How can a community make sure their residents are cared for, families are communicated with, and team members aren’t burnt out? Tune in as  Bryant McCann of Sage shares how their platform provides key pieces of data that equip operators to see the big picture of their community and promote seamless operations.

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Sage is a sponsor of Bridge the Gap. 

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This podcast was recorded at the 2025 ASHA Annual Meeting. 

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Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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Become a sponsor of Bridge the Gap.

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Listen to more episodes here.

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Intro

Welcome to season eight of Bridge the Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. The BTG network is powered by sponsors, Aline, NIC MAP, Procare HR, Sage, Hamilton CapTel, ServiceMaster, The Bridge Group Construction, and Solinty and produced by Solinity Marketing. Bridge the Gap in three, two.

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00:38 - 00:51

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast, the senior Living podcast with Josh and Lucas here at the ASHA Winter Meeting in beautiful Arizona. It's a beautiful day and we want to welcome our guests. Bryant McCann, welcome to the show.

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00:51 - 00:52

Bryant McCann

Thank you for having me.

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00:52 - 01:35

Lucas McCurdy

Hello, Sage. We got our partners, Sage on. We're really excited about our conversation today. And, you know, Sage has been a great supporter of our network. For our listeners. We cannot bring the great educational content that Bridge the Gap Network brings to you every single week without partners and supporters. And Sage has been an awesome supporter in that, and we really appreciate it.

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You know, there's a couple of topics we're gonna hit today. We're gonna talk about labor management, service creep, and then just technology as a whole, which is obviously a major talking point in our industry. So let's kick it off. Let's talk about the labor management piece of this. I know these are topics that you're really passionate about.

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01:35 - 02:28

Bryant McCann

First of all, Bryant McCann, been in the industry for about 16 years now. Prior to joining Sage, I was part of a company that brought a unique style to staffing, to senior living into the post-acute space. I'm passionate about labor, but what I'm really passionate about is delivering on the promises that we've made to our residents and our family members that are out there today, obviously driven from some, personal, challenges that I've had with, loved ones in senior living, situations that, you know, may not be that ideal.

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And where individuals weren't getting tended to and weren't being cared for. Because there is such a challenge with the labor that we're facing today, and we can break this down into several different areas. And I love to dive into it with both of you. But, it's always going to be everyone's biggest challenge, right? This is going to be labor. And it's something that I am passionate about solving. And so, which brought me to Sage, which I'm looking forward to sharing a little bit more about that here.

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02:28 - 03:44

Josh Crisp

You know, for operators, I think it's probably if we ask what keeps, if you ask the operators here, you know, ASHA, what keeps you up at night that something is going to be related to labor. And so there's obvious challenges out there. But, I have to believe with working in the industry for all these years and talking to the large operators, the small operators, there's great intentions, right?

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They're all in this business. It's a very tough business. Most of them are not here just because it's a great place to make a living, but they're really passionate about the mission of caring for people. But oftentimes, as you said, maybe not the best scenario because we didn't always have the information that we needed at our fingertips.

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Now, with all the emerging technologies, it's there, the technology's there to equip, the owners and the operators with the data. And then then it's really understanding what do you do with it? What do you learn from it? And that seems like something that you're very passionate about. And, having a solution for that problem. So what are ways and what are questions and what are tools that we should be thinking about as operators to address this service need that seems to be growing as the acuity in our industry grows?

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03:44 - 06:00

Bryant McCann

The first thing that I talk about with operators is there's a difference between performance or staff performance and shift performance. And if we actually have the data to look into that, we can start to solve this problem. I think gone are the days of trying to throw agency at all of our problems. We need to be smarter about it.

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So utilizing technology like Sage, we can be able to identify top performers, bottom performers we can identify for you. We overstaffed on this shift. Are we not based on the care in the needs that are out there? So to your point, operators didn't have this technology at their fingertips. Operators were also dealing with Covid, right? And all the challenges that came along with that, especially from a labor standpoint.

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You know, to your point, my mother, she's a nurse. She's been a nurse for 40 plus years. Right? She's always saying, this isn't a sexy industry, right? No nurse just drips lands and falls in this industry. You have to want to be here. You have to be passionate about caring for these individuals. And what we also are able to do at Sage using technology is shine a light on our top performers. Shine a light on these caregivers that never really get to the limelight. Shine on them. And it's not a fault of anybody, right? This is a very, very challenging job. It is not sexy. As I mentioned before, I always give this talk. You know, I say when we go into a nursing school, we always ask them, where do you want to end up?

