Celebrating Care: The Power of Truly Being Seen with Lindsey Daugherty

The Power of Sage's Community-Centric Technology

In this episode, the Erin interviews Lindsay Daugherty, Head of Community at Sage, about how Sage is transforming the senior living experience through their innovative technology. The discussion highlights how Sage's product replaces traditional nurse call systems, providing real-time data and insights that foster communication, empower caregivers, and enhance resident care. Lindsey shares personal and professional experiences that underscore the importance of transparency and validation in caregiving, ultimately making a compelling case for how Sage can revolutionize the culture inside senior living communities.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:40 Lindsey's Journey and Sage's Mission
03:28 Impact of Sage on Senior Living
06:04 Building a Positive Community Culture
08:19 Challenges and Solutions in Caregiving
11:41 Technology's Role in Senior Living
15:37 Real-Life Examples and Success Stories
23:59 Exploring the Benefits of Speak-to-Text
24:28 Building Relationships with Families
25:11 Leveraging Data for Better Care
27:25 Addressing Caregiver Challenges
32:25 The Importance of Caregiver Recognition
37:43 Implementing Sage in Communities
39:37 Overcoming Implementation Hurdles
42:15 Ensuring Effective Communication
45:24 Conclusion 

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Transcript

Erin: 0:37

Welcome back to an episode that I'm super, super proud of. I get to have Lindsay Dory here who is the head of community at Sage, and I'm super excited to dive into what Sage is doing for validation and awareness, and in some ways automating. Good vibes inside of our community. So welcome Lindsay. Thank you for being here.

Lindsay: 1:02

Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Erin.

Erin: 1:04

Yes, I first, I'll tell you a funny story. I don't know, I may have told you this already, but your senior living car talk came up on my husband's feed many years ago. A couple years ago, and he was like, and he doesn't follow anyone on LinkedIn in the senior living world at that point. And he was like, you need to look at this. Woman right here. She, she's somebody in senior living, and I was like, who is this? And then I just started commenting on, to me, you're very thoughtful hosts. An open dialogue of both the good, the bad, what can we do better, what are we doing right conversations, and I just admired you from afar and so very thankful that we've gotten here. And it's nice to know that you see somebody and you see yourself like, oh, I wasn't the only one who thought that way. And that was just really nice. So thank you for being consistent with those car talks. It's really important.

Lindsay: 2:06

I appreciate that transparency and honesty in senior living is the only way we're gonna make it change. So I'm just glad that you are a fan.

Erin: 2:13

Yes, yes, absolutely. I am. And now you, you are in Sage, the Chief people. The head of community at Sage, and I'm greatly intrigued by this company and what it's doing. So give us a little detail about. what the good things that you're seeing. The the, I like to say the vibe shifts that you're seeing inside of the community because of the detail that you have put in to this product along with your team.

Lindsay: 2:48

Yeah, so I met Sage just coming outta Covid, and that's when we were having more friction than ever in senior living. Just needing that transparency for not only our families and our residents before each other to really know what's going on in our communities. We've never really had that. We've had it subjectively through opinions and through other, people's perspectives, but we never really had the true data. And some people get nervous about that. So, you know, Sage is coming in, we're replacing nurse call, which is mission critical, but we're also providing these data points that are really giving a true picture of what's happening. And when I say that. And we talked to Aaron a lot about like not being watched, but being seen. And for the first time, I finally felt seen in senior living, and that's why I made the jump to Sage is I wanna help others feel seen. I want them to find that joy and the data that they're gaining and not feel frustrated by just. Overwhelming information or feeling disconnected because of lack of communication and just having data that didn't make sense. And I mean that's, it's not even worth your time, right? So how do we make sure it's made for senior living? And so what I, when I first came on, I went to an implementation. I have to tell the story because I knew it made impact in my heart and my life. But to watch them go in and implement this. Mission critical thing. That's intuitive design. Like on a cell phone, meeting people where they are, making sure it's designed from the very beginning for the end user. Mm-hmm. And for them, it's just amazing. So you go in and you see this happening. Residents are loving the way it looks. It's more modern. They, they like their pendants, they're showing them off. their buttons are wireless. In their rooms so they can be movable, which is important for a lot of different reasons. But like the main thing is, is when it's pushed, a resident profile comes up on the phone and you have all this information at your fingertips, but that's where it begins. And so you get the resident's profile who's answering it. You have all these goals inside of the software of what do my call, answer call Times need to be like our response times, where am I compared to my teammates? Can my leadership team see the work that I'm doing? Can they see this, all the care that the resident's needing? And so you're getting these full pictures all day long in real time on what's really boots to the ground happening, which we've never had before. So to be able to empower your caregivers with all this information and give them credit, you know, where they deserve it, is just, to me, removes so many friction points, provides so much empowerment, and, it changes the entire vibe of the community. And I watched it unfold in a 30 minute time period where we, we deployed it, people started using it. People were like laughing and trying to beat each other to calls, and the residents were laughing how fast they got there and they were like, oh, this is working. This is a great system. And then they started to see everything going on with the resident, and then managers started giving high fives. I'm like, this is what we have been missing. And every day I get more and more excited to show the power of sage and. How people can find joy in data. Not feeling watched, but finally being seen and given the real time insights they need to make decisions. I mean, that's like a big kind of explanation of sage and how it's making impact. There's so much more and we can talk through the, through those things, but I feel honored to be able to give this back. This is kind of like life work coming to a full circle. For sure.

