K4Connect Teams Up with Amazon to Connect Thousands of Older Adults in Isolation Through Free Voice Experiences

 K4Connect, a mission-driven technology company that creates solutions that serve and empower older adults and individuals living with disabilities, announced a new initiative with Amazon to support senior living residents during COVID-19. K4Connect is distributing over 8,000 Echo Dots to more than 40 independent and assisted living communities in West Coast regions highly affected by COVID-19, allowing residents to use voice technology to stay more connected while in isolation. Devices were donated by Amazon as part of a $5 million device donations program created in response to COVID-19, and will integrate with K4Community, K4Connect’s advanced enterprise solution designed for the residents and staff of senior living communities. The experience allows residents to immediately begin their voice experience with minimal involvement from community staff. Communities simply plug in the Echo devices and start enjoying all the benefits of Amazon Alexa, as well as various new capabilities from K4Connect that make community information, services, and communication just an “Alexa” request away.

Older adults are one of the most vulnerable and isolated populations experiencing this crisis. Senior living communities are working hard to keep residents safe and engaged while managing the impacts the virus has had on daily operations and the resident experience. Technology has quickly emerged as another avenue to manage this, keeping residents connected (with the community, each other and their families), informed, and engaged during periods of quarantine, and voice technologies like Alexa are making this even more accessible. The natural interface means the resident experience is as easy as talking and allows community staff to easily reach hundreds of residents in an instant.

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With the K4Community Voice integration with Amazon Alexa, communities are diversifying how residents access information (announcements, daily menus), creating new means of connection through voice-dialing with K4Community’s “Call My Neighbor” feature, and even reimagining daily activities with socially distanced or virtual events like Hallway Sing-a-Longs with Alexa. K4Connect also recently released the K4Community Hotline, a recorded phone message feature that allows community staff to keep residents and families constantly updated while relieving high inbound call volumes. This feature is also easily accessible for residents via voice through Amazon Alexa.

“The opportunity to work with Amazon to serve older adults through this donation effort was obvious for us. COVID-19 has quickly magnified areas where voice technology can help, and fast – people need relief now,” said K4Connect CEO and Co-Founder, Scott Moody. “Our enterprise solution allows us to deploy, manage, and support these devices at scale and fully remote, meaning residents get the relief they need quickly and community staff teams are not burdened by installing or managing the technology.”

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The program will reach over 40 senior living communities, including Eskaton, MBK Senior Living (MBK), and Front Porch headquartered in California, as well as Era Living, Horizon House, and Bayview in Washington. In late 2019, MBK teamed with K4Connect to lead its technology transformation through the K4Community solution which will support 3,400 residents and staff. As MBK President Jeff Fischer said, “Bringing K4Connect on as our technology partner allows us to uniquely deliver on our mission of providing quality programming and outstanding care for our residents. Our K4Community Voice pilots in 2019 were so successful that we immediately jumped at the opportunity to accelerate and extend that resource during COVID-19 and beyond.”

Eskaton, a K4Connect community partner since early 2018 and a leading not-for-profit senior living operator, is building upon its current K4Community voice implementation that is already seeing 80% daily resident usage. “Eskaton believes in creating adaptive living environments that empower the independence and well-being of all residents, regardless of age and ability. This mission is especially critical now as we face the continued challenges of the Coronavirus. We have long seen the value of voice for our residents through K4Community and this partnership has enabled us to seamlessly expand that quickly and at scale,” said Eskaton Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Sheri Peifer.

K4Connect is the leading provider of enterprise-grade technologies for senior living communities, currently serving tens of thousands of residents at over 800 premier continuing care, independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the nation. The company’s flagship solution, K4Community, brings together the best in technology to serve residents, staff and operators alike.

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