Senior living operators are stepping up resident safety and security through technology.
In early May, Accushield, an entry management software provider for the senior living industry, released the inaugural “Safest Places to Live” recognition program. Operators were assessed across eight standards of resident security, including aspects such as controlled and accountable access, visible identification and community awareness, data privacy and information protection and mass emergency communication and accountability.
Accushield recognized 355 operators as the “safest places to live,” with operators such as New Perspective Senior Living and Priority Life Care meeting all eight standards. The importance of resident safety is underscored by the fact that senior living operators must provide both a lifestyle and health care services to their residents. According to Accushield, more families are in 2026 seeking proof that senior living communities will take care of their loved ones.
“For so long senior living was looked at as a pure hospitality play, and I think we’ve all recognized that it’s just not that way anymore,” Charles Mann, founder of Accushield, told Senior Housing News.
Some operators have upped their approach to resident security and safety over the last two years. Leaders at New Perspective Senior Living have increased the operator’s investment in new security programs and software by as much as 50% between 2025 and 2026.
Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Priority Life Care also sees resident safety and security as one of its specializations.
Making senior living safer
Leaders with Minnetonka, Minnesota-based New Perspective are building safety for residents into the company’s technology stack.
“It’s not like just a single platform, it ends up in a bunch of different things,” Brandon Tabbert, senior vice president of innovation and optimization at New Perspective told Senior Housing News.
New Perspective used Accushield for caregiver credentialing and increasing security for guests. The company invested in organizational charts in the case of an emergency built into its staff roster system, fall prevention and monitoring technology, security cameras, cybersecurity and a compliance and regulatory platform.
The company’s entire tech stack costs around $500,000 across its 46-community portfolio, Tabbert said. The costs are offset through fewer emergency room visits for residents and reduced workers’ compensation claims.
“We’ve got two different sides. Do I feel safe, and then also, how are we protecting the resident and company information on the back end?” Tabbert said. “There’s two different halves to how we define security.”
Priority Life Care’s leaders want residents to feel as safe as possible in their homes. Alongside rolling out visitor management software such as Accushield across its portfolio, the operator has invested in surveillance and access control upgrades with cameras in public areas, doors requiring key cards and access codes. It also is deploying AI tools to more quickly respond to and mitigate resident falls, according to Hueber.
Priority Life Care is revamping training to better train staff and keep them “keyed in on areas for the safety and wellness of the residents,” according to Director of Corporate Experience Justin Hueber. New Perspective builds in 60 days prior to implementing a new security program or software to communicate with staff about what will be happening and begin preparing staff, with regional teams focusing on in-person “intense” training for around two weeks, and monitoring it for another 30 to 60 days after implementation.
A new focus on security
The purpose of rolling out the “Safest Places to Live” designation for communities is to raise awareness around who is in a community, according to Mann.
“All we want to do is we want to put our flag in the ground and make a point to educate providers and senior living operators around the importance of monitoring, tracking and knowing at all times who’s in the building,” Mann said. “If we can move the needle from an education perspective, then we’ve done our job, and we’ve done what we said we were going to do.”
Priority Life Care is looking to approach resident security from a cultural perspective alongside the investments in training and programming, Hueber said. The company is taking cues from residents and their families as they do so.
“This is their home, and no one’s going to stay in their home if they don’t feel safe,” Hueber said. “Anything we can do to ease that burden for the family members, and then also the residents, we’re going to explore every avenue that we can, and try to make it truly a very comfortable and safe place for them to be.”
New Perspective has included residents and their families in safety presentations and councils for emergency preparedness to include them in security conversations, Tabbert said. Tabbert sees room for it to grow investments beyond where they are today , such as implementing electronic access to rooms akin to a hotel experience and more robust integration between software systems so they work coherently together.
“Ultimately, it’s getting all of these systems communicating to each other more, so that way we just have a better level of insight,” Tabbert said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily much more security-based technology, I think it’s pulling the value out of what has been getting deployed in the last couple years.”
