Senior living resident intake best practices

In recent years, person-centered care has become the gold standard in senior living. By emphasizing residents’ individuality and agency, the person-centered approach leads to greater resident satisfaction, mental well-being, and health outcomes.

Personalizing residents’ care and engagement requires a deep understanding of each resident’s unique background and interests—insight that begins with a strong resident intake process.

Here, we explore the tools and processes that staff need to accurately and comprehensively intake, store, and access resident information, so that they are better able to personalize each resident’s experience to their unique needs and provide an exceptional senior living experience.

Conducting meaningful resident interviews

Moving into a senior living community marks a significant transition for many older adults and their families. The resident onboarding process is a chance for staff to ease the transition, offering peace of mind that the resident will receive individualized care and attention.

First, staff can ensure that all the right people are present during the initial resident intake. In some cases, family members may need to be involved, particularly if the resident has dementia or difficulty recalling important details.

Once the resident and their loved ones are present, it’s important that they feel welcome and comfortable during the interview. Conducting the interview in a pleasant environment with minimal distractions will help the resident and family members feel at ease, and also help the staff stay actively present in order to capture the right information.

It is also important to accommodate for age-related changes by speaking clearly and at an appropriate volume, allowing ample time for responses, and ensuring printed materials are legible.

An empathetic and high-touch resident intake process helps set residents and their families up for a positive senior living experience, and help staff get the information they need to provide personalized experiences. 

Asking the right questions

Older adults move into senior living communities with a rich background, full of unique experiences and preferences. Capturing this information has traditionally been treated as more of a science than an art, with the interview made up largely of health history and medical needs questions. While health-related questions are essential for creating personalized care plans, the intake process is an opportunity to understand the resident as a whole person, not just a patient. 

In order to prioritize residents’ holistic wellness, the resident intake questionnaire should cover the following categories:

• Life history and personal background: Understanding a resident’s background and interests allows staff to create more meaningful interactions and engagement opportunities. This can include questions about their career, education, family life, hobbies, military background, spirituality, milestones, and favorite memories. Many communities choose to conduct a standard leisure activity assessment or inventory to standardize the information they collect.
• Health and wellness needs: Keeping track of medical conditions, mobility needs, and dietary preferences allows for better care planning and helps ensure residents’ overall well-being and comfort.
• Social engagement preferences: Understanding whether a resident enjoys group activities or prefers individual interactions enables staff to recommend social opportunities that best match their personality and comfort level.
• Technology comfort level: Assessing a resident’s familiarity with technology allows communities to provide engagement tools that match their capabilities, making digital interactions more accessible and user-friendly.

By addressing all core dimensions of wellness, a thorough resident intake interview can equip staff with the information they need to help residents live a holistically fulfilling community life.

Capturing and centralizing resident information

Once this valuable information is gathered, it must be stored and managed in a way that is easily accessible to staff. Many senior living communities still rely on manual processes, where notes are taken during interviews or transcribed from recordings. These methods are time-consuming and increase the risk of lost or incomplete data, making it difficult for staff to act on the information effectively.

An AI-enhanced resident onboarding solution can streamline this process. Staff can record live interviews or upload prerecorded files, and artificial intelligence technology can transcribe the conversation, organize the details into a biographical summary, and categorize preferences for easy reference. When this data is stored centrally and integrated with an electronic health record (EHR), it becomes readily available to all staff members, from nursing to activities teams, ensuring a holistic approach to resident care.

To further enhance personalization, communities can leverage technology that integrates resident profiles with activity planning software. When resident preference data flows seamlessly into a calendar management platform, staff can effortlessly tailor engagement opportunities based on individual interests. AI can take this a step further by automatically suggesting activities aligned with each resident’s preferences, ensuring a dynamic and highly personalized experience.

Putting the “person” back into personalization

A comprehensive resident onboarding process can be compared to the ingredients used for a dish: the higher quality the input, the better the output. When staff are equipped with the processes and tools they need to capture high-quality “ingredients”—rich information on residents’ interests, preferences, and history—they’re better able to create a delightful senior living experience, concocted with each resident’s unique profile in mind.

While this article focused on the ingredient-collecting aspect of resident intake, the next piece will explore the process of creating the dish: how staff can harness resident information they’ve captured during the interview to create a more personalized, dignified, and fulfilling experience that honors residents’ individuality and enhances their quality of life.