Omega Looks to Continue to be Opportunistic With Tech Investments for its SNF Tenants – Skilled Nursing News

As skilled nursing facilities continue to face financial constraints brought on by the pandemic, Omega Healthcare Investors (NYSE: OHI) wants to help support its operators’ technological improvements by investing in the space.

Through a partnership with MyndVr, a leading virtual reality provider, the real estate investment trust (REIT) will bring virtual reality experiences to its 956 skilled nursing and senior living properties.

Vikas Gupta, Omega’s senior vice president of acquisitions and development, and Matthew Gourmand, senior vice president of corporate strategy and investor relations, told Skilled Nursing News that the REIT’s technology strategy in 2022 and beyond continues to be “opportunistic.”

“To the extent that we find investments that are therapeutically, clinically, or socially enhancing, and fit our financial criteria, we would look to invest,” Gupta and Gourmand wrote in an email.

This isn’t Omega’s first technology investment in recent months. The company prepaid $10 million to utilize SafelyYou’s technology, which uses artificial intelligence-enabled video to detect falls and record them.

The SafelyYou investment fit exactly what Gupta and Gourmand were looking for in a number of ways as it improved resident outcomes, aided the timeliness of caregiver response and addressed a common issue faced by the aging community.

“We think the pandemic has greatly sped up the adoption of technology within many areas of society – from virtual meetings and remote working to online shopping and food delivery and the seniors space has not been immune to this,” Gupta and Gourmand wrote.

They said the increased adoption of technology across the aging industry has only increased the importance and relevance of technology investments for Omega as it can be used to differentiate a facility in the marketplace.

They also said that investments like this are a way for Omega to combine its ability to assist operators with their capital needs, along with providing them access to technology initiatives that can improve a facility’s financial performance by increasing productivity.

Recent technology investments have allowed Omega’s tenants to improve clinical evaluations with monitoring devices and fall detection, improve resident engagement with virtual reality experiences and access to virtual games and caregiver efficiency with timely notifications of resident issues, according to Gourmand and Gupta.

Omega also acquired Connected Living last year in a move to bring an in-house tech option for the REIT’s senior housing and care tenants.

The Quincy, Mass.-based Connected Living offers a variety of technology services for senior living providers, including mobile apps, in-room television systems, resident engagement platforms and video communication setups.

Gupta and Gourmand said the service has seen “outstanding growth” in the 14 months since the deal was closed. The number of facilities using the technology has reportedly doubled and resident engagement has been “very strong.”

Omega said during its Q4 2021 earnings call last month that its investment pipeline is “incredibly active” with $841 million in new investments, including $164 million for capital expenditures.

Gupta and Gourmand expect technology to permeate every area of the industry over time and want to continue to leverage Omega’s relationships, experience and capital to invest in technology to support its residents, caregivers and operators.