Voices: Kristy Yoskey, Vp Market Leader Of Senior Living, Pointclickcare

This article is sponsored by PointClickCare. In this Voices interview, Senior Housing News connects with Kristy Yoskey, VP Market Leader of Senior Living at PointClickCare, to discuss how the senior living experience is evolving at the intersection of healthcare, hospitality, and technology. Drawing on her background as an occupational therapist and her current role in healthcare tech, Yoskey shares insights on personalization, workforce enablement, and the role of AI in strengthening care teams. She also explores how seamless data collection and rising consumer expectations are shaping the next evolution of aging in place.

Senior Housing News: What life or career experiences have most shaped your approach to the work you’re doing today?

Kristy Yoskey: It might sound cliché, but all of my experiences have shaped the approach I bring to my work today. I started out in healthcare as an occupational therapist, and I’ve really done a bit of everything — clinical work, building programs from the ground up for long-term care, senior living, home health, even pediatrics. I’ve always been more drawn to older adults and the aging-in-place side of care.

I’ve also worked in consulting and operations, which I absolutely love. Anything that allows me to impact more people who are serving older adults is where I find the most purpose, and it’s where I’ve learned the most.

That said, two things have really shaped where I am today: first, working in healthcare sales, and second, consulting across the full care continuum. Those experiences helped me transition into the technology space, which I’d call healthcare-adjacent, but still rooted in the same mission of supporting better care for older adults.

You’ve worked in senior living as an occupational therapist and now in healthcare tech. How did those experiences shape your perspective on today’s senior care landscape and the trends you’re seeing?

The transition from being an occupational therapy executive to working in healthcare tech was probably the easiest career move I’ve ever made. I met Murry Mercier, who’s been with PointClickCare for over a decade on the senior living side. At the time, I was building out senior living consulting services focused on health and wellness and real-time service coordination.

In occupational therapy, my goals shifted depending on the setting. In skilled nursing, it was about decreasing length of stay and helping people get home. In senior living, it was the opposite — increase length of stay, keep residents engaged, and support them in living well. In home health, it was again about reducing time in care but helping people remain well in their homes. I was operating across all those environments when I met Murry.

Through that connection, I started learning more about what PointClickCare was doing with technology in this space, and it really clicked for me. I realized I could make a much broader impact. That blend of consulting, teaching wellness classes in senior living communities, and seeing firsthand the power of tech to scale care—that’s what shaped my perspective and ultimately pulled me into this world.

Now we’re having big conversations about the future of senior care, especially in senior living. What happens when communities are full? We’re not seeing a lot of new buildings going up, so how do we bring the same services outside the four walls of assisted and independent living and extend them into the broader community?

Technology is key to making that possible. For someone like me, with my path and background, it’s a really exciting space to be in right now.

How is the blending of healthcare and hospitality redefining the aging experience in senior living? What changes are needed to meet modern consumer expectations?

I moderated a panel at PointClickCare’s healthcare technology conference, SUMMIT , back in April alongside some incredible voices in the industry — Bob Kramer, James Balda, Dianne Munevar. I was so lucky to share the stage with them. Bob said something that really stuck with me. He pointed out that there’s no longer a debate about healthcare versus hospitality in senior living — COVID wiped that line away. What we’re seeing now is the emergence of a “wellcare” space, where we’re focused on helping older adults stay well and receive proactive care, even if that’s delivered through third-party preferred partnerships.

While we still talk about the evolving hospitality model, it’s clear that senior living has fundamentally shifted since 2019. It’s hard to believe it’s coming up on six years since COVID, but in that time, the baby boomer generation has continued to redefine what aging and retirement look like.

I shared a video on LinkedIn recently of an older adult who’s absolutely thriving in retirement. She and her partner live in London, and she’s a DJ using pots and pans on TikTok. She’s a creator, she’s vibrant, and she’s totally breaking the mold of what retirement “should” look like. If that’s not the new face of aging, I don’t know what is.

We must evolve with that. Aging today isn’t just about sitting in a wheelchair growing old and isolated. It’s about creativity, expression, connection. We’re talking about serving people who are deeply engaged in the world as TikTok creators, writers, grandparents who want to be surrounded by family. That’s the reality we’re building for now.

It’s a huge opportunity, especially for those of us in tech, to support and shape what comes next. We need to keep innovating and finding ways to combine hospitality and wellcare in ways that truly match how people want to age today. The expectations are changing, and we get to help meet them.

Where do you see the biggest opportunity for technology to enhance the senior living experience and enable a more personalized wellness experience?

At PointClickCare, when we think about designing technology, it always comes down to one core question: how can we empower frontline staff to boost speed, confidence, and connection?