Erin: 6:38

That sounds amazing. You know, I get asked a lot like, how do you build a culture inside of a community? And if you were to take technology out, building a culture is is literally walking down the halls of your community and calling people out for what they're doing right, rather than constantly finding everything that they're doing wrong. Because I mean, as cheesy as it sounds, what's. Wrong is always available, but so is what's right and it's really about what you point out on a consistent basis. Hello. It sounds like we're automating validation. We're we're automating, like good job, you did this in record time or you got there at this point, and not everyone is competitive, but there's a lot of competitive people. Yeah. Where we work with, and if I know that I'm number four on my shift and I wanna be number one, then what do I need to do to get to number one? And that's really, really important. Mm-hmm. And that's a, that's bringing in a culture of, of positivity and best version of ourselves, which is really, really important. And so that's, I would love that.

Lindsay: 7:51

Yeah, I love celebrating people and I love, honestly, I don't like attention. I really like to give attention, but I. It does feel nice if you get like a high five or a silent hooray, or maybe it's not outward, but if someone says, I see you, like I acknowledge your hard work. That goes a long way for someone who may not want to be displayed in front of a whole bunch of their peers, but may really enjoy that real time like pep of like, I see you and you're awesome, and thank you for that because. I've talked to caregivers. I mean, I don't know how many that were so burnt out from caregiving. The number one reason. One, they wish they had more team members. Right? Me too. Team members were leaving for lack of communication and lack of tools. Well, we're fixing that, but also team members were leaving because they were really good and no one noticed. That's. That's hard to hear. And through research with Sage, I actually got to hear the hearts of these caregivers that were unbiased and unfiltered because I was not their boss. I was their partner at that moment. And it is a big, it was a big gift to understand.'cause we're always chasing like, what's happening to our team members? It can't be things that are simple, right? No, actually it can't.

Erin: 9:19

It

Lindsay: 9:19

could be simple.

Erin: 9:20

It could be really simple. I mean, you'd be shocked how simple it can be that you, you lose somebody and it's, it's, I mean, simple is not easy, right? You know, simple is hard, but it's simple. You know? I mean that, that's the thing. So, yeah, I think we do lose a lot of people, and I hear a lot of people say that communication here is horrible. Communication here is bad. And I know for even my own. Viewpoint of seen and heard, watched versus versus seen. I think a lot of people, women in general, and women inside the community, women is a huge percentage of the workforce. You know, we want to be seen, but I think the struggle is we need to see ourselves first. Mm-hmm. And like this is such an automated way of. Someone who may struggle with confidence, actually see their hard work, and all of a sudden they can feel proud of themselves for today.

Lindsay: 10:23

Yeah,

Erin: 10:23

somebody can say something to them that knocks the wind out of their sails, but then at the end of the shift they can actually see what they accomplished and get an automated high five. I could see where that could be very valuable for somebody.

Lindsay: 10:38

Yeah, building confidence is really important. And you had, honestly, when you're a caregiver on the floor, I've done that and most things said to me, are things I'm not doing right. Could you get my trash? Why didn't you get so and so to lunch on time? Mm-hmm. Betty in 2 0 1 is waiting to be changed. You're taking too long. You've got two other call lights going off, you're trying to help your teammate. You know, lunch starts in 15 minutes. You're behind on your showers. So you're constantly thinking through self-talk of I'm not getting it done. I haven't done enough. And so to be able. To see that you are doing enough and you're doing it really, really well, or there was things you could have time managed better and you can reflect on that. Mm-hmm. Is a huge tool. For anyone who's trying to build confidence, even especially your veteran, but even your newer caregivers that are trying to come into the industry and they're really struggling, like understanding a true picture of that and also your leadership, understanding where they can help and where you're struggling and being able to see that, that can be used to your advantage. I always tell people like, Sage can be really great for you to tell who's. Unengaged in the community who's struggling, who may need more support or training. So you can see some of the trends through the sage dashboards of what's happening with that team member. And it's a time to have that. I think you've said this, is that that teachable moment. In real time and really understand what they need for support versus just kind of guessing or hearing from someone else or or waiting until they finally come to you, which they're probably already at their wits end.

