Congratulations! Business is booming and you’ve scouted the perfect location for your next senior living community. It’s an exciting time and a busy one, and planning new senior living construction can be complex. Immediate needs tend to take a back seat to some important infrastructure items, and one of these is IT.
Today’s seniors demand modern amenities, including the ability to get a telephone installed in their room, purchase cable TV plans, and add internet access. That’s not to mention the network infrastructure you need to run your business. The necessary technology can’t be an afterthought. It’s important to plan IT. You can save a lot of time and money, and have happier residents along with more productive staff.
When it comes to new senior living construction, IT is often an afterthought, which makes it difficult to meet your needs. It’s important to include your IT team upfront to reduce stress now and later. Let’s talk about exactly why you should plan IT into new senior living construction and how the process works.
IT Starts With a Vacant Lot
We’re talking about technology here, so you might wonder what a vacant lot has to do with it. For an IT professional, a vacant lot and what’s around it has a lot to say when it comes to the availability of internet and phone services.
The Process is Complicated
You might think it’s no big deal. You order the service, and the providers come and install them. But it’s not that simple.
The wait time between ordering services for your new senior living construction and having them go live inside the building can be close to six months. The providers will want initial site surveys, calculation of construction costs, cost justification from those providers for those construction costs, demark identification and conduit planning, conduit site surveys, and permitting. Then there’s the construction of the building, interior structured cabling, and finally, installation.
During peak construction periods all of this can take even longer. And if your lot is newly parceled, you may not even have an address. In this case, it can be difficult to figure out which property line will be the entry point for internet access onto your property.
Complicated? Yes. But these kinds of considerations are some of the reasons you need to plan IT, and have the right professionals on the job.
Plan IT Early
The first step is to list requirements. Then once you know what you need, it’s vitally important to plan IT early in the construction process. An IT professional with experience with senior communities can quickly identify shortfalls in the site or building’s ability to meet your IT needs. The considerations listed above can put your project not only behind schedule, but cost you a lot of time and money, not to mention headaches.
You’ll need technology drawings for data, fax, and phone, and to identify equipment rooms, which means your IT team will have to coordinate with electricians, plumbers, contractors, and architects.
When it comes to saving money, by identifying the important aspects of your new senior living construction, your IT team can not only prepare, but they can negotiate with providers on both deadlines and cost.
They can also remind you of important considerations you may have forgotten, including conference room wiring, which may require floor trenches during construction, which will eliminate the need for draped patch cables later.
You see why it’s important to plan IT into your new senior living construction. By being proactive, and involving IT early in the planning process and building IT needs into design and cost accounting upfront, your new building project will be both better informed and less frustrating.
Without an advanced plan for your IT needs, you may find yourself with a finished building with no network infrastructure.
When It’s Time to Plan IT for New Senior Living Construction, Choose RSN
When you work with RSN, you’re working with someone who has been handling new senior living construction projects for more than 20 years. We know the gaps that need to be filled so vendor scopes do not overlap or miss a mission-critical component, ensuring a smooth transition on opening day.
We also offer:
- IT planning and installation for acquisitions
- Project management
- Vendor management
- Security systems
- Enterprise voice
- Enterprise Wi-Fi
- Building infrastructure design
- Telecommunications systems
Reach out today to find out how we can save you time, money, and headaches when we partner with you to plan IT for your new senior living community.