The goal is to give staff the tools they need to complete their tasks quickly and accurately so they’re not stuck in front of an EHR all day, and can instead spend more meaningful time with residents providing wellcare. Whether it’s identifying a change in condition, reaching out to a preferred provider, connecting with a family member, or engaging directly with the resident, the technology should support that human connection — not replace it.

One of the biggest areas we’ve invested in is artificial intelligence. We’ve been using AI models for some time now across multiple markets we serve. Trusted AI can help build that confidence clinicians need since they’ve got the right insights at their fingertips, the data they’re working with is accurate, and they can make informed decisions quickly and confidently.

But it’s not just about insights, it’s also about integration. Technology has a big opportunity to connect seamlessly with other systems and provide real-time data that helps frontline teams, and those supporting them work more effectively and efficiently.

At the end of the day, it’s about getting the information right, getting it fast, and then moving on to what really matters: spending time with the people they’re caring for. That’s what we’re striving for: creating technology that works in the background so caregivers can stay focused on care.

There’s a lot of fear around AI, especially when it comes to replacing frontline staff and caregivers. With the real opportunity being strengthening and supporting the frontline, how do you see AI helping senior living staff become more efficient and empowered in their day-to-day?

First and foremost, we’re focused on responsible AI. That means using the right tool to solve the right problem—not replacing the human touch. We’re in a human-centered space, whether it’s senior living, skilled nursing, hospitals, payers, or physician practices. Across that continuum, the people using these tools are frontline staff, and we know that human connection and clinical decision-making can’t be replaced.

What AI can do is handle routine tasks and surface important information to those clinicians and frontline workers—so they’re not spending valuable time digging through records or data. If we can streamline that process and give them the insights they need to make fast, informed decisions, that’s a win. It allows them to stay focused on the resident rather than on the screen.

At PointClickCare, we’ve been testing and leveraging AI models across the care spectrum for years. We’re working closely with partners to stay in step around compliance, policy, and best practices—so everyone’s aligned on how AI is being used and what’s coming next.

Another factor we can’t ignore is the workforce shortage. Immigration policy concerns are affecting labor availability, and we have tens of thousands of older adults reaching retirement age every day. We simply don’t have the staff to meet that level of demand without leveraging technology.

AI is part of the solution, but it has to be introduced in a way that supports, not replaces, the people providing care. That’s our approach: making sure our clients are ready, building tools that empower staff, and moving forward together with the right balance of innovation and humanity.

If hospitality and healthcare are becoming intertwined and we’re able to collect data seamlessly in the background, what’s the next evolution for senior living? How can this fusion drive real change across the industry?

This goes back to what I mentioned earlier from Bob Kramer about how healthcare and hospitality are already intertwined. The next evolution is what we call wellcare, which shifts the mindset in senior living toward proactive wellness.

Senior living holds a unique seat at the table because we’re not a care setting; we’re someone’s home where care and services are provided. When you look at upstream value-based care models like ACOs in hospitals or downstream physician groups like Curana in ACO REACH or SNPs, senior living is in a prime position to support those efforts. We can help residents age in place and, more importantly, engage in place—not just through activities or life enrichment, but through a full, comprehensive digital record that provides a deep understanding of each individual.

It starts with creating a meaningful service plan, understanding a resident’s baseline, and helping them stay there or even thrive. Then, when something changes, we can act early. Maybe the data shows that someone isn’t coming down to the dining room anymore and is eating meals in their room. That’s a signal. Maybe it’s depression. Maybe it’s lower back pain. But that one change could lead to decreased mobility, a fall, a hospitalization, wounds, and eventually a higher level of care and diminished quality of life.

If we can catch those changes early before they escalate, we can intervene through our clinical partners, bring in therapy, pharmacy, physicians, and truly support that resident holistically. We not only improve their quality of life, but we also extend their time in the current level of care, reduce hospital visits, and support better outcomes across the board.

That’s where this fusion of healthcare, hospitality, and technology can drive real change. When we align systems and workflows to support mind, body, spirit, and community—something I borrow from Stephanie Boreale at Watermark because I think it’s such a beautiful framework—we create an environment where people can truly live well.

This is the same problem I was trying to solve back in skilled nursing in 2014. Now we’re tackling it in assisted living, in the home, in home health. We’re seeing growth in hospital-at-home models and physician-at-home services like DispatchHealth. But for many people, home is senior living, and that’s where we have the opportunity to change the narrative from reactive to proactive care.

In the senior living industry, 2025 is being defined by…

…a decisive shift toward intelligent, integrative, and individualized wellcare. Technology is no longer just supporting operations; it’s actively driving wellness, personalization, and value-based outcomes for residents.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To learn more about PointClickCare’s Senior Living solutions, visit pointclickcare.com

The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact sales@wtwhmedia.com.

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