Erin: 12:17

Yeah, I mean, it really is a communication tool, it sounds like. I have not been a part of it. I can only imagine. I mean the kind of the way that I managed inside the community and then the way that I like think about social media and podcasting and stuff. I mean, to have something that I could look at and be like, and now I have talking points. Yeah. That's pretty valuable when it comes to, yeah. Training. I don't have to come up with it.

Erin (2): 12:44

Mm-hmm.

Erin: 12:44

You know? Off the top of my head or spend time creating it, now I can look at it and I can look at the data and I can say, this is the things that we need to talk about this month or at this meeting or at standup or you know, the all associate meeting. Like you get to use this information to work smarter and not harder.

Lindsay: 13:07

A hundred percent. And that's where as a

Erin: 13:08

leader, that's important to understand. Yeah. A

Lindsay: 13:11

hundred percent. And that's where I keep thinking is people will get nervous about technology, right? Technology's coming in. Yeah, I'm gonna get all these dashboards and this data, I'm not gonna be able to use it. But that's technology done wrong. Technology is supposed to free up your time. Unfortunately, senior living has been on the backend of technology, meaning I don't think we were behind our times. I think technology was not created for us, for our environment, for what we were doing, we're running households. No one said, Hey, let's make an app for people who run households. We get mixed into this clinical setting, which we do. Have clinicians, and we do have vendor partners, but at the heart of what we do is a home. And it's a lot of reliance on communication and people, and people having the information they need to give correct care. So if I have 10 children that I'm, that I'm caring for, and our seniors are not children, but it's understanding that heart that goes into care. Is that same love, same attention. And so if you're trying to emulate that with 70, 80 people, that's a lot to keep track of and something's going to get dropped. I mean, for me, that's why everyone's, the communication's not good right now. The way we communicate in senior living is through paper or verbal. That leads so much room for miscommunication and things that aren't, you know, really communicated between caregivers and nurses. Nurses and leaders. So half of the time we're trying to find the real story. Mm-hmm. We're always finding pieces of the story. So in technology such as Sage, we're putting the story in front of you and you can narrate it, you can change it, and you can rewrite it in real time instead of react to it. That's that whole other issue with senior living, that reaction we're always behind the curve and reacting, and I think it would just be nice for once to not be able to do that. Mm-hmm. To really be able to spend time with people instead of being investigating what's going on. Because a lot of times when we had to be boots to the ground or walk the floor, most of the time we were trying to figure out why did Betty not get her shower today? Why did Susie's laundry not get done? Why was Phyllis's medicine given an hour late Now the family's upset. We needed that insight so that our time was spent coaching and empowering our teams and loving on our residents. That's what I think technology should be giving us back. That's where you find joy in tech, but also understanding that data can be good. If it's delivered to you in a non-con, confusing way, that's actually something you can use and create action out of. And that's Sage's mission to do because we know it's missing. And that was my beginning conversations with Sage three plus years ago. That's why I'm here today, is they're the first people that I ever met that understood that pain and actually walked the halls to feel it with me. They sat and listened, and they had empathy for that because they had experienced really bad situations with their loved ones. And most recently, I hate to even bring this up because it's gonna be on my heart right now. My grandmother has passed. And she was at a really great community, but communication was broken a bit there. And when I say that is, is there's diet changes for residents. Residents' diets are super important to their health, and that communication gets lost quite often. And so she had swallowing issues. She was supposed to be on a soft diet, did not get a soft diet over time, I. That caused problems. And although I want it to balance like her joy for life and giving her the sanity of eating real foods and her right to do that, and then also protecting her, but the communication didn't allow for either of that to happen. And this is where we can't miss steps because this is happening often. And so having a tool like Sage. That can give you real-time information, can give you a resident profile, can be updated easily, can be intuitive, and is highly adopted because it empowers their people. I just feel like we've been waiting for it. and it's hard to explain'cause it's, it impacts everything we do in senior living and people are just looking at it as this ministry critical next, call it nurse call.'cause nurse call. We can't overlook the importance of that. You can't have a assisted living without nurse call. People have to be able to get ahold of you in an emergency situation. They're relying on you for that. So at your core, you have to be reliable. But that's where the care starts. That's where time starts. That's where connection starts. And so if you don't start there, you're not getting the full picture. And we've been functioning on half pictures. I compare like. The way we were functioning as a camera, we were getting a snapshot of everything. We weren't getting the full picture, and we were making decisions based on snapshots. And that's why people were like, why is senior living never gonna change? Why are we having the same problems over and over again? Because we weren't making decisions on everything that was actually happening behind the camera. That's a, that's you. We have to be honest about it, and then we have to fix it. So, yeah,

