six channel ECG that's telling me how my heart rate is doing. It's telling me my body segmental isn't right. It's telling me my BMI Residents can have their blood pressure checked, we can check their saturation, we can check their temperature and all this can.
Speaker 1:Now you know and again I'm trying to you know you share this with the industry and say, oh well, I tried it. They tried it three years ago, it didn't work, it's complicated, we couldn't set it up. But I'm telling you, the technology is so changing that these devices come cellular. Now You've got to have a building that will promote cellular signal, which has another story, but they just can turn on and they'll talk to cellular. But that data can be gathered and it can go to a doctor and the doctor can bill for it. And can be gathered and it can go to a doctor and the doctor can bill for it. And then the doctor can put eyes on the resident in the building clinically and if my software tells you the resident's at risk, I can give it to the rehab, the in-house rehab that you designed the room for. That's your rehab and your building for your residents and they can admit the patient resident to rehab. And now they have clinical oversight and their folks are in your building and they're teaming with you and they can be there, because you just don't have 10% in rehab, you've got 40% and then you can. They can monitor whether your residents are falling or not, and that's remote therapeutic management. The doctor can bill for that.
Speaker 1:Whether they're having a decline or not, then if they're testing with your product here, which I want to learn about, and the families can pay for that, then we can give them a specialized diet. We are equipping them with such solutions that we never came close to having. And even though we haven't figured aging out yet, we can age success. We all know this. My life changed when I started walking. I mean, it just changed my learning, even though I was older, just exponentially changes the more I walk. But anyway, these are the things that if we can systemize this, you can put it in your building and basically be ready and offered value-based care. That's where we're going and I would say the only thing to remember is these strategies take a system programmatically, but it probably does take having the right technology in the building. You can't build a block building not have a distributed antenna system and then try to have telehealth, because your cellular won't work.
Speaker 1:But last thing I'll say about this John, a few years ago, before the pandemic, people were shying away from telehealth because there were very strict requirements for Medicare in order for that to happen. You had to pay dollars to be with a telehealth company, to have a certain protocol, to provide a firewall and meet HIPAA requirements. Well, pandemic hit and changed all that. Cms said I don't care if you get on an iPhone with your doctor on FaceTime, if you can, he can bill for the telehealth and you can have him. That is your visit.
Speaker 1:Again, this is another strategy to keep our residents from having to go out visit the doctor. Usually, if they go out of the hospital and return, it takes them a while to get back in the swing of things if they return. So all these solutions, no one has systemized this yet, john. No one has created a model. We're still kind of in the oh, we're going to create a hospitality model and I'm glad of that. But this is what the residents need. They need wellness because otherwise they'll be in a beautiful building declining and we won't be able to do anything about it.
Speaker 2:Well, you bring up a great point as it relates to values-based care, and I didn't know what this meant until I got a phone call from a doctor and his name was Gordon Chen and he and his brother started a company called Chen Med after going through with their father Father got cancer, I believe and having even, as doctors, having to go through the health care system, and what they? What they figured out is, if they stay close with love and compassion, close to their patients, meaning monitoring on a daily basis, they actually reduced type 2 diabetes. They were able to make sure that they checked up on individuals who may have had heart issues and whether or not they're taking their meds. What I'm getting to is what you exactly said is how do we stay on top of the daily lives and health and wellness of our residents? And ChenMed? They did it extremely well.
Speaker 2:They have a book out there called the Calling and it describes this model and their vision, when Gordon was speaking with me, is how do they bring that same model that has been proven extremely successful by their company and a number of other companies? How do they bring that values-based model into senior housing? Because they believe that if you do do that, you're going to have a mixture of healthcare and living, which then brings about wellness and everything you spoke about in regards to your spirit, your mind, your body, creating a wonderful life within those communities. So do you want to riff on that any more?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just a little bit, John. I would say that the components are already available for that owner-operator to bring it in and get ready, because it's connecting with the third-party healthcare continuum infrastructure that always exists. It's partnering with them. You know, it's having one position, one person in the community, whoever that is, meeting with these folks, soliciting their participation in the community and giving them business in exchange for them becoming real partners, adopting the culture that you expect in your building and partnering with the right people and committing to them, as long as they are replicating that environment of life, that you're going to continue using them. It's a win-win for everybody.
Speaker 1:And now you're doing what you do best with an assisted living license or no license, which is, you know, the meals, the activities, the engagement, the robust environment. That's what you know. The real estate, that's what we're doing. But then we have a robust rehab team taking care of the rest. You've got doc physician groups that are overseeing the clinical care. You have soliciting ministry to come into the building. You're soliciting pharmacy. You're taking subject matter experts making members of your team and producing a good quality product for your residents to age in place. So it's not that you have to create it. I personally don't want to get in those businesses and I don't know many people that get in them, that are in the assisted living space that are successful. Let's partner with them and help our residents age longer and stay in pace longer and drive value for investors on the real estate side. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:That's a great, great mission, and so is there any question? I haven't asked you that. I should have asked you that you'd want to talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only. Thing.
