‘Engagement is care’ | Franklin-based Quiltt wants to make sure no senior living resident is forgotten
The Franklin-based startup is raising $1.5 million to help senior living communities spot isolation before it becomes a health crisis.
Every family touring a senior living community is trying to answer the same question, according to COO Mathew Guilfoyle: Can you prove my mom or dad won’t be forgotten here?
Quiltt, a Franklin-based senior resident engagement and family communication platform, is built to help communities answer it. Guilfoyle pitched Quiltt at AgeInnovate’s recent pitch competition during LaunchTN’s 3686, and we wanted to learn more.
Shifting the focus from the calendar to the resident
Resident engagement software has existed for decades, and Guilfoyle said most products in the category offer nearly identical features. Quiltt took a different approach. Instead of building around the group activity calendar in senior living, the company re-engineered its platform around the individual resident.
“Legacy systems ask, ‘What’s on the schedule today?’” Guilfoyle said. “Quiltt asks, ‘Who needs connection in my community, and why?’”
Guilfoyle spent nearly a decade as president of activity connection, a subscription programming service for life enrichment teams that grew to more than 20,000 senior living communities during his tenure. Conversations with those customers shaped Quiltt’s centerpiece, the Connection Board, which the team built in six months.
It’s the first screen care staff see when they log in, ranking residents by a connection score from Quiltt’s proprietary algorithm. The score pulls from six engagement signals, including group attendance, one-on-one interactions, daily mood surveys, life story assessments and significant life events.
How the Connection Board works
For example, a resident shows up on the board because she hasn’t been recorded in a group activity or one-on-one visit in five days, and she skipped that day’s mood survey.
A life event signal also fires: Tomorrow is her wedding anniversary, and her husband recently passed.
During a morning stand-up, a staff member who knows her well claims the task and schedules a one-on-one visit with a single click.
Strong teams already hold these conversations, but often from memory, sticky notes and whiteboards.
Quiltt puts it all in one place and gives managers visibility into their teams’ work, plus a tangible way to show families their commitment to care.
Validating that engagement is care, qualitatively and quantitatively
Pitch judges often ask whether Quiltt has clinical evidence behind its approach. Guilfoyle said the company is pursuing controlled studies, but he doesn’t think that should hold anyone back. It’s basic human decency.
“Should that person on your life enrichment team be thinking about bingo tomorrow, or should they be thinking about connecting with a resident?” he said.
Still, he gets why investors and judges ask, so he brings numbers. Research links social isolation to a 26% higher risk of premature death and identifies loneliness as one of 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia. Left unnoticed for weeks, isolation often surfaces on the clinical side as depression and then medication gets involved. And that’s a whole other story in itself.
Building in the greater Nashville area
Guilfoyle and his family landed in Middle Tennessee last year after more than 20 years in Oregon.
“Every major conference now is coming through Nashville on an annual or semiannual basis,” he said. “This is the place to be if you’re in health and technology.”
Now, Quiltt is raising $1.5 million to support operations and get ready for a Series A.
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