Erin: 18:50

man, that's compelling. That's exciting. I mean, like that's exciting for, for people who really understand it, like on a deep level and who want to see it change. Now, I would have been potentially and one of those burned out executive directors that would've been like, oh my God, I can't do this. Probably,

Lindsay: 19:15

yeah.

Erin: 19:16

But had you like come to me and explained how exciting this is, I would've been like, okay. And then, you know, that probably would've given me some joy in there. but the joy comes in, like you said, I. When you can say to an executive director, this is actually gonna make you work less, and let me show you how.

Erin (2): 19:33

Mm-hmm. You know,

Erin: 19:34

have you run into a former version of me that did not want this change? Oh yeah. You know, and then all of a sudden have come back to you and said, oh my God, this is amazing.

Lindsay: 19:46

Yeah. We have a lot of what we call the skeptical. and honestly, those are my favorite.

Erin: 19:52

Yeah. Wow.

Lindsay: 19:52

Because we were made for the skeptical.

Erin: 19:55

Yeah.

Lindsay: 19:56

I mean, if you talk to our founder, Ellen, she said, when she first met me, I was the most skeptical director she'd ever met. I was questioning everything they were doing. Why were they doing it? What were they gonna do to make our lives easier? Were they just gonna be one of those other point systems added on and get creating more work for us? Basically took her through all the work systems that we have to go through and like, oh, are you just gonna add to this? Like, no, thank you. Yeah, and so she said, no. We wanna reduce that, we wanna give more visibility. And I'm like, okay, let's see what you got. So eventually when they showed me the product, I thought, oh, okay. You were lying. Like you really did get what I was saying. And so I love going into communities where I have a skeptical ed, especially director of wellness, like, okay, here's another report, here's something else I have to QA and monitor. Here's another person I have to call. You know, and they don't realize that. Sage is right there partnering within the entire time. Mm-hmm. We don't just put a system in and go like, we are there. We have a support team, we have a client success team, we have a on-call team. We are monitoring your system on the cloud at all times. So if something's happening, we will know if, signal's not going right, we will know and we are fixing it. So it's, it's that knowing like, oh wait, we put you in. If the implementation is easy, the install was easy, and they're all thinking, okay, I keep hitting the easy button. What's going on here? It's not gonna stay easy. And then they realize they have a whole team behind them, and then they start realizing the staff's happier. The residents are happier, the families are happier. We had a community that said, I actually just gotta move in because of Sage. I was able to show my phone to the family and they were. So impressed that we could see what was going on at all times. So your leadership team has access to this and they can hop in and see, Hey, does my team need me? Or they can say, someone's calling and say, you did not get my mom's call. I, you know, I know you haven't been there. And she could say, actually, we were there at 4 0 5. We were there for 10 minutes. We made the bed, took mom to the bathroom. It looks like we've changed her clothes. Does she have a red shirt on? Yes, she does. Oh my gosh. Yeah,

Erin: 22:11

it tell, it tells you the color of their shirt.

Lindsay: 22:14

If you put, if you put in the notes, like put the red shirt on. Oh, for, no. Whoa. Now this did happen to me, a community, a family member called me and they did put, put, put bill's red shirt on because. The mom, the, the mom, the daughter didn't think we were changing clothes, so they were just putting it in the notes, like the outfit that he had on so that we could verify, shift to shift if clothes were changed. So, you know, we have those residents that wanna put the same outfit on over and over again. Yeah. So it was just one of those ways we used it to communicate. Mm-hmm. but I was able to see the notes and talk to the daughter about it, and she was shocked. I

Erin: 22:55

mean, that's amazing. Okay, so the caregiver goes into the room, performs the care, or the nurse or whoever

Lindsay: 23:00

Yeah.

Erin: 23:00

And comes out and then they type the notes in. In the moment.