Speaker 1:I think, I may have mentioned this, but I want to maybe summarize here on AI, because I know there's a lot of confusion in the market on AI. You know what we've had in the past has been fine. I mean, we've had systems that collect data data repositories, if you will and maybe they're good at taking that data and putting it on a dashboard so you can look at it. Maybe they're good at collecting it easy, I don't know. I think most systems need disruption. They're old interfaces and I think we need a modern version. So I call that data intelligence, not AI. They call it AI, but real AI is machines in the background, algorithms looking at the data. So we're not having to look at it on a dashboard. We can, but it's looking at.
Speaker 1:Is the resident declining? Is their mood and behavior changing? Oh, it's changed for the last two weeks at 2 pm and they're not coming out of their room and there may be and this is a memory care resident, there may be a sundowning syndrome here, or wow, we've got a great resident here. Except when caregiver D is in the room, their mood and behavior goes way down. What's going on there? Well, could be a training session, or maybe caregiver D needs to not be in the room, but, Ms Jones, they just don't get along. But we need the machines to analyze this data and then everything needs to go predictive, so that the machines are doing the work. We're providing care, but now it's predicting the residents that are declining. It's predicting there might be an episodic healthcare event. You're not having to go in and look at the data in your nurse to figure it out, because they're not looking at charts, they're not looking at X Y axis, they don't understand the data, they don't have time for it.
Speaker 1:So AI will replace things that we don't want to do, and when I go into our communities, I usually vacuum. It's a great example to set that. I'd be willing to do that. A lot of people don't want to vacuum, but there are robots that will vacuum at night silently, that know the exact pattern of the common areas. Let the robots do it and then hire the people that want to love and care for the resident.
Speaker 1:So I think it's really important that we understand that AI is going to change the world, probably like no other thing introduced to us, and I love how the CBO, the Chief Business Officer, Growth Officer at Google, said you know, 15 years from now. At this rate, we're going to be on an island and he said one or two things are going to be happening. John, we're going to be enjoying our pina coladas and the machines are going to be doing all the work. They're going to be enjoying life with everyone else because the machines are just running. You know the planet and all is good. Or, if we don't ethically build it right, we'll be hiding from the machines.
Speaker 2:But one way or the other it's coming, so get ready. I heard a quote from Elon Musk. He basically said in the future there is going to be universal income, but it is going to be a very high income. And that was great to hear because, truly, we are on the verge of one of the greatest compute eras in our lifetimes and unbelievable what's going to happen over the next five years. So I'll give you a little tidbit here. Okay, they're already reversing aging in mice and they're starting to test chimpanzees using various modalities at the molecular level, along with specific drugs. So you and I are sitting here on a video speaking and you can see that how I look today could be how I look at 120 years old Could be we never know, but it's changing that quickly.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, what that tells us is that we have to be ready for this change because it's coming, and our senior housing products must reflect what that might look like when the change comes, to provide these environments of life rather than managing decline.
Speaker 2:Amen. I've been preaching that for the last six years. I go back to the baby boomers. They always wanted to live in communes, right? So here comes baby boomers. We're going to give you the compound you always wanted. So, todd, how do people get a hold of you if they wanted to reach out to you and speak more?
Speaker 1:I've got it all up at LinkedIn. They can go to Todd Petty at LinkedIn and my email address there, my telephone number's there and I love to post, you know, at LinkedIn. I try to bring value to the audience and make a difference. They can certainly get hold of me there and I'd love to have a conversation with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a pleasure, Todd, and Todd is spelled T-O-D. I've been following Todd since a very you know for a while I think ever since six years, for six years or so and I just sat there and said Todd just puts out really great information on LinkedIn and I always read it. I always just I have loved watching what you've done and was kind of, let's say, a little jealous that you went over to Lloyd Jones and I didn't get you or it wasn't timing to reach out and bring you on board here at Haven. But I appreciate you being a real great thought leader in the industry. I've enjoyed our conversation today and look forward to continuing collaboration between you and I as we move into the next 10 years in this space. And so thanks again and have a great day, todd. Thank you, john.
Speaker 1:Appreciate the opportunity of the show, appreciate all that you're doing to senior out in the Todd. Thank you, John. Appreciate the opportunity of the show. Appreciate all that you're doing to senior out in the space.
Speaker 2:Thank, you See ya.