Technology has fundamentally changed how senior living communities operate. Today’s platforms centralize information, reduce repetitive tasks, and help teams spend more time with residents instead of paperwork.
The challenge is that most communities don’t operate on a single system. When Argentum asked operators in their latest tech report about their primary issues when implementing and managing new technology solutions, 77% ranked interoperability among the top three issues, followed by compatibility at 74%.
With a separate platform for EHR, engagement, CRM, visitor management, transportation, work orders and more, senior living communities are often dealing with a sprawl of technology platforms. While each tool is adopted to solve a real problem, the tools often don’t communicate with one another. Instead of simplifying work, fragmented tools quietly add barriers and information silos.
The cognitive load staff carry every day
When systems don’t talk to each other, staff become the integration.
An activities director may start the morning in the engagement platform, building a calendar and reviewing attendance trends. To confirm which residents may need accommodations—or encouragement—to participate, they flag down a clinical staff member for health details. A family concern arrives via email or the CRM, requiring context that lives elsewhere.
Each of these moments is a small part of a greater story. Put together, they create constant cognitive switching—remembering where information lives, which system is “most accurate,” and what needs to be updated where.
This mental overhead is rarely visible in staffing models, but it shows up in stress, errors, and fatigue.
The hidden labor behind “keeping systems in sync”
Fragmentation creates work that doesn’t show up on job descriptions:
- Re-entering resident preferences across multiple platforms
- Chasing down updates after a hospital return or room change
- Reconciling discrepancies between clinical notes and engagement records
- Manually exporting and reformatting reports for leadership
For an activities staff member, this might look like rebuilding a resident’s engagement profile after a room transfer, or manually adjusting attendance records when a resident is temporarily on skilled nursing—despite that information already existing elsewhere.
Over time, this hidden labor compounds. Burnout often gets framed as a staffing problem, when in reality it is often a systems problem. Teams aren’t just short on time; they’re spending it stitching together tools that were never designed to work as one.
Fragmentation doesn’t just cost money. It costs momentum.
Championing interoperability
The answer isn’t necessarily fewer tools. Point solutions exist for a reason, and consolidation alone doesn’t guarantee better outcomes.
What matters is whether technology providers are thinking beyond their own product. Communities benefit most when platforms are built with interoperability in mind—designed to share context, not just data. That means prioritizing partners who invest in integrations, align with industry standards, and understand that sustainable technology strategies support both operational efficiency and staff wellbeing.
