For 2011, one out of every 45 homes in the US received a foreclosure notice¹.  In a typical community, less than 30% of the retirement population will ever utilize a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) or independent living (IL) facility².  More than 65 million family caregivers average 20 hours per week providing support to an elder³.

What do these seemingly unrelated statistics have in common? If you are a CCRC or IL facility, it means that less than a third of your market will ever set foot in your facility and, even if they wanted to, would have a tough time selling their home to move in.  On top of that, the adult child is left trying to support them while maintaining their busy life as well. 

So how do you address the need of the 70% of elders in the community, provide relief for the family caregiver, and increase your revenue?  One solution is to “virtualize” your services that you currently provide to your residence and offer that to the greater community. 

Specifically, a CCRC offers a variety of services for their on-site residents from personal wellness programs, to social programs, to healthcare services.  Components of these services can be packaged and offered to elders in the greater community.  Some in the industry have dubbed this “virtual assisted living” or “enhanced community living”.  In essence, you are making that off-site senior a resident of your community without physically living there.  

The notion of virtualizing a service offering is not new.  The banking industry had to change their business model away from a teller-based model to provide more on-line capabilities in order to reduce costs and meet the increasing needs of a connected world.  The elder care facility market needs to embrace this notion as well.

Let’s take Betty, a 76 year-old woman living alone in her home that is eight miles away from your CCRC. She is comfortable living at home but struggles at times with upkeep of her house, has some physical limitations, and spends many hours alone.  Betty’s daughter, Amy, who lives two states away, saw that the local CCRC is offering enhanced community living services.  Because Amy knows the CCRC is a trusted brand in the area, she signs her mother up for services. 

After looking at what your CCRC had to offer, Betty elected to sign up to participate in weekly bingo nights at the facility and utilizes the transportation service that enables her to go shopping with fellow residents.  Further, Betty got a free home assessment to make sure there are no fall hazards and signed up for monthly home maintenance service.  Finally, Betty decided to take advantage of the wellness program where she receives a PERS monitoring service from the CCRC and monthly visits from a health coach.

The value to Betty is that is she maintains her independence by being more socially engaged, has someone helping her maintain her home, and is maintaining her health.  Amy, Betty’s daughter, is happy because her mother is now being monitored and knows that a trusted local company is looking out for her.  The CCRC is now getting a monthly revenue stream they would have never gotten and has an opportunity to add services, as Betty’s needs increase.

Though a fictional character, this scenario is very real.  CCRC’s around the nation are continuing to explore this model.  The implementation of this type of model is not as difficult as one might think.  Contact a Care Innovations sales representative to understand more on how your CCRC can take the first step.

Sources:

1. Record 2.9 Million U.S. Properties Receive Foreclosure Filings in 2010 despite 30-Month Low in December. Realtytrack.com, January 12, 2011
2. AARP, Aging Place Statistics, www.iyhusa.com
3. Caregiving in the US 2009 – National Alliance for Caregiving, caregiving.org