Raleigh startup’s app aims to keep seniors from feeling isolated during COVID-19
K4Connect, a Raleigh startup that builds software for retirement communities, is unveiling a new app to combat the feelings of isolation many senior-living residents are experiencing as their communities lock down to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Previously, the company had focused mainly on integrating smart devices and internet-of-things technologies into residential communities to make residents more easily connected and reachable by their health providers and community managers.
Now, for the next few months, K4Connect will remotely install and offer for free to all of its communities the K4Community Plus app — a social media platform meant to connect individuals more easily with other residents, family and staff while avoiding in-person contact during the coronavirus pandemic. The app will run on user’s phones, tablets or computers. When the free period expires, communities that want to continue using the app will pay a fee.
“Isolation for older adults ... is a real issue,” K4Connect’s CEO Scott Moody said over Zoom. “I’ve seen studies that write the effects [it has] physically and emotionally on a person ... is as much as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I mean, it has great impact right on their lives.”
The rollout comes as senior-living facilities and retirement homes have become hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks, an especially lethal trend given many people in these communities have pre-existing conditions that make them even more vulnerable to the disease. That has caused most communities to go on lock down, limiting the number of outside visitors to the facilities and keeping many residents confined to their apartments, homes or rooms.
K4Connect’s reach has grown tremendously in the past two years. In 2018, the company, which has raised more than $20 million from investors, told The News & Observer that it worked with around 60 retirement communities in the U.S. Now, the company provides service to around 800 communities, Moody said.
He said there’s a growing sense among communities that they need to have more communication channels with their residents, a sentiment that has increased with the outbreak of the coronavirus.
“We’ve moved from a nice thing to have to a, ‘We must have something like this,’” said Moody, who sold his last startup to Apple for $356 million in 2012.
The new app is meant to simplify communications between residents, staff and family by compiling all in one app a place to video chat, connect with neighbors, and find community notices and information about events and upcoming meals.
K4Connect’s platforms are designed for an older crowd who might not have as much experience using internet-connected devices.
“It’s really all about engagement,” he said, noting that unlike Facebook or other social platforms, K4Connect is not trying to sell users anything through advertisements. “The focus is that you’re not just staring at a screen but engaging with others, whether it’s you messaging them, whether it is video chat, whether it is calling them, or whether it is coordinating a hallway karaoke” like one community did.
The app also has a news feed that will show updates from the living facility and curated video content. One community, for example, has a live video of daily flag raising.
Len Weiser, president of White Horse Village, a retirement community in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, said K4Connect’s technology has made communication much easier during the pandemic.
The community had historically spread important information from its clubhouse, but with the threat of the coronavirus all common areas have been closed.
“It allows us to communicate without having residents coming to our clubhouse,” he said. “We can get immediate info out to them and it allows us to communicate general info and important dates to them 24/7.”
“We are using it like a programmed TV station,” he added.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
