Voices: John Shafaee, Ceo, Alis

This Voices article is sponsored by ALIS. As senior living operators face new pressure to drive occupancy and extend length of stay, technology is playing a bigger role in shaping performance. ALIS (“Alice”) is helping communities turn data into action, making it easier to connect systems and surface insights. In this Voices interview, CEO of ALIS John Shafaee shares how AI is evolving in senior living, why technology integration matters more than ever, and what will set portfolios apart in 2026.

Senior Housing News: What core insight or career experience gave you the lens you have today on senior living technology?

John Shafaee: Twenty years ago, a friend purchased a senior living building, and within six months it was at risk of being shut down. The problem was that he initially perceived this as a hospitality business, meaning he thought he would have a seamless connection with his commercial real estate expertise.

Instead, he quickly realized that this was not just a hospitality business — it was also a health care business. Residents moved in, nurses completed care assessments, and that information had to flow reliably to frontline staff. With manual processes and staff turnover, those handoffs were fragile. That gap between clinical assessment and daily execution is where things broke down.

His experience shaped the foundation of ALIS. Assisted living had to be treated as a health care model first, with hospitality layered in, not the other way around.

How does having access to more data help senior living leaders strengthen operations across their business?

Shafaee: There’s definitely been a resurgence in operating by the numbers, and that’s largely being driven by ownership groups. Owners aren’t satisfied anymore with high occupancy alone. They want visibility into what’s actually happening inside the building. They’re asking for more granular insight into operational performance.

Value-based care is another driver. We’ve been focused on it from the moment it entered the conversation, even when many people didn’t fully understand what it meant. At its core, value-based care is about understanding hospitalization rates, tracking key health metrics and knowing where residents stand at any given moment. The real question becomes: can you act early enough to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations?

That requires better data, and it requires the ability to turn that data into action.

There’s also been an explosion of ambient technologies. Fall detection systems, e-call data, smart beds, smart sensors — all of these tools are generating information. The challenge is that the data is fragmented. Someone has to centralize it, connect it and make it usable.

That’s where we see the role of the EHR. It shouldn’t just store data. It should connect the pieces and surface what matters in a way that’s simple for operators. The people running these communities are focused on delivering care. They’re not IT professionals. The system should present them with exactly what they need to know and help move them from reporting to action.

Historically, data gets pushed up to management, a few leaders review it, calls are made, and instructions cascade back down. That cycle is slow and inefficient.

Instead, we believe the right approach is to give the information directly to the person responsible for the change. If a care aide walks into a room, they should immediately see the most recent needs, risks or changes for that resident. If they’re new, the system should provide helpful context so they understand who that resident is. That’s how you create real operational improvement.

What makes occupancy and length of stay such critical metrics for senior living operators?

Shafaee: If you think about it operationally, CRMs are used to fill beds. That’s where length of stay becomes such a powerful metric: it binds together the operational excellence of a building. It has a direct connection to revenue. Communities with longer stays experience fewer turnover costs. They’re more stable operationally. They generate stronger top-line revenue. 

So for me, it’s a metric that connects the clinical model, the health care model and the hospitality model all into one measurable outcome.

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with length of stay for years. There isn’t a strong national benchmark for length of stay because assisted living is licensed at the state level, not nationally. So we created the ALIS 500 report. It’s publicly available, and we generate custom versions for each operator we work with.

One of the most important benchmarks we track is 90-day move-outs. Most people assume that 5-10% of residents move out within the first 90 days. In reality, it’s closer to 25 or 26%. That means roughly a quarter of residents leave within the first three months. From a profitability standpoint, it often takes longer than that just to stabilize the room financially.

At the end of the day, occupancy means beds are full — length of stay means they stay full. The operators who truly understand that difference have a major advantage.

Why is it so important for technology systems in senior living to integrate?

