Interview: Kevin McLeod, President & CEO, Carolina Meadows Senior Communities and Services, Inc.

Kevin McLeod

President & CEO Carolina Meadows Senior Communities and Services, Inc.

In what ways can technology help senior living and what are the challenges?

There is a great market for technology in senior living, in particular for those folks who have the expertise to deliver products geared toward senior living. Our challenge was getting our residents and team members up to speed on using the technology. We realized, too, that at Carolina Meadows, we didn’t have all the infrastructure necessary to make technology as available as it needed to be. This was particularly true with the changing rules surrounding COVID. We realized that we needed to get our voice out to the residents so everybody could hear the same thing at the same time. We set weekly town hall meetings over Zoom so that we could get all the residents covered. It was a great way to stay connected. A lot of the time they just wanted us to listen to them and to know what we were doing to keep them safe.

Did you have to adjust your services as a result of the pandemic?

One of the things we had to think through very carefully was the question of whether or not we would do marketing tours. People were still expressing interest in joining our wait list or moving to our campus. Our marketing and sales team became very good at doing virtual tours. We made it possible for residents to move in and we had 36 move-ins during 2020. This was contrary to a lot of our counterparts who stopped residents from moving in.

What are some advantages of being in the RaleighDurham region?

One advantage is our proximity to excellent schools — North Carolina State University, Duke, and UNC at Chapel Hill. They are leaders in their fields. As a result, there’s a great deal of talent here. There’s also a great deal of talent in the biopharmaceutical industry within RTP. We don’t tap into that necessarily but a lot of our residents, people who have moved to North Carolina, have been a part of these areas. ( ) more susceptible to substance abuse. Alcohol and substance abuse have increased by around 12%, participants in the survey reported.

North Carolina has developed an Opioid Action Plan (OAP), consisting of several metrics that include reduction in supply, a syringe exchange program, help with employment and housing and counseling services. According to the government’s action grid, Durham County is providing all services except one and Wake County is offering all services except three. The state is also pursuing legal action against the key players in the crisis, including pharmaceutical company Purdue. In February, the state was awarded a $19 million settlement from consulting firm McKinsey due to its role in advising the pharmaceutical company.

After a bumpy start to the rollout, the vaccine program gained steam in 2021 and by the beginning of April, eligibility was open to all North Carolina residents. But after a surge of vaccinations, a hesitancy emerged among the remaining unvaccinated population, which complicates efforts to achieve herd immunity. In Wake County, about 10% of the population surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they were hesitant; the number was 11% in Durham County. As of the end of July, 61.4% of the Wake County population and 54.9% of the Durham County population was fully vaccinated. This compares with 50% fully vaccinated for the entire country.

According to separate research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, there is a racial disparity in vaccinations, with white people having received a higher share and the share allocated to Black populations remaining lower than their share of deaths. The pandemic also disproportionately affected vulnerable workers in the informal sector, who were prevented from accessing COVID-19 tests, saw their income cut due to missed work and struggled to access healthcare. In North Carolina, this has mainly affected Latino populations. The Latino community is just over 9% of the population but makes up about 45% of the COVID cases in North Carolina.

Biotech and life sciences Where there is adversity, there is opportunity and the Triangle’s biotechnology and life sciences sectors flourished during the pandemic. The region is expecting significant further investment due to the increase in revenues recorded by the companies present in the Triangle. Health IT and clinical research firm Iqvia reported a 13.8% year-over-year increase in the 4Q20 to $3.3 billion, contract research organization PPD’s revenue surged almost 40% to $1.4 billion in the quarter and research company PRA’s quarterly revenue reached $873.4 million, a 9% year-over-year gain.

John Perkins

Chairman & CEO – US Radiology Specialists

When you think about healthcare and different specialties, I would say radiology is one of the most forward-facing in terms of technologies. It comes in a number of different ways. One pertains to clinical technologies: how do we make sure that we are managing the workflow of physicians so they can look at reads in an efficient way. Emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence, will increasingly be important in terms of how we think about workflow and diagnostics. This will enable physicians to be more efficient. Again, this technology is emerging and nascent but it’s something we’re focusing on.

Both Raleigh and Durham host many notable names in the biotech and life sciences space. Patheon, Biogen, G1 Therapeutics and Aerie are all headquartered in Durham. Raleigh hosts Biomerieux, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Novo Nordisk. The Research Triangle Park alone is home to more than 450 life science companies, 10 million square feet of laboratory inventory and 50,000 employees across R&D organizations.

Laboratories are also much more affordable compared to fellow research cluster New England, for example, where rents can climb to $125 per square foot. In the Triangle, rents range between $28 and $35 per square foot. Existing companies, such as Grifols, Novartis, Fujifilm, LabCorp and Merck, are expanding in the region and according to CBRE, current demand is at 2 million square feet of biomanufacturing space and 840,000 square feet of wet lab space. Eli Lilly, Beam and Grail all announced expansion plans in 2020, committing to a total of 1 million square feet of real estate in the Triangle. Biotech firm BioAgilytix also committed in October to add 878 jobs in Durham paying a minimum of $96,500.

Raleigh-Durham is ranked No. 5 in the nation for life sciences, so it comes as no surprise that the region continues to attract top talent. National job boards show there are thousands of available tech positions – openings were up 22.7% in April 2021 compared with March 2020. Demand in Raleigh rose 43%, while Durham and Chapel Hill increased by 20%. In fact, demand is so high that earlier this year, WRAL TechWire and North Carolina Biotechnology Center launched a designated Bio Jobs Hub platform, posting jobs from process technicians to quality control associates and research analysts.

Recent research in the global science community has been mainly focused on COVID-19 and related themes and the Triangle area is no exception. One project devised by the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences and the CDC is the analysis of the presence of COVID-19 and transmission in wastewater. The technique has been successful in identifying polio outbreaks and monitoring opioid use.

But not all projects have focused on the pandemic. Raleigh biotech startup Inceptio Bio in June launched a $26 million advanced manufacturing platform that uses cell- and gene-based therapies to treat cancers. Durhambased Xilis, which was spun out from Duke University’s Angel Network, raised $70 million in Series A financing in July to advance its precision oncology platform.

Looking ahead Like everywhere else in the world, the Raleigh-Durham area’s healthcare sector suffered in the past year in many ways from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the impacts of the last year will be long-lasting, including the impact on mental health, physician and nurse staffing and hospital revenues. But the region is in a uniquely privileged position, being one of the premier healthcare research and development hubs in the nation and seeing exponential expansion from the world’s largest biotechnology and life sciences firms.

While healthcare reform is likely needed to address disparities and bridge access gaps, health insurance has come a long way in North Carolina in recent years, as evidenced by the demand for ACA coverage. NIH funding continues to pour into the region, reflecting its innovative and pioneering position within health research. The prestigious institutions that anchor the healthcare sector, such as Duke University, UNC and Research Triangle Park, will continue to play a pivotal role in the region’s economic growth.

Education:

From K-12 to higher ed, COVID-19 unveiled shortcomings in the way academic institutions teach and in how students learn. But the pandemic also revealed areas of opportunity to prepare the country’s leaders of the future. Education institutions in Raleigh-Durham are ready to heed the lessons learned.