Why Senior Care Technology Feels Harder Than It Should.

January has a way of sharpening focus. 

In senior care, the start of a new year is not just about planning ahead. It is a moment to step back and ask practical questions. What is working? What is creating unnecessary friction? And where small gaps may be quietly introducing risk. 

As organizations look toward 2026, one theme continues to surface in conversations with senior care leaders: clarity. Clarity around systems. Clarity around access. And clarity around whether technology is truly supporting care or slowly adding strain to already stretched teams. 

Over the past year, many IT and operations teams have felt the weight of growing complexity. As senior care organizations adopt more applications, devices, and cloud platforms, support ticket volumes continue to rise. Industry research consistently shows that nearly half of healthcare IT teams are experiencing increased ticket demand, with a significant portion tied to access requests, onboarding, offboarding, and password related issues. For teams already operating with limited time and staffing, this creates real operational pressure. 

These challenges are not confined to helpdesk metrics. They show up in moments that matter. When state surveyors arrive and do not have timely access to electronic health records, staff are pulled away from care to resolve access issues under pressure. Delays force workarounds, increase stress, and leave organizations appearing unprepared. In these moments, access management is not a technology issue. It is an operational readiness issue. 

At the same time, expectations around security and accountability continue to rise.

Healthcare remains one of the most targeted industries for cyber incidents, and studies consistently show that the majority of breaches involve compromised or mismanaged credentials rather than sophisticated attacks. As a result, regulators, auditors, and insurers are asking organizations to demonstrate not only that policies exist, but that access is consistently managed, reviewed, and aligned to role. 

Layer this reality onto an industry already navigating staffing shortages and high turnover, and the strain compounds quickly. Each new hire, role change, or departure often requires updates across multiple systems. When these processes rely on tickets, emails, or manual checklists, even small delays or oversights can introduce risk. More importantly, they create friction that is felt beyond IT, affecting clinicians, administrators, and ultimately the continuity of care. 

This is shaping our focus moving forward. 

At Integrated Health Systems, 2026 is about being more intentional. Reducing manual effort where it does not add value. Strengthening security without slowing teams down. And creating the visibility leaders need to confidently answer a simple but critical question: do we know who has access to what, and why. 

This is where automation begins to matter. Not as a buzzword, but as a practical way to remove friction from everyday operations. To ensure access is handled accurately when staff join, change roles, or leave. And to reduce the quiet risks that tend to surface only during audits, insurance reviews, or regulatory events. 

In the months ahead, we will be sharing more about how this thinking translates into action, starting with how user access is managed across clinical, operational, and cloud environments. Not as a standalone technology conversation, but as part of a broader commitment to security, compliance, and transparency in senior care. 

This January, we are setting the foundation. 

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