Medicine for Care Givers

There can be little doubt that family centered care giving is becoming now a consuming activity for three generations. The Boomer retirement generation is now caring for their parents. The ‘sandwich generation’ will need soon to care for the Boomers. No need to re-visit the facts of the rapidly escalating numbers that are impacting all generations. I am sure you are well versed in these numbers at the top level. It’s a big deal. But the issues and challenges we are facing are broadening beyond the numbers with each passing day. Experience brings further discovery.

What needs to be kept in mind is that care giving is a one to one relationship. Child to parent for example. While the ‘big numbers’ matter, in the end, the real issues get reduced to ‘my family’ to ‘my parents’. Does it really help knowing that millions of others face similar issues? The choices, the decisions and the options all need to be ultimately decided one family at a time.

The stress and burden of being a daily care giver is only further exacerbated with the ever present challenge of knowing what is actually happening, where to start next and when to start doing what. Each day sits on the precipice of bringing a totally unanticipated and expected care giving event. As time wears on, so does the stress, weighing ever more heavily on the care giver. Most of us were never schooled or trained for this role in life. One day it just fell to us.

Being dedicated to embracing care givers with technology solutions that they can use to embrace the ones they care for has become a life mission for me – more than a business vision. I have carefully chosen the word embrace for use here and in my other writings because in no way is technology going to replace human to human care. But technology used to embrace the circumstance can help to manage, control and expedite care. Technology can lessen the burden. It can reduce the likelihood of hospitalizations. It can improve quality of life. And, yes, it surely can make care giving just a bit more manageable and bearable.

What we have learned is that for the technology to be correctly helpful, it needs to be defined - one family at time. It needs to be able to work for that family – and for that care giver.

So, just like any medicine, technology has its place and proper use. Just like the care giver’s oath to “do no harm” technology needs to help. It can be a cure for the debilitating effects of isolation. Properly dispensed it can aid in recoveries. And, it most certainly can help improve the quality of life for all involved. 

In the world that lies ahead for all too many, the ‘first patient’ to be considered is the care giver and for them technology can be a powerful medicine.

Mike radice is Chairman of the Technology Advisories of www.chartacares.com and www.GenerationCares.com and his blog can be read at www.chatraplace.blogspot.com

An Observation About AARP’s Project Catalyst Report on Caregivers and Technology

At the outset, let me start by saying that I am a biased reader of this report and that in no manner has AARP or the report’s authors endorsed the claims I make below. The report’s developers did a first rate job at synthesizing the data, the findings and surfacing the issues and trends. This report will be must read and an oft quoted source of statistics for anyone involved in home based care and care giving. My appreciation also extends to the sponsors of the report.

Why am I a biased reviewer? Over the last two years as an innovator in this market place I have become deeply involved with the technologies available. I can confidently state that the survey’s response statistics accurately reflects my real world experience interacting with end users.

Based upon that experience, and now substantiated by this report, our MyHomeReach product, a tablet based system for care givers and care recipients, could accurately have been included as the ‘poster child’ for a recommended solution. Point by point, MyHomeReach surpasses the stated expectations and requirements recommended for consideration by technology providers by the report’s authors. We have done more that consider them we have done it.

To state it another way, this report could easily serve as a blueprint for why MyHomeReach was created.

If you want to read the just published report it is, as of this writing, currently available at:

http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/home-and-family/personal-technology/2016/04/Caregivers-and-Technology-AARP.pdf?intcmp=RDRCT-ESI-INNOV50-CAREGVRTECH-20160427

If you want to see the solution, see:

http://www.chartacares.com/#!homereach/c16jo

So, thank you AARP and the report’s Sponsors. At ChartaCares we are profoundly encouraged and will innovate on!

Loneliness Is A Real Killer - Scene 2

While I am continually saddened by the impact of ‘loneliness’, I am pleased to share an article just published in the LA TIMES written by Melissa Healy and just published on April 19.

I first wrote about this growing scourge because of the firsthand impact I have experienced with providing technologies to reduce the impact of loneliness especially on seniors. Aging is challenging. Aging at home more challenging. Aging alone, nearly un-challengeable. And now, the data is in. loneliness kills.

See: http://chartaplace.blogspot.com/2015/12/loneliness-is-real-killer.html

I am unabashed in offering you awareness of two technologies that can be transformative in the lives of seniors -- our MyHomeReach and Selfhelp systems. I intend to offend no one using this forum to increase awareness. If I can help even one life, it will have been worth being bounced from some user groups.

See Melissa’s article at: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-loneliness-heart-risk-smoking-20160419-story.html

I can be reached at www.chartacares.com or by phone 603-580-5497 if you would like to learn more.

