Cobb Senior Services Doubles Senior Engagement with Daily Automated Content in Georgia
The Challenge
Cobb Senior Services immediately recognised that the pandemic had cut off seniors from receiving care at local senior centers and highlighted the existing digital divide for older adults which dramatically increased the rates of social isolation.
Senior centers that usually provided vital programs that did not exist elsewhere could no longer offer the same. Faced with these challenges and given their role to serve the seniors in their community, Cobb Senior Services needed a solution to decrease social isolation for their seniors and increase event participation.
The Solution
Cobb Senior Services partnered with Claris Companion for the technology, an easy-to-use tablet, and software solution specifically designed for older seniors.
Key features of Claris Companion include:
- Care Management Console a web-based dashboard that allows care staff and select family members to remotely manage the tablets and monitor the progress of the tablet users.
- Integrated messaging, video calling, photo sharing, internet browsing, games, alerts, and more.
- One-click customization for staff to remotely personalize each tablet.
- Claris InsightsTM reporting and data visualization of the Claris Companion platform that helps staff report how clients are interacting with their tablets at home.
The Need to Increase Engagement
The program with Cobb Senior Services began by deploying 47 assigned tablets to selected seniors. For the first month after the rollout, Cobb’s users had a total of 306 interactions, mostly initiated by the seniors themselves by accessing resource content such as websites and games.
During a scheduled engagement consultation with the Claris customer success team, Cobb staff expressed the desire to increase the number of interactions each senior had on the tablets by sending content, such as trivia, virtual travel, meditation, and event reminders.
But due to limited staff at Cobb, the content curation, scheduling, and delivery needed to be automated.
Results
On September 26, 2022 Cobb Senior Services launched the Claris Companion Automated Daily Content (ADC) to their seniors.
In the first four weeks since the ADC was deployed, Cobb’s users have increased their total interactions from an average of 58 interactions per day to more than 164 – representing a 181% increase in engagement.
The graph below from the integrated Claris InsightsTM module shows that interactions across all activities more than doubled from month-to-month.
The next graph represents the breakdown of activities by type across the entire program showing a dramatic increase in Events participation.
| Before Automated Daily Content | After Automated Daily Content |
 |  |
Feedback from the Cobb Senior Services team also showed that the tablet opened a channel of communication for socially isolated seniors who until then had no other way to connect online with friends, family, or caregivers.
The following video (produced by Cobb Senior Services) captures the heartfelt feedback from the seniors themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12c4qWKFmSI
Staff also noted that due to the intuitive design of the Claris Companion tablets, there wasn’t a need to provide time-consuming technical training to seniors in order for them to learn how to use their tablets.
Summary
Cobb Senior Services found that while their senior engagement program was initially successful, having automated content and activities for their seniors was essential to driving the highest level of engagement. The combination of the Claris Companion tablet, Care Management Console, Claris InsightTM, and Automated Daily Content provides an efficient and sustainable solution for alleviating social isolation by allowing seniors to be connected to the things that matter most.