Lindsay: 23:04

Yeah, it's in the moment, so it's all in there because it's the nurse call resident pops up, they claim it. So, which is fun in general, like, I wanna claim this. Yeah. So they claim it, they go to the resident's room, they give the care and then to unclaim to clear it. Completely. So there is a background time happening to UN and there's different than we're used to is like answer time. So there's a claim time and there's a resolve time. So then you're resolving it. When you do it intuitively takes you through the workflow of what you did and it's like little pictures. You just click, click, click, and then at the end you can put notes. That can be whatever you know is going on. Like that resident doesn't change clothes or that resident's refusing to, you know, take a shower or whatever. It will be a resident had a fall. You may wanna note that they, that you notified Nurse Betty. You don't wanna put clinical notes in there, but you definitely wanna like communication notes. I notified Nurse Betty, so we know we can talk to Nurse Betty about that fall. so you're getting all this information and it takes literally, if you do it, it takes. Like 30 seconds or less. It's just very quickly and they submit and they're done and then they move to the next. but it's all collecting behind the scenes of what's happening.

Erin: 24:15

That's pretty cool. Can the associate like speak to text or is it just like texting?

Lindsay: 24:22

That's a, actually, that's a great question because it's a cell phone.

Erin: 24:27

Yeah.

Lindsay: 24:27

So I know it's Typeform, but I'm wondering. That's something I can definitely look into. Yeah. And that's another good part. I mean, it's kind of cool'cause you could quickly do it and I'm wondering if you actually can, I've never tried. but we do, the cool thing too is like, hey, someone says they wanna speak to text, let's see if we can add it in.

Erin: 24:46

Yeah, I know.

Lindsay: 24:47

that's because that would might be a consensus. Right? Especially if they are walking to the next person. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they just wanna make some, yeah, I mean, I speak to texts on everything I do. Yeah, I think that people think I'm very strange at the Air Force.

Erin: 25:02

Yeah, I know. I think the other part of this, when I, when I hear about it, because it sounds really exciting, you know, especially like I came from a 64 apartment memory care, I can only imagine how impactful that would've been, but, and also. Having the data to tell a story. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I think it's really important. I teach new leaders like you need to build these relationships with families, especially families who are out of town, because when they trust you, things go a lot easier. We're human, we're gonna make mistakes. So the more you have in that emotional bank account, the better. Each little bump in the road is going to go. And how good is it to walk into care plan meetings or meetings about just some changes that are happening, or even maybe having a call with a family member, a proactive call by saying, let me tell you what's happening today based on the notes that we have and in this program that we have called Sage, you know, I mean, and even getting the move in. You know what a great storytelling part in Discovery or the post tour discovery about how we connect the relationship with our residents and our associates, and how we're all interconnected because we share the same information. That would've made my life much easier because I did make those efforts. Mm-hmm. To have those relationships, to have those proactive calls like. I, I think a lot of people don't use relationships enough to their advantage. Just like data, they don't use the data and here is something that you get to, to marry the two, which is really, really important.

Lindsay: 26:49

And I think that the data, like you said, helps grow the relationship because it's not difficult data, it's insightful. It's filterable and you can just get to the nuts and bolts of like really what you need to know and understand. I always do think that the advantage of Sage, and I talk to executive directors about this, if you're having a a level of care conference and you wanna show a true picture of their loved one, you can, and you can become again, the partner to that family. You're not the one asking for more money. You're the one sitting beside them, giving them a clear picture of what's going on, and then. The financial conversation can happen, but it's about whether they can afford it or not. Whether, not whether you're doing the work or not. Mm-hmm. And that's a, a different conversation. I know everyone dreads those rate increase every annual, you know, every year. Whenever, if we're doing a semi-annual, sometimes we were doing two increases a year trying to recoup. And, it would just be such a friction point for executive directors and they'd be locked in their offices having these conferences, trying to get these letters out. What if we didn't have to do that? What if they already knew what was going on? What if we were able to give them a really true understanding of their loved one based on their trends for the day and based on the caregivers that we're working with them hands on with them, and not something that we did at interview a caregiver while we're walking down the hall or asked the nurse their opinion, because those are all different perspectives, but we had a clear trending picture. I'd want that from my loved one. And yes, I'm gonna go to Betty that I trust, and I might ask her how my mom is doing, but to have a true picture in the data makes me understand that's how she may have been doing on first shift. But did she have sundowners? What was going on? What was she requiring differently? You know, were the staff having issues? Were they in there often because she was anxious? Mm-hmm. These are things we can pick up on. we can look at all the reasons they're calling their nurse call button. That's the first thing they think to do. Mm-hmm. When they don't feel well, when they need to get, go to the bathroom, when they wanna go an activity, when they don't remember the time when they're anxious, that is their lifeline to the community. And I think we forget, like it's not, to them, it's not just a nurse call. Mm-hmm. It's their line to you.