Mike Radice

How New Era Assisted Living Communities Are Increasing Their Relevancy

 First mover assisted living communities with an ‘eye on’ and a plan for the future are underway with and aggressively moving to position themselves to be ever more relevant to future clients. My engagements with these communities clearly points to two prime motivators. First, recognition that the age-at-home desire is serious and very real. Second, that advances in technologies can indeed provide a cost effective manner with which to engage and establish ‘early’ relationships with future clients.

My previous blog on “The Rise of the Virtual Nursing Home” attracted unprecedented traffic and stimulated a wide range of discussions. That was a good thing. What has been the takeaway from those discussions thus far? Let me share –

1.       There are active projects underway to set up technology demonstration centers located at the ‘brick & mortar’ communities that show how those ‘aging-at-home’ in the surrounding geographic areas can become part of the community.

2.       These centers will show how to improve the quality of life, security and social engagement while ‘aging-at-home’.

3.       They will serve as a provision centers (show rooms) for technologies that the community can provision to ‘boomers’ thereby engaging with them actively as future residents during their ‘age-at-home’ stage.

By taking these actions assisted living communities not only making very smart ‘marketing move’ but positioning themselves for new revenue sources not just for the technology services but for additional care giver and social services than can then naturally flow through their now established ‘virtual communities’.

Two technologies are at the starting point epicenter:

Unified care-recipient/care-giver tablet based communications – like MyHomeReach, custom branded to the community. This technology establishes a sense of community, allows for constant health status and security monitoring and is designed to embrace everyone involved with community news and events – including remote family members.

And, the use of (specialized for seniors) telepresence (video links) as in home video consoles to facilitate tele-health and social engagement. And, if permitted to view the health ‘situation’ and living conditions of those at home. The products have become very cost effective and are simple to set up

.

As we at ChartaCares are actively working to frame them out, I can assure you that these initiatives are moving forward – aggressively. If you would like to discuss this subject further feel free to call me at 603-580-5497. I’d be happy to share what we have learned. www.chartacares.com

Virtual Nursing Homes On The Rise

We all understand the drivers for what is about to happen to skilled nursing facilities and retirement communities. Rising numbers of elderly, the desire to age at home, the challenges of affordability for additional staff, the capital costs of new or expanded facilities, the need to differentiate among competitors, shifting payment and reimbursement models are to cite but a few.

My prediction is that the rising numbers of seniors of the ‘boomer generation’ will re-write the healthcare landscape just as they have re-written every previous social issue they have faced. Trust me, this new dialogue is happening and it will re-cast healthcare. Being stimulated by this dialogue are a few critical considerations and insights that health care service providers, especially those that operate skilled nursing facilities and or retirement communities should deeply reflect upon.

What I am about to suggest is an enormous opportunity, not a forecast of doom.

Smart operators will move rapidly to construct the ‘virtual nursing home’. What is the ‘virtual nursing home’? Most simply defined it is a ‘operator’ that reaches out with technology to embraces the ‘age-in-place’ client. They will understand that their geographically located ‘brick and mortar’ facility will be transformed into a service ‘hub’ for human and technological resources that will embrace near-by private homes as an extension of their facilities. Private ‘age-at home’ homes will become integrated into the operator’s landscape. And it is all very do-able now.

Imagine connecting a private home to a centralized skilled nursing home control center. Each home can now have a video station, an alert link, a health vitals monitoring station, scheduled care visits, scheduled meal delivery and more. Back at the skilled nursing control center are monitoring stations capable of instant connections by voice and/or observations by video with protections for enhanced privacy. Human care givers can be easily and quickly dispatched. Medication and packages (read: oxygen tanks e.g.) delivery for the age-at-home client can be made to the central facility versus suppliers showing up on their doorsteps and subsequently delivered with assistance if needed. And yes, therapy robots can now be placed in homes to aid in care, surgical recovery and for use in cognitive impairment therapies.

There is no reason to not weave private ‘age-in-place’ clients into the fabric of existing and experienced care giving facilities. The age-in-place home becomes another ‘room’.

If you would like to discuss the rise of the virtual nursing home and what I call MyHomeReach, as it moves from concept to reality, give me a call, I’d be happy to share what we have learned.

603-580-5497

CREDIT Photo: Dreamstime.com

Connecting The New Dots In Home Health Care

As in any industry, the playing field and the rules of the game are constantly evolving. And perhaps nowhere more so than in home care. Changes are galloping ahead at an ever increasing pace. It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify and connect the right strategic dots to set a solid, secure and profitable path forward. Well no more. Escalating senior demographics, new and additional regulations, new policies, the new HHS STAR RATING disclosures and the new emerging models of home care businesses are revealing a clear picture.

