By MaryLee Hermann

“We’re the BEST!” every engagement platform claims, citing vague reasons. With so many out there, how on earth are you supposed to choose one? Perhaps the better question is, “where” on earth?

You know it’ll make everybody’s life easier — for staff, residents, and family to all have a central place to communicate and get info. But from the approximately 1.15 million options, which one’s best for you? And given how often these pop up and disappear, will the one you choose — and invest training on — be around next year?

Even at Foresight, where we’re constantly “engaging” with various tech companies, we sometimes have trouble sorting one engagement platform from the other.

That’s why, after an initial meeting with ResHub (a Foresight partner) — a platform that’s available internationally and now coming to the U.S. — our whole team sat there with bugged-out eyes.

This one stands out.

But judge for yourself!

Passion and Research

When I was a flight attendant, I loved going to Ireland, hanging out in pubs, drinking cider and Guinness, and chatting with the locals. Though the job itself had many benefits, the opportunity to engage with people outside my usual circle was the most rewarding part.

All those memories came back as we listened to ResHub’s co-founders, Sean McLoughlin and Neil Hosey, speak in their Irish accents about their “why.”

About seven years ago, with experience in tech and health care, Sean and Neil were inspired to do extensive research (and I mean extensive, in-depth, scientific research) into technology and design for older people … which led them to this idea: There were some huge things wrong with resident communication platforms. For example:

  1. They were too complex to be usable.
  2. They produced zero revenue.
  3. Many incorporated residents as an afterthought, rather than be designed to meet everybody’s needs equally.

So Sean and Neil worked with leading groups around the world (these guys aren’t playing) to develop a platform that …

  • Is truly easy to use — for staff, residents, and family. This means:
    • People actually use it.
    • New staff are easily trained on it.
  • Generates revenue for your community. This kind of feature is popular in other parts of the world but is just making its way to the U.S.
  • Beneath the ease-of-use simplicity, incorporates a complex, comprehensive algorithm that gives you a 360º wellness view of each resident. By evaluating all sorts of things, like number of family visits, spiritual attendance, and activity participation, the platform paints a holistic picture of each resident’s well-being, to help you better care for them — and prevent problems.

And that’s just the start. There is much more to this robust, thoughtful platform.

Purposeful Technology

What I love more than anything else about ResHub is that Sean and Neil are crazy passionate about creating “purposeful technology.” They’re committed to the idea that any technology they developed should enhance health and well-being, including attributes “like purposeful living, social connection, and self-advocacy — which research shows leads to enhanced health outcomes for all of us, not just older adults,” Sean said.

Coming from a household of police officers, nurses, and teachers, he said with a chuckle, “I was never going to work for a gambling app.”

To take a look at the European platform that stands above so many others, schedule a demo … and see if your eyes pop out of your head like ours did!