Amidst a challenging year, CMSS’s partnerships with incredible organizations have been instrumental in keeping our communities safe, entertained and communicating. Parasol Alliance, our technology partner, has been foundational in helping us to keep our communities connected.
What is Parasol Alliance?
Parasol Alliance offers in-house technology strategy and support exclusively for senior living communities such as CMSS. Their mission is to bring strategy and innovation to their senior living clients’ use of technology in a variety of ways.
Roughly five years ago, Amber Bardon, CEO of Parasol Alliance, realized senior living communities’ need for comprehensive technology strategy and support. In order for senior living communities to focus on providing the best possible care to residents and meet their long range strategic initiatives, they needed to leverage technology. Amber approached several senior living community leaders, including CMSS CEO and president Bill Lowe, who is a founding board member of Parasol Alliance, and the idea turned into a reality. Now, as the company grows, they’re able to help transform the technology culture across more senior living communities.
With CMSS, Parasol Alliance developed a strategic plan for technology implementation and supported our day-to-day needs with on-site support and project implementation. This allowed us to improve our business systems, cyber security, policies, and procedures and much more.
How Parasol Alliance Helps Senior Communities In a Pandemic
Parasol Alliance is unique in that they were an entirely virtual company before the pandemic. When COVID-19 arrived, they were well equipped for the growing needs of senior communities to make a digital shift.
“We were asking ourselves questions like, ‘what obstacles are our clients going to be facing?'” said Rachel Lugge, Vice President of Communications. “With that mindset, we were able to put a couple of initiatives into play.”
The company got busy providing critical support to senior communities. A few of the free services they provided include:
- A work-from-home guide that outlines all of the business and operations systems that a community would need so employees could work remotely when necessary
- A Tech At Home Hotline that teaches senior community residents how to select the right video conferencing tool, set it up, and use it
- Educational webinars that taught communities virtual communication best practices
“Senior living providers are ready and willing to invest in technology,” Lugge said. “There’s been more of a focus on, ‘how can we as providers support our residents’ technology needs?'”
CMSS cannot wait for in-person communication to return, but we agree with Lugge; virtual communication is not going away. Senior living communities have to be equipped for changing needs of residents, staff, and family members. Thank you to Parasol Alliance for keeping us at the forefront of innovation in technology solutions!
To learn more about our partnerships, visit our blog.