There are two ‘dots’ in that picture that are inextricably connected. The ‘dot’ of achieving high HHS STAR ratings and the ‘dot’ of the vacuum that exists in care recipient unified communications that contributes to poor HHS STAR Ratings. Failure to connect these ‘dots’ and eliminate the vacuum will not bode well for home care businesses that disregard the connection.

Experience does teach some things:

To date, the adoption of technology by conventional home care services has been severely hampered by three major factors - (1) budgetary constraints (2) high levels of staff churn and (3) lack of internal IT resources. The new home care business models, especially those being funded by deep pocketed new venture investors, are moving to use technology to fill the vacuum. They will use technology to give them a competitive advantage, as they should. And, they are moving aggressively forward to seize the high ground of that advantage.

When technology does come upon the scene in traditional home care, it most typically arrives, internally focused, on only how to make the home care business more profitable. Now, I fully understand that this is not a bad historical choice of an objective for technology spending. But, as I said at the outset the landscape is changing.

With the ‘age-at-home’ momentum and with hospitals driving patients, under their new economic model, to choose hospital visits less frequently. The rules for home care competitiveness are changing.

Home care clients and their families now want and are being driven to take greater control by adopting a self-managed care philosophy, a desire to more positively impact and control the quality of their lives and enhance their abilities to engage with families, friends and their social community more robustly.

So what does all this mean to the conventional model of the home care services business?

To be future viable, home care businesses must move to offer a ‘unifying technology’ that positions them against their new era competitors with a solution that embraces their patient base ever more closely. To achieve and sustain reputable HHS STAR Ratings means that the new IT (technology) objective for home care needs to be one that enhances client/patient engagement and communications. This needs to be put at the forefront and it needs to be done quickly.

The choice made by future patients and their families will be significantly driven by access to a unifying technology for THEM being offered by the home care service they will select. While fee rates will always be significant factor in care provider selection, HHS STAR RATINGS and unifying technologies will dominate fees in importance. The competitors of the new era will see to it that this is what happens. Central to great HHS STAR RATINGS and thus survivability, will be the advancement and utilization of robust patient and family communications. Care giver/patient communications can no longer rely upon a cacophony of scheduled visits, phone calls, text messages, voice mails and e-mails – those times are over. The future of home care will be defined by a unified communications platform that is easy to use, is always ‘on’, enhances the quality of life, and one that enables your home care business to demonstrate a true differentiating value to your future clients.

Amazing Technology Enabled Health Care From Around the World

 I see through the lens of 40+ years of experience in global technologies that the evolution of technologies to aid, assist and enhance the quality of life and the delivery of care for a globally aging population has arrived a significant inflection point. Aging, by the way, is not just a U.S. issue. The UN’s Report on Aging has stated it is a global issue of great magnitude. The world’s older population will grow to more than 2 billion people! The ramifications of this eventuality are as broad and challenging as any socially driven global demographic issue we have faced. As it relates to healthcare technologies, the challenge being addressed presents as it always does, a unique opportunity to harness global innovation.

It is time to advance health care technologies created worldwide into readily accessible domestic solutions that are crucial to our quality of life, the purpose in life and delivery of care experienced by Seniors.

Thus far my experience in searching worldwide for technology enabled healthcare technologies and services has already led me to powerful solutions from Australia, Canada, China, Belgium, France and Ireland.

By looking abroad, we at ChartaCares have already made available a number of these very exciting technologies and services:

A unified senior touch screen friendly communications platform being deployed for Seniors, their care-givers, family, local service organizations, charitable entities and volunteers.

Humanoid robots that are actually at work, assisting with healthcare in Senior care facilities

A Social engagement service that reduces loneliness and enhances the quality of life via a very unique video services platform and a repertoire of ‘session professionals’ that lead discussion groups and take Seniors on web based tours and provide Senior’s with educational opportunities.

Remote Patient Monitoring systems that are critical to a healthy recovery or managing chronic illnesses.

Intelligent, automated behavior modification plans that enhance results achieved.

I also see advanced technologies being innovatively crafted for use by the Senior population such as ‘voice bio-metric’ signatures for healthcare related transactions and governmental interactions. Anti-microbial computer tablets for use in active care scenarios.

My point is that there exists an enormous source of creativity and innovation worldwide for health care technologies and services that needs to be cultivated. The time has come to begin to aggressively identify and share the work of global technology enabled health care developers. At ChartaCares we are working to do just that.

Many believe that the potential for the ‘future’ of health care is actually still some time off…well it is not, it is underway, now, and from locations around the world. We all can benefit from that.

We at ChartaCares are committed to advancing technology enabled healthcare from sources around the world . If you know of any such technologies or services you think we should review, please send me that information at mike@chartacloud.com. I will be sure to reach out to those sources. Thank you.