Infrastructure for internet connectivity was the most common technology investment made over the past year by long-term care operators responding to a new survey, and data analytics tools were the most frequently cited investment planned for the next 12 months.

Specialty investment bank Ziegler surveyed 100 senior living and care organization chief financial officers and other financial professionals, chief technology officers and chief information officers in July.

The survey found that the most common technology investments made by the responding organizations over the past year were for information and communications technology infrastructure such as high-speed internet connectivity (58%), electronic medical or health records systems (51%), workforce/staffing scheduling systems (48%), electronic point of care/point of service documentation systems (47%) and access control/wander management systems (44%).

The least common investments over the past year were those in shared care planning and care coordination tools (14%), health information exchange solutions (14%) and robotic process automation (9%).

Looking toward the future, the most common investments that participating organizations said they planned to make over the next 12 months were for data analytics tools such as dashboards and decision support (40%), access control/wander management systems (30%) and electronic medical or health records systems (29%).

The least common planned future investments on a list of 20 possibilities were telehealth/telemedicine (9%), video conferencing capabilities for residents/clients (8%) and infection control systems (7%).

Additional survey results are posted on Ziegler’s website.