Why Every Senior Living Community Will Adopt Real-Time Location Services

Senior living stands at an inflection point. 

Within the next five years, Real-Time Location Services (RTLS), like that offered by Tenera Care, will transition from competitive advantage in senior living communities to operational necessity. The convergence of three forces makes this inevitable: escalating safety requirements, workforce constraints, and the data demands of artificial intelligence systems that promise to transform elder care.

The case for universal adoption is not speculative. It is mathematical.

The Safety Imperative

Consider the numbers. 

Today, over 7 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, a number that is expected to grow considerably. According to the Alzheimer's Association, six in ten people with dementia will wander. The organization reports that if not found within 24 hours, up to half of those who wander risk serious injury or death.

Many senior living communities with memory care units rely on perimeter systems that trigger alarms after a resident has already breached a secure area. This is reactive care in its most primitive form. RTLS technology monitors resident movement continuously, tracking patterns and identifying anomalies before they become emergencies. When a resident with dementia begins moving toward an exit, staff receive alerts with enough time to intervene. 

Falls represent the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults. The CDC reports that one out of four Americans aged 65 and older falls each year, and there are over three million emergency room visits each year as a result of senior falls. One independent study saw that senior living communities using Tenera Care’s solution saw falls drop by 55 percent.

The liability exposure alone will drive adoption. As RTLS becomes standard practice across the industry, communities without these systems will face untenable risk. Families researching communities will compare these capabilities as rigorously as they evaluate staffing ratios and medical services.

This is not about technology replacing human judgment. It is about giving caregivers the information they need to act decisively.

The Workforce Reality

The math on staffing is unforgiving. 

According to PHI, the direct care workforce will need to recruit 7.4 million workers between 2019 and 2029 to meet growing demand. That number is driven by a growing number of seniors as well as the high degree of turnover among caregivers, driven from the industry by workload and stress.

RTLS can help address this staffing challenge by enhancing workforce effectiveness. A single staff member monitoring a dashboard can maintain awareness of dozens of residents simultaneously, responding to genuine needs rather than conducting routine checks on residents who are safe and content. Location data reveals which residents require attention and which areas of a community need coverage at any given moment.

The technology also protects staff. When caregivers face aggressive behavior or medical emergencies, location tracking ensures help arrives immediately. For staff working night shifts or in isolated areas of large campuses, this represents both safety assurance and peace of mind.

The economic case is clear. The cost of RTLS infrastructure represents a fraction of the expense of recruiting and training replacement staff. With annual turnover costs in senior living exceeding $5,000 per employee, technology that improves retention and productivity delivers returns within the first year.

The AI Foundation

Perhaps the most significant driver of universal RTLS adoption will emerge from rapidly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) applications that cannot function without granular location data. AI systems that predict health events, optimize care delivery, and personalize interventions require continuous streams of behavioral information. Location data provides the foundation for this intelligence, but that data must be precise in order to be effective.

Machine learning algorithms can predict clinical deterioration in hospitalized patients by analyzing patterns in vital signs and movement data. Similar applications in senior living will identify subtle changes in mobility patterns that signal the onset of urinary tract infections, medication side effects, or cognitive decline days before clinical symptoms appear.

The same data powers AI systems that optimize staffing deployment, routing caregivers to residents who need assistance and adjusting coverage based on real-time demand patterns. Instead of fixed schedules that may leave some residents waiting while staff remain idle elsewhere, AI coordinates care delivery with precision that was impossible in analog environments.

Privacy concerns, while legitimate, will not prevent adoption. Families choosing between communities that offer AI-powered predictive care and those that rely on traditional reactive approaches or intrusive cameras in personal spaces will overwhelmingly select the AI option. Families will quickly demand location monitoring as a standard feature.

The Path Forward

Senior living communities have a narrow window to implement RTLS strategically rather than reactively. The transition will happen faster than most industry observers expect.

Many senior living communities offer a continuum of care that will require continuous coverage, both indoors and throughout outdoor spaces. Early adopters gain time to refine workflows, train staff, and integrate location data into care protocols before competitive and regulatory pressures force rapid deployment. They will build institutional knowledge about how to extract maximum value from the technology and establish themselves as innovation leaders in competitive markets.

The industry will look back on this period as the moment when senior care moved from analog to digital, from reactive to predictive, from staffing-dependent to technology-enhanced. Communities that recognize this transition and act accordingly will thrive. Those that wait will find themselves explaining to families why they failed to adopt safety and care technologies that became industry standard.

The question is not whether RTLS will become universal in senior living. The question is which communities will lead the transition and which will scramble to catch up.