Erin: 29:13

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, yeah, and you would rather them do that, or you can be like, one of my residents who was very short and couldn't reach the, air conditioning, thermostat inside and stepped on a chair. Oh no. And decided to do it herself. And I'm like, that's why you have like press the button. You know what I mean? Like she had a major fall and it was because, you know, it's, it is to, it's to teach people that it's a lifeline and it's also a lifeline for people who understand that and to get, to get the vibe or to even understand who is taking more attention and why.

Lindsay: 29:49

Yeah. Is

Erin: 29:50

really, really important. Because we may even be thinking something negative about a caregiver.

Lindsay: 29:56

Yeah,

Erin: 29:57

and we don't realize where they are. Yeah, because somebody else may be in a corner on their cell phone, but this person is actually in a room. Talking or doing something

Lindsay: 30:09

or 45 minutes with yes, a resident who's anxious, who didn't remember that her daughter, you know, didn't live with her and she's trying to walk her through it. There's so many things that you're discovering about your associates and your residents. We, we have seen a case that I thought was interesting and I don't think this is. Like the, always the best use case, but we've all had those caregivers that have said a resident is taking all of their time and they're not able to do the care for the other residents. It's really hard to prove that. And so there was a resident at a community that was taking 80% of the Caregivers's time and she was struggling with her assignment. So what it was looking like is she was a complainer and she wasn't doing her job. But when Sage data came in, that resident. Was able to be looked at in a different way that caregiver actually was a great caregiver but couldn't balance that person's needs over her other resides needs.'cause she was so demanding and loud and would just continuously push the button. We found that that resident wasn't in the right care level. Needed to go to a different care. Not she was not appropriate for assisted living, relocated her to a better setting for her and her needs, and then that caregiver excelled and the care that she gave to the other residents excelled. That does happen. People will quit for those things. Yes, because they feel like they're not being seen. You're telling them they need to do the work and you're, you're, you're moving fast. And you know, maybe that that resident could be a nuisance, but how are you going to explain that to the family without any data? But we basically were able to show that residents calls for that like week or 200 compared to the whole rest of the residents that were 20. And then we could show the time spent with one resident versus the other residents. It wasn't fair to anyone. And I know this is sometimes an anomaly, but this can change your culture of your community very, very quickly. And the fact that Sage could catch that and help the conversation, I. To me, I don't, I, those to me are priceless. Those types of fixes in our world where we need support.'cause you know how many times I've wanted to discharge somebody,'cause I thought they were for the wrong level of care. I've had to talk to the wellness, the, the regional wellness and then the VP of Wellness and they don't want me to move her out. And they wanted me to try all these interventions. Well, I do too. I love her. I wanna take care of her. But unfortunately, it's now causing occupancy issues'cause dissatisfaction from the other residents. And I've lost three staff members. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about the truth of one person going to the right care setting and the rest of my business flourishing. Mm-hmm. But if you don't have the story, you sound like you're making excuses and you're being negative.

Erin: 32:57

Yeah, no, it's so true. Yeah. I mean, the impact of storytelling is really important in data storytelling and also. The perspective shift, and I think this is really important of giving yourself credit

Lindsay: 33:12

mm-hmm. For

Erin: 33:13

the work that you're doing versus having to defend.

Lindsay: 33:18

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Erin: 33:19

You know, it's, it's credit defend. Mm-hmm. And a lot of, you know, I'm a naturally defensive person. I've improved, but, you know, they, a lot of my, it's been my experience, there was a lot of defensive, caregivers. Yeah. Love'em. But there's a lot of'em. and I can say that because I'm one of them. And to be able to say to somebody, and I, I've said this before, give yourself credit. I. For the work that you do. And then that's a huge perspective shift versus somebody just looking at the work that I'm doing. Well, I wanna give'em something to look at.

Erin (2): 33:56

Yeah.

Erin: 33:57

You know, I, you know, if you're not gonna listen to me, you can read what I'm doing. And that's, that's really, really important. And, and again, I. Even this podcast, like when I reached 50 episodes, or I know when I get to 75 episodes, I'm going to get an email and it's gonna say, congratulations, you've reached 75 episodes and there's gonna be confetti that comes out on the screen, and I'm gonna take that 30 seconds and I'm gonna be like, look at you, Erin. You're on your way. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. and be really, really happy with the work. That, that I did to get to that number, and maybe that minute or that 30 seconds lasts five minutes or whatever. But that is a dopamine hit that's really, really important. I. To be able, it sounds like Sage can do that for anything or clocking in and out. We should do that. We should put that on the time clocks. Congratulations. You're at work today.

Lindsay: 34:59

Woo hoo. You made it

Erin: 35:01

and you're

Lindsay: 35:01

on time.

Erin: 35:03

I know. That would be fun, wouldn't it?

