8 Benefits of Vendor Consolidation in Your Senior Living Community

Time, money, and patience are at a premium these, and nothing uses them up quite like managing multiple vendors. No one knows that     quite as well as those in the elder and healthcare fields. In fact, 84% of healthcare providers say they use at least 20 different vendors at any given time. So, if the headache and the hassle sound familiar to you, you’re not alone. But there is a way to regain more of your time, more of your budget, more of your sanity, and more of your residents’ satisfaction. 

The solution? Vendor consolidation. More on that in a moment, but first, what’s so bad about using multiple vendors?

The Complexity of Multiple Vendors

As noted above, it’s not uncommon for communities like yours to use numerous vendors to meet their technological and digital needs. And at first, it seems like the smart approach — analyzing individual vendors to find solutions that fit your unique needs and your budget. Ultimately, though, what you gain in well-fitting solutions isn’t enough to offset the downsides, which can include:

• Steadily increasing costs as promotions expire or new (sometimes unneeded) features are added
• Stress of researching an overwhelming number of vendors providing a single service to find one that works (for only one need)
• Time spent on onboarding and training staff on multiple new programs across various platforms
• Little chance of building strong relationships with numerous vendors you only contact when there’s an issue
• Difficulties with residents who are frustrated with you over issues caused by vendor programs
• Risk of jeopardizing the community’s or residents’ sensitive data spread across many platforms
• The inability to integrate each system together to streamline communication and staff awareness

So, how can you mitigate these risks and find greater peace of mind with a solution that meets all of your needs? Consolidation. Make vendor management easier and reap the rewards for your community by consolidating your tech suppliers and finding an end-to-end solution that fits you. We’ll get to the “how” to do this, but first, let’s look at the “why.”

The Case for Consolidation: 8 Benefits to Know

Supporting resident care and comfort is your primary goal, but to do that, you have to run a well-oiled machine, with the right software for your community. Having too many vendors can cause serious issues within your inner workings, wreaking havoc and causing noticeable disturbances for residents. However, when you consolidate vendors into a minimal number of providers that work to meet your needs and build a relationship with you, you’ll experience many of these benefits:

1. Simplified Operations

Whether your community is large or small, you want to create efficiency in operations. That means resourcing your staff in a way that makes sense and keeps things running smoothly. Expecting them to learn and then manage multiple vendor softwares and platforms throughout the day can be a time-waster for them, and a big risk to your bottom line. It’s bad enough when one system goes down or experiences an outage — imagine that happening across several platforms at once. An all-in-one provider means less time training and quicker adoption, so staff can spend their time where it counts.

2. Enhanced Data Integration and Accuracy

Spreading job duties across many platforms creates problems, especially if the providers you use don’t have the needed integrations. That means data has to be input and stored across systems, which also significantly increases the chance of critical errors. An end-to-end solution ensures one-time data entry and stores that data across all services for easy integration.

3. Cost Efficiency

Buy more, save more — it’s a concept that works for club stores selling products in bulk, and it’s one you’ve probably noticed in your own life. When you need less, you end up paying more. It might seem like you’re paying less by hiring piecemeal providers for individual needs, but the fees and rates you pay quickly add up. Finding more of a one-stop-shop will give you greater transparency on pricing, and one sum you can better budget. 

4. Optimal Purchasing Power

Speaking of cost efficiency, just like those bulk stores, vendor consolidation gives you greater purchasing power. You may be able to bundle the services you need, receive discounts for adding other lines of service, or negotiate for a better price when you move your services to a single provider.

5. Improved Security and Compliance

Inputting data across numerous platforms is more than just an accuracy nightmare — it can also be a security nightmare. Spreading residents’ personal information and private data across different service providers compounds the risk of data leaks or breaches. In an age where data security is on everyone’s mind, and compliance means following regulations to the letter, it helps to have an all-in-one cloud solution to keep your residents and your community protected.

6. Ease of Training and User Adoption

Employees are certainly more tech-savvy these days, but technology itself is growing and evolving at a rapid pace. It can be difficult to keep up with one platform, let alone several. If you don’t already have them, you’re going to need multiple types of senior living software, from EHR and EMAR to CRM and billing. Imagine if every new hire had to spend days training on how to use each platform — it would be weeks before they would be fully onboarded and ready to roll. Eliminate some of that hassle and adoption time with a consolidated solution that makes training seamless and smooth.

7. Staff and Resident Satisfaction

Ease of use has plenty of benefits for your community (and your budget), but the end result is actually even better — higher satisfaction rates among staff and residents. When you cut out all the time-wasting and inefficiency of multiple platforms, staff members stay more engaged and are less prone to frustration and burnout. And a happy staff leads to happy residents. Beyond that, a knowledgeable staff leads to informed residents who take a more active role in their community and in their own senior living management. When they understand and feel comfortable using the digital platforms you’ve selected, you’ll find satisfaction rates soaring.

8. Opportunities to Build Relationships

Most of the time, you only talk to vendors when there’s a problem. But when you have over a dozen vendors and no idea where the issues have originated, where do you even begin? Besides that, having liaisons with many different providers means managing multiple relationships with folks you may or may not connect with interpersonally. One of the benefits of vendor consolidation is having one point of contact and one resource with whom you can build a respectful and trusting relationship.

Eldermark NEXT: An End-to-End Solution

You may now be wondering — where do I find this perfect all-in-one solution? Well, we’d be lying if we said that there’s any vendor who offers a perfect one-size-fits-all approach. You can, however, look for an end-to-end solution that was designed specifically for the senior living industry and meets as many of your needs as possible, so you can maximize the benefits to your staff, your residents, and your community.

Eldermark NEXT provides the next generation of software for the next phase of your senior living community. Save money, time, and hassle with a robust product that meets all your needs and provides every benefit of vendor consolidation we’ve shared above. With Eldermark NEXT, you’ll be able to take advantage of:

Staffing Efficiency

Manage resources and improve their satisfaction with an intuitive program that’s easy to use across service lines. In-app training makes onboarding a snap and gets staff up-and-running in no time.

Financial Management Made Easy

Streamline and simplify for your community and for your residents. ePay and other tools make financial planning and billing hassle-free for both staff and payers. You can also use real-time forecasts to plan ahead and ensure you’re always on-budget.

Care Software with a Difference

Track service all in one place and create a comprehensive plan for every resident that evolves with his/her own unique needs. Every process is connected and can be seen, reviewed, and managed in one spot for exceptional continuity and excellent care.

Smarter Analytics

Our ElderSmarts Analytics software is built right into our Eldermark NEXT platform. Integrate data across teams and departments, and extract intelligent insights to make informed decisions. Draw your own conclusions and create an actionable plan, or use our expert recommendations to continue thriving.

Optimized Marketing Solutions

Our robust CRM solution is an unparalleled value all on its own, but when combined with the rest of the tools in Eldermark NEXT, it’s a sales, marketing, and management powerhouse that can’t be beat. Experience the ease and peace of mind of using a CRM and other marketing tools designed exclusively for senior living. 

Getting Started With Eldermark NEXT

Ready to learn more about how Eldermark NEXT can consolidate your platforms, improve your efficiency, and give you back time, money, and patience? We’d love to show you! Schedule a free demo with one of our experts, and learn how you could save over $1K a month for every resident.