The demand for senior care services is poised for intense growth in the next 10 years as the Baby Boomer generation enters retirement. By 2030, an estimated 73 million baby boomers will be 65 or older and many of these individuals will eventually need senior housing and care services.
Advanced technology in senior living has not kept pace with this growth and companies see opportunities to use artificial intelligence to build a new type of resident care.
Health tech company Inspiren developed intelligent AI-powered solutions for senior living that integrates care planning, resident safety, staff efficiency and emergency call functionalities into one system.
Inspiren (think "inspire") picked up $35 million to continue to scale its AI technology to more senior living facilities and build out its clinical and engineering teams. The series A funding round was led by Avenir with participation from Primary Venture Partners, Story Ventures, Third Prime and Studio VC.
The company combines technology with the human side of care, said founder Michael Wang.
"This allows us to be able to use humanity to amplify the best that caregivers have to offer," he noted. "I think we're at the new age where technology can play a role in making things more efficient, more impactful, and allowing the same number of staff members to keep a larger population much safer by automating the safety process."
The Inspiren AI-driven ecosystem combines software with proprietary hardware centered around the company's AUGi care companion device, which stands for augmented intelligence. The device is installed in senior living residents' rooms to collect information about the physical space.
"It knows who is in the room, what people are doing in the room, and also it collects useful information that reflect quality of care as well as the overall clinical efficiency of the organization. We take all of that and we create dashboards and data that allows senior living organizations to have much better handle on their overall profitability as well as clinical efficiency," Wang said.
The dashboards enable senior living facilities to monitor operational efficiency, staffing as well as safety.
The AUGi device uses technology called geometric exoskeletal monitoring (GEM) to track the skeletal geometry and movement of a human body to improve resident safety, such as preventing falls, and collect data to evaluate the overall quality of care, Wang said.
The use of GEM technology protects residents' privacy as it displays a computer vision skeleton of the individual, rather than an identifying image.
"It's important to call out this is not a security camera. This is very different from a security camera. It autonomously knows what's going on with the residents without having to stream any videos or any HD image off-site. All of the computation takes place on the device level," said Wang.
Residents also are not required to wear any devices, he noted.
The company now added a new technology to the ecosystem, AUGi Call, an emergency call system with live video triage, visual context and two-way voice capabilities. AUGi Call data, combined with information from the entire ecosystem, offers a comprehensive view into community-wide care utilization and delivers data-driven insights to personalize care for each resident, according to the company.
Key components of the Inspiren solution include care level planning and billing, resident safety and workforce optimization. The technology can track care delivery and analyze resident health data to inform operational and clinical decisions. Inspiren's clinical team assesses both community-wide and individual resident insights, including care utilization, behavioral trends and staff activity to drive proactive care planning.
The use of AI can help to detect fall risks, identify high-risk residents and provide recommendations for preventative care. The technology solution also can help streamline staff workflows and enhance triage with live visual context, giving care teams more capacity to improve response times and spend more time with residents. On average, communities are able to reduce response times to 90 seconds, the company said.
Wang, a former Green Beret and cardiothoracic nurse, initially launched Inspiren's technology in the acute care space and then recognized the need for advanced, AI-powered technology to improve operations and resident safety in senior living facilities.
"I came from the acute care space where I practiced as a nurse at the bedside for about five years. I was shocked that we were so helpless against things such as falls, we had no data generation into the care process. There's no way to quantify or to benchmark our success as clinicians, outside of the Star Wars-like technology that we have for surgeries. For surgeries and procedures, we have the best of the best. But when it comes to the care process and the healing process, which is really what the senior living space is designed for, we really did not have any data generation into that area," he noted.
In the past 18 months, Inspiren has seen rapid adoption of its technology by senior living facilities, Wang said, and the company works with more than 150 senior living communities.
Instead of focusing on one aspect of care, Inspiren combines care planning, staff optimization, emergency response and resident safety into one platform, alongside dedicated clinical support. Inspiren’s team of clinicians uses data insights to recommend care plan adjustments.
Rather than having disparate care and operational management solutions, Inspiren provides technologies and data that operators, care teams, residents and their families need in one fully-integrated system, according to Wang.
The senior living industry already faces significant challenges like inconsistent and limited care standards, rising healthcare costs and increasingly complex care needs. As 95% of baby boomers have at least one chronic condition, an influx of seniors entering care with higher acuity than ever before will only further strain the existing senior care infrastructure.
"For the first time, I think, the senior living space is pushing for transparency and is looking to organize their organizations in a way that maximizes efficiency and quality, rather than just blindly doing the same thing they've been doing all along. Those forces are pushing for innovation in this space," Wang said. "Within just 18 months of being in this space, we've seen massive adoption, that only speaks to the need for this type of technology and also the need for transparency."
The company claims that its technology has helped prevent up to 30% of missed revenue due to inaccurate care levels, ensuring fair and transparent billing while improving care outcomes. One case study showed an 83% reduction in 911 calls due to falls.
Jared Sleeper, partner at Avenir Growth Capital, noted that Inspiren is the first to tackle critical pain points—from staffing and inefficient workflows to inconsistent billing and resident safety—in one seamlessly integrated platform.
The company brings an integrated platform approach, "building various value-added modules on top of its core sensor technology," Sleeper noted.
"By working with cutting-edge manufacturers to build sensors that are tailor-made to eldercare environments, Inspiren has been able to provide easy implementations with immediate ROI while leaving room for future product development. Over time, we see an opportunity for Inspiren to become a core platform of record for its customers- giving them powerful, actionable insights and datasets driven by AI interpretation of its data," he said.
Avenir is bullish on the opportunities to use AI to advance data collection in healthcare settings.
"As we spoke with numerous leaders in the elder care industry, we came to believe that better collection of critical data in senior living to monitor resident health, track and prevent falls and analyze care levels is an inevitable trend- and that video AI-based systems are clearly the most efficient, practical and effective way to collect that data," Sleeper said. "Deployed well, they can prevent falls, enable better resident experiences, help staff manage their work volumes and help facilities have constructive conversations about care levels with families. We saw Inspiren leading the charge here and emerging as a category leader."
Sam Toole, partner at Primary Venture Partners, said senior living communities are in desperate need of data and insights on when, why, and how care is delivered — or not.
"It’s a blind spot that exacerbates adverse events and staffing challenges in an environment where health costs keep rising. We are bullish on Inspiren for a number of reasons — large TAM, underserved market with a lack of competition, significant tailwinds with senior demographic growth, a great business model, and a fantastic team. Most importantly, it's a company that actually helps ensure that residents are healthier on a day-to-day basis," he said.