Lindsay: 35:05

Yeah. Oh, we're given. We're given some of those time clock.

Erin: 35:10

I know, I know. And to me that is what I know now that I didn't necessarily understand then is that that's a huge benefit to people who struggle with needing validation.

Lindsay: 35:28

Yeah. With 99% of our workforce, yeah, the caregiver heart. Doesn't like to take compliments. They don't really like a lot of credit. They like to care for people, but they like to be seen and they need the confidence most, you know, because they're critical.

Erin (2): 35:46

Mm-hmm. On

Lindsay: 35:47

themselves. Am I giving enough? Am I doing enough? And I think that heart posture is in most of them, and they do. I mean, if you're not being noticed, you're not being seen and you're tired, what starts to happen? You become rough on the edges and people start to see you differently, even though inside that's not you. Mm-hmm. And I've seen it time and time again where I've had some rough caregivers and I've come into a leadership position, pull them away and talk to them and ask them what's going on. And they will tell you they just need someone to listen and someone to see them.

Erin (2): 36:21

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay: 36:22

I would love to regenerate our caregivers and our teams on the ground. I just think it's way past due. Yeah. SAGE is a small part of that. It's gonna take leadership, but at least we can make it easier.

Erin: 36:34

Yeah, absolutely. And think about the director of nursing or who can go into a shift report and can, can look at something and can be like, great job. Yeah. You know, Sarah, because you. Ranked number one, or you're tied for first place with three other people today, and then talk about something positive.

Lindsay: 36:56

Yeah.

Erin: 36:57

and that generates, that lets the new people coming in on the shift feel good. Mm-hmm. Have an example. And that lets the, the people leaving the shift walk out knowing that where they're going may not be the most positive place for them, but they are leaving a positive day. Yeah. That is powerful.

Lindsay: 37:19

It really is.

Erin: 37:20

Yeah. Yeah. That is really powerful. well, I feel like, you know, you need to go into all the communities and like I would say I wish I could, I mean, this is like a game changer. I would, I would love it. What would you say, and then we'll, well, not that we wanna end on a negative, but what have you learned? Through some of the hiccups, because if you are, if you are a skeptical ed or a skeptical C-suite, like, oh my God, the communities can't deal with the change right now. You know? Which the biggest pain points you hear are time, time, time, time, time and, capacity, those types of things. But of those bumps in the roads, I mean, what was the biggest takeaway? For people who are skeptical and say that they don't have the capacity for a change like this.

Lindsay: 38:19

Yeah. Actually we did a webinar and we interviewed some users and some skeptical mm-hmm. People were on there and they didn't realize, I mean, I, I think I'm repeating, but I don't, but they didn't realize that they thought it was gonna take time, their time, but we did it all. We didn't require, we did everything. We set it up, we put, we installed it, and we trained the team for them. They were able to show up just like everybody else to the trainings. Now, of course, getting your team hyped is important. That's really great for us and it makes us more successful. But because it, the user experience is so thought out, it was just like them using their cell phone, adding an app. It was like that intuitive for them. So it started to give them time back immediately. It was not, it was, it, I have not seen a, a very, frictional implementation where it didn't just go like that. It was instant. It was like, I haven't seen that. And I think that immediately wins over someone when they're like, oh, wait, I didn't have to do anything. Oh wait, you didn't take my people to make this happen? Like you actually came in understood. We were busy, set it up, put it in our hands and made sure it was okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, like, and our team's approach is, comes from a deep understanding of the pain in senior living, and I think that starts from our founders. It's reinforced by me and we really pride ourselves. On how we become one with, with the communities. Mm-hmm. And make sure that we are cognizant of their time. And that's important. So like that you say like, what does it do? I mean that they are skeptical and then they realize when they don't do anything. Mm-hmm. And it's not taking them away from what they need to be doing, only they start to want to be there.'cause they wanna see the reactions of the caregivers and of the residents. I'll never forget there was an ed super busy at implementation. I told her, don't worry about it. Don't come in. And at lunchtime we gave everybody their pendants and people started laughing and she walked out'cause people were happy. And she's like, what is going on? I'm like, they just tried the button for the first time and someone answered it. And like I. Three seconds, like went over straight to their table and the residents felt like, oh, this system has saved our world. But they, they knew like it was just a new system. It was exciting, it was modern, it was on a cell phone and you hear a lot of companies wanting to like push back on the cell phone. I'm like, you have to meet your caregivers where they are. It's locked down, it's sage. It's not for personal use. I would much rather than be on a cell phone in the community for work versus personal. And if it's gamified and if it has their attention, guess what you're gonna get out of them? More work. And it's feeding the brain. It's feeding the brain as they're used to feeding the brain via their cell phone. But guess what, they're texting each other.'cause that's all they can, they're calling each other'cause that's all they can call. Mm-hmm. And they're looking at their residents.