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And everyone wants to be in labor and delivery, or they want to be in the door, right? Or and nobody ever says, I want to be in an assisted living, or I want to be in a skilled facility. And so shining a light on that use, utilizing technology, shining light on all the amazing things that are happening in our communities on a daily basis is what I am passionate about. And operators didn't have that opportunity before. A couple other things I want to talk about when we dive into that. But operators also didn't really have the opportunity to ask their caregivers right in, in an effective way. And so one of the best things that I think that our operators have done today is adopt the opportunity to deploy experience based on infection based questions to our, your caregivers to better understand what matters most to them, utilizing, you know, your technology from the from the bedside, but also utilizing technology to understand perception, the reputation, and if they want to even stay at in the community.

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And so asking them these questions empowers caregivers. And then that's what I think has been, one of the best things that came out of Covid is these operators are now understanding their staff. They're understanding the performance, but they're also taking the time and they're shining the light back on their caregivers because they know that's where the frontline is, and that's where the problems are being solved.

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06:00 - 06:18

Josh Crisp

A very popular term, I've heard we talk a lot in our businesses, in our operating platforms is cost creep. They use the term service creep. Unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by that? And why is that so relevant of a topic to operate a business in senior housing.

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06:18 - 08:18

Bryant McCann

So if you ask anybody, labor is obviously the first challenge and the service creep has become the new term, if you want to call it that. But what I mean by service creep is, I mean over delivery of care based on the level of care plans or the plans that have been set forth to the residents, upon intake.

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And so what we've been able to do at Sage is we've actually been able to identify all the unplanned care there's actually being delivered. And this kind of goes back to the whole caregiver. Right before caregivers weren't able to shine light on, you know, you didn't know if Bethany or Tim was there. You know, it was over delivering and really fulfilling the promises again, that we've made to our residents and our family members and their loved ones delivering care.

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And that's what they're going to do. They're not just not going to deliver care, but we have to have a way from an operating standpoint to be able to identify what we call service creep. And so that is what I call unplanned care that is being logged and documented and delivered, that isn't being charged for it.

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And, you know, I know everyone is challenged with cost, right? You mentioned it earlier there. But one of the big reasons why our caregivers are leaving this industry is burnout. Right? Or if you want to call it burn overs, the new term out there, where you combine overtime and burnout together, they're burnt out because again, they're over delivering on the care plans that are out there today.

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And they're not, we're not able to shine a light on that at all. And so now we're able to put a magnifying glass on that. Operators are able to see and start to have what I would call constructive conversations with family members and loved ones. Right. It's never easy to bring a family member or a loved one in as a resident and have that tough conversation where maybe we need to transition them from this level of care, maybe from assisted to a skill setting.

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It's never easy to do that. And so once we have the data that makes that conversation so much easier for our nurse leaders at the communities and for our operators, to put proper levels of care plans in place. And that's actually one of my favorite things that's come of service creep in when we've been chatting with folks is a lot of operators are revisiting their levels of care plans, and how are we doing it? Or are we using a point system? Are we using a time system? What does that look like so that we can ensure that we're not only delivering the care that we want to deliver, but properly giving our caregivers the resources to do that as well?

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08:18 - 09:29

Josh Crisp

Well, when you're addressing so many issues, and I think the one of the big ones you touched on is, you know, those conversations that, an administrator or director of nursing or whoever might be having the conversation with the family that says, hey, you know, the cost of care is going up, you know, or however they want to phrase that when, you know, if you look across the industry, so many of these families have one, they've entrusted their most valuable asset to a community to take care of them.

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But many of them are also subsidized housing, the cost of the care and while trying to provide for their families. So, you know, it's not even that the resistance is, for any other reason, but they're having to be so efficient. They want mom to get the appropriate care, but they want to know exactly what they're getting and what the cost is and why. It seems like now you guys are helping to equip that administrator, that community leader with the tools to actually justify, hey, here is the time that we're spending mom or dad and and here's how we're doing it and why we're doing it. And here's what they think about it. Here's how they feel about it. Would that be accurate?

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09:29 - 11:14

Bryant McCann

It would be 100% accurate, you know, and it's shining a light on it from a transparency standpoint. You know, I think gone are the days of, you know, calling up your loved one or your resident in a community and asking them how they're doing. You know, I think today, family members, these loved ones who are, you know, carrying the burden of the cost at least.