Shafaee: That’s a great question. As consumers, we all know what it feels like to love two products and wish they worked better together. When they actually connect in a meaningful way, it makes the experience better. That expectation doesn’t disappear at the commercial level. Operators have more innovative solutions available to them than ever before, and they want those tools to work together seamlessly.

Some vendors try to solve this by offering a bundled solution that covers everything, even if parts of it are mediocre. We’ve taken a different approach. We believe innovation happens in focused, specialized groups. So instead of trying to build every solution ourselves, we’ve invested heavily in a strong partner ecosystem.

Today, we have more than 175 partners built on top of the ALIS platform. And this goes far beyond basic data exchange. It’s not just about moving information back and forth. It’s about working closely with those partners to understand how their solutions can elevate an operator’s day-to-day activities, then embedding that functionality directly into the workflow.

For example, if an e-call event is triggered, staff don’t need to log into a separate system to see it. It appears directly within the resident’s record in ALIS. The same applies to fall detection. When a fall is detected, that information is visible within the central record, alongside the rest of the resident’s data. Staff don’t have to toggle between multiple applications to understand what happened.

That’s what we mean when we say it’s more than integration. It’s about innovative solutions working better together to create a holistic experience for our mutual clients.

How can we ensure that human insight stays central when building and implementing new technology solutions?

Shafaee: For us, it starts with humility. I don’t run a community. I’m not administering medications. I’m not managing a care team on a shift. That’s very different from building a consumer product where you can use it yourself and immediately feel the friction.

Because of that, we have to acknowledge that we can’t do this in isolation. We have to build it together with the people who are actually delivering care. We spend a lot of time with communities and operators, listening to what’s working, what’s frustrating, and where they see pressure building. That insight has to shape what we build.

At the same time, our role is to bring a broader perspective. We’re constantly studying the market, gauging the emerging regulatory and capital pressures, and learning about every new technology that is becoming viable. The goal isn’t just to make incremental improvements. It’s to help operators leap forward when the timing is right so they’re prepared for what’s coming rather than reacting to it.

A lot of that comes down to collaboration. We want the human insight from the field to guide the roadmap, and we want the technology to amplify the work people are already doing, not replace it. At the end of the day, technology should serve the people delivering care and the residents receiving it. If we ever lose sight of that, the product won’t matter.

Where do you see AI making the biggest impact in senior living over the next few years?

Shafaee: Senior living is fundamentally a people-centered, relationship-driven field. It’s about caring for residents. So when we talk about AI, we have to be thoughtful about where it fits and where it adds value.

The industry has a significant amount of administrative overhead, and that’s where AI can make an immediate impact. At ALIS, we’re sitting on 20 years of structured data, which we believe uniquely positions us to bring AI into the industry in a safe, responsible way. You can’t simply dump resident records into a public AI tool. That is reckless. What matters is building AI capabilities inside secure, purpose-built systems.

That’s why we launched Ask ALIS. It represents a fundamental shift in how people interact with technology. We believe the days of point-and-click navigation are fading. People will increasingly want to ask their EHR questions or tell it to perform tasks. Ask ALIS is our gateway into that experience, allowing operators to interact with their data in an intuitive way. The goal isn’t AI for the sake of AI. The goal is meaningful simplification.

Zooming out, what do you think will separate the organizations that thrive in 2026 from those that struggle to adapt?

Shafaee: I think the biggest separator will be mindset. There’s a lot of volatility right now. Ownership groups are moving buildings around, portfolios are shifting, and capital is being deployed more selectively. In many ways, they’re picking winners. And the winners are the operators that are evolving.

It’s not just about embracing technology for the sake of it. It’s about rethinking the business. The organizations that say, “This is how we’ve always done it, and everyone else needs to adapt to us,” are going to struggle. The ones that step back and ask, “How do we need to change?” are the ones that will grow.

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

ALIS (Assisted Living’s Intelligent Software) by Medtelligent is the leading all-in-one clinical and operations software for senior living, consolidating CRM, clinical, billing, eMAR, BI and AI into a single system. To learn more about the ALIS 500 report, click here.

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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