Erin: 41:17

Yeah.

Lindsay: 41:18

So

Erin: 41:18

can they call 9 1 1 from it?

Lindsay: 41:20

Mm-hmm.

Erin: 41:21

Yes. That was a. Point of contention in a certain specific incident and then that I, because when you, if you have a larger community, this is something that the state surveyor said to me one time when we attempted to try to take cell phones away from people, which is a very challenging task to do when I work at a large community that it's very widespread. And the surveyor said to me, well, the fact that they don't have cell phones is really detrimental to resident safety.

Lindsay: 41:53

Yeah, well we relied on cell phones, right? Yes. Because of, I, I've, many times me, I've made this, I've gone in to do a, going into a community, I needed a caregiver. I can't get her on the walkie-talkie'cause she's lost it. The batteries have died. It's broken. We only had two on the floor, so I call her cell phone. So that is another reason why I thought it was very good to have a cell phone as the main tool of a nurse call, because I can call. You, I can text you. That's so good. And, we can call anybody that's programmed in to like the contact so the families you can call from there.

Erin: 42:28

Oh,

Lindsay: 42:29

okay. Yeah, the doctors. Oh, so everybody is in that profile for that resident, whether it's your, your physician contact, your family contact, and 9 1 1

Erin: 42:43

that is valuable.

Lindsay: 42:44

Yeah. Yeah.

Erin: 42:45

I mean, that's super valuable.

Lindsay: 42:46

Yeah.

Erin: 42:48

Okay.

Lindsay: 42:51

You're like, okay, I'm gonna go back and we're gonna operate a sage building. I

Erin: 42:53

know. I mean like, okay. That, I mean, because that is super critical. I mean, especially if you're gonna talk about somebody not coming in at last minute and you gotta try to get in touch with somebody like that was a real problem. I mean, it's, it's a real problem. And yeah, you just solved that. So you can't get the walkie-talkie. It's not charged, it's broken. Let's real talk. Okay. Chargers. Chargers and these cell phones, they walk away cell phones like, are you shipping, are you shipping lots of additional cell phones out? Because people are losing, we really

Lindsay: 43:30

aren't because they have, tracking So. Okay.

Erin: 43:34

Gee, y'all really didn't think of everything.

Lindsay: 43:38

Yeah. Now the charging thing, we give you enough to make sure you can charge off shift. Especially we, we definitely put best practice in place, charge at night. Right. But we've, we've actually helped install these, Charging cords that are in the nurse's cart and they go in the bottom drawer and we put like a hole in the back and the cord comes out so they can plug in the charger when they plug in their computer at night and all the phones go on and locked, and then the night shift has theirs and they exchange them out in the morning. That seems to be something that's been. Working. Yeah. something along those lines where the nurse is in charge of collecting at night, she puts'em on the charger, whether it's in the nurse's station or her cart. And then, yeah. I mean, sages luckily knows all these pain points.

Erin: 44:23

Clearly, clearly, clearly. I have had a doozy with chargers. Lemme tell you. Yeah,

Lindsay: 44:30

yeah. Oh yeah. It's a headache. I don't even know how many times I had to replace chargers, couldn't find chargers. I think eventually I like bolted chargers to the wall. Put'em in the break rooms like everywhere. Like where are they in the bathroom? Wherever you're gonna charge it. Just charge these things.

Erin: 44:49

Yes. Yeah. It's so funny. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I mean, I feel like we got real, real tactical, which is important because there's not enough tactical conversations, and that's kind of where I. Where I like to go, because there's not enough of those tactical conversations. It you are, you're doing an amazing job. I, I wish it does excite me, you know, to think about what life is like in a community with, with a tool like this.

Lindsay: 45:20

Mm-hmm. Knowing,

Erin: 45:20

hearing that communication inside the community is a constant pain point. So. Your life's work is mission critical. I love the words that you say to alleviate the friction points. I'm like, those are such great words, you know? So words I live by. Yes, you should be super proud, because it's exciting. So if you get the opportunity, to talk to Lindsay or Shane or anybody else in Sage, hear them out because. If I'm excited, then there's other people who are gonna be excited about this too. So yeah. Anyways, thank you for being here. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. And as always, for my listeners, aspire for more for you. And if you like this and you think that you want to try Sage, shoot it to your regional director or C-suite person and say, listen to this because this actually might work in our community. You have the power to do that, so do it.