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For instance, I think it's time we start delivering reports to them. I think it's time that we start communicating with them and providing that insight and that transparency to the actual care that is being delivered. You know, to your point, you know, we hear from our nurse leaders all the time, you know. Well, an angry family member called up and said, no one's checking on Bill.

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His call light has been going on for how long? And he says that no one's ever checking on him. And you can actually start to say, actually, Bill is one of our highest alerters, right? And we've been actually meaning to chat with you. We need to have a conversation about the care assessment and about the care that is being delivered to them. But it's that transparency piece. To your point. You know, if I'm paying for something, I want to know darn well what every and where every penny is going to. And so if we can and what we want to do here at Sage is we want to be able to deliver that to the family members as well. We want to provide them insight because they can't be in the community every day.

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They don't know. Well, what if we could provide a daily report to them that they could get instantly on their phone, where they can have a full understanding of all the activities and everything that took place that day and all the care that was delivered, whether it was planned or unplanned to their loved one. I think that that would be so powerful and that would really knock down that barrier. That perception that so many folks have about our industry is, you know, they're no one's taking care of them. And, you know, they're just lonely and hurt. And actually, there's some phenomenal things that are happening in our communities on a daily basis. And it's more power to these operators who are thinking, you know, thinking differently about this. They're very innovative about what they're doing with their residents and, and the way that they're delivering the care. So transparency would be the biggest thing that I think would help aid in that conversation.

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11:14 - 11:45

Josh Crisp

So let's take it a step further. You know, we're talking about labor management and service creep, kind of providing that insight, helping maybe even address some of the, the burnout issues in our industry in the turnover. But let's go a step further and talk about quality outcomes. It seems like this should have an impact on residents' quality of life, quality of services, and the adequacy of services. So what do you see tools like this having an impact on the actual residents quality of life and outcomes?

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11:45 - 12:28

Bryant McCann

So obviously I think that it's only going to benefit them. Right. Obviously if they're needing the care and their acuity is at such a level, then let's make sure that we're able to deliver it to them. But let's also align that to the plan that's out there today. When it comes to the labor management and, and the turnover piece that we're all facing today with, with our caregivers, with our platform, what we're going to do is shine a light on that and be able to identify these top performers that are in these communities today.

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We're going to be able to show them and say, hey, actually, look at, you know, staff member number one over here. Look at what they're doing. Look at all the care that they are delivering to these individuals here today. So when it comes to that, you know, if anything that we can do from a technology standpoint to pull back the curtains and shine a light on the care that's actually being delivered, is what we.

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12:28 - 12:59

Josh Crisp

Over the last couple of years, there's been a ton of talk about value based care. Tons of the operators, here in Asia are positioning themselves to be part of that value based care network. There's a whole network spinning up in our industry around that. Where do you see technology being a real, true partner for those operators that want to be in a position to be in a value based care network, moving into 2025, 26 and beyond.

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12:59 - 13:59

Bryant McCann

VBC, what we need is data. We're going to need to have that insight. And we need to have that same transparency that I mentioned earlier that we're able to provide to these operators, that then they can then turn around and take this data and obviously apply it to their value based care initiatives that they're putting in place today.

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Without this data, you wouldn't be able to do that. So with Sage, since we were able to capture not only plan but all the unplanned care, really the holistic approach here, we are able to now arm our operators with realistic data, care data, and service thousands of different events daily that can then be applied to the value based care and issues that they're putting out there today.

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And I'm a big fan of value based care. I think performance should matter. Quality outcomes should be the focus and whether that is, through different means of delivering care, therapeutic, whatever it might be. I think we need to have data to be able to back that up. But too much data, right? It's the right type of data. And so that's what we're working with our operators on, is identifying the right type of data that should be sent back to their right, so that they can properly assess the care models that they have in place and the care that's being delivered.

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13:59 - 14:27

Josh Crisp

Lucas, you know, we say this a lot, but we really have a front row seat, in our listeners, due to the great partnerships that we have and bridge the gap that bring great, great solutions to problems we're all facing across the country. And so the Bridge the Gap Network is blessed to have partners like Sage, that have come alongside us not only to just provide great content, but to help the industry solve some big problems, to help move the industry forward.

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14:27 - 14:43

Lucas McCurdy

Absolutely. And I know our listeners are going to want to continue to connect with you and continue the conversation. And a great place to do that is btgvoice.com. Download this content and so much more. Hit us up on LinkedIn. We want to hear from you and thanks for listening to another great episode, The Bridge the Gap.

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Outro

Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at btgvoice.com.