Can technology help to bridge the Loneliness Factor?

February 4, 2016 | by

The Guardian’s impassioned article on how common and harmful loneliness is among older adults led to some reflection by this Editor on how difficult and ‘multi-part’ an approach to help can be, even if you call it ‘The Campaign to End Loneliness’. “Studies have found loneliness can be more harmful than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, increases the risk of premature death by 30% and the chances of developing dementia by 64%. More than one million people aged over 65 are thought to be lonely – around 10-13% of older people.”–statistics from the article and AgeUK’s press release on their recent study, ‘ Promising approaches to reducing loneliness and isolation in later life’.  GPs see a lot of them, and some more for an ‘event of the day’ than actual medical need. Loss of hearing, sight and mobility further isolate the older person, particularly those in rural areas where everyone and everything is at a distance requiring driving, creating dependency among those who can no longer. Even among the middle-aged, loss of hearing reduces engagement in social situations. (And the article does not include the disabled.) It closes with suggestions that councils need to budget for and organize programs to reach out to lonely adults, including carers, and that not one approach can fit all, but emphasizes more personal approaches such as groups and one-on-one support. Hat tip to Malcolm Fisk via Twitter

Is a way to fight the Loneliness Factor located in technology, even remote patient monitoring? That’s been the primary reason for some systems such as GrandCare, but even in RPM, whether hub-based or smartphone/tablet based, the reminders and active clinician monitoring part of chronic care management can and do engage. Older people are using smartphones and tablets–perhaps not as fully as a 40 year old, but they are using Skype, calendaring and social media (Facebook, LinkedIn and news/opinion sites). A big help here, according to Laurie Orlov, would be voice recognition and integration into safety/alarm technologies. This Editor also sees proactive alerting to changes in condition as a still-untapped area.  There’s $279 billion of potential in ‘silvertech’ as estimated by AARP and Parks Associates–it’s a matter of getting young techies/entrepreneurs excited about it, and the Sand Hill funder crowd realizing that yes, it’s sexy too. Long Term Living

Health tech innovations are doing little for baby boomers

January 26, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/upside-down-duck.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Wonder why the duck is upside down and sinking? Maybe it’s looking for all that transformative tech! Versus The King’s Fund sunny article above is Laurie Orlov in Boomer Health Tech Watch. Her POV is that as of right now, health tech innovations are not moving the needle for obese (39 percent) and chronically diseased US baby boomers. They aren’t downloading health apps and wearing wearables. Workplace wellness programs? Au contraire, they make us feel less well (Harvard Business Review) and anxious that we’re getting spied on by the company. Maybe we realize that All That Data isn’t secure (healthcare being a Hacker’s Holiday Camp), so we’re not playing the game. And the cost of care that the ACA was supposed to level off? Not if you’re a self-insured Boomer struggling to pay an ever-higher monthly premium, or even in a corporate high-deductible plan, paying increased deductibles, restricted networks, ever-higher treatment costs and fighting your insurer at nearly every turn. Add to that safety risks of procedures, mistakes compounded by EHRs [Dr Robert Wachter, TTA 16 April]  and (not mentioned) hospital-acquired infections. No wonder investment has cooled. Health and tech innovations do little for baby boomers

Drone ‘bots’ to help older adults in future

December 5, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/08ELDERBOT1-master675.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A Saturday Robot Fix! Short article in yesterday’s NY Times about development of tiny household drones to fetch medications and do other simple tasks around the house (like cleaning). These ‘Bibiddi Bobbidi Bots’ are under development at the University of Illinois. This Editor will take several to go clean. But do they do laundry? I’d rather take the new iteration of a 4′ Robby the Robot under development in Seattle by an ex-Microsofter who founded Hoaloha Robotics. Practical? Perhaps not, says Laurie Orlov of Age in Place Technology, who’s been up and down a few hype curves. And will it help older people stay connected, even though help around the house is always appreciated? The withering comment on the Jibo robot from a 91 year old at the end of the article does put a damper on it. Still, Robby could make me a dress of sapphires any old time (as did his namesake in Forbidden Planet). As Aging Population Grows, So Do Robotic Health Aides 

Telecare innovator Lively acquired by GreatCall (updated)

December 5, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Lively-sensors-600×327.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]GreatCall, which markets the popular Jitterbug simple phones and ancillary safety/security services (5 Star, mPERS) targeted to older adults, has acquired the assets of home activity personal monitoring system Lively. According to GreatCall’s press release, Lively’s technologies will be integrated into GreatCall products. These include a tastefully designed brace of self-installed in-home motion sensors, which made quite a splash when introduced in 2012, and a fairly stylish mPERS watch introduced last year. From the announcement, it’s easy to deduce that Lively was largely inactive despite partnerships led by Care Innovations: the press release on both Lively and GreatCall’s site was issued from GreatCall only and not joint contact; Lively’s last round of funding was in 2013 (only $7.3 million total, another Series A to B casualty) and there are no Lively employees transitioning to GreatCall for the good reason that there are none left (Mobihealthnews). No word on founder Iggy Fanlo’s next plans save a squib on LinkedIn saying that hardware was hard and his next move would likely be in software. With last year’s sale of AFrame Digital (with no further word from the purchaser) and BeClose now Alarm.com Wellness (not a surprise as it was built on an Alarm.com platform), as we close the year it is further confirmation that it is No Country for Small Players in digital health. Photo: Lively.

Update: Tart take from seasoned Aging Tech business observer Laurie Orlov on Lively’s rise and fall, with additional history. Her POV is that as attractive as Lively’s concept was, its business strategy should give pause to the Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur crowd thinking this is just another kind of direct-to-consumer hardware-service sell, the long payout of any tech in this field and the opposed short time frame of VCs. It’s also not like there haven’t been a few predecessors fallen on the field, either. Aging in place tech firm Lively is out of business – what can we learn?

Does current digital health meet baby boomers needs and wants?

October 23, 2015 | by | 1 Comment

The answer, according to health tech industry analyst Laurie Orlov (Aging in Place Tech Watch, Boomer Health Tech Watch) is…not really. Despite its massive size (76 million in the US), spending power (by 2017, 70 percent of US disposable income), breadth (1946-64) and need (despite living longer, by 2030 37 million will be managing more than one chronic condition), most health apps, especially fitness apps, don’t resonate with boomers despite over 50 percent having smartphones. The reasons are many–they’re complicated, often hard to follow, view, and abandonment across all ages is still high. Even among Fitbit purchasers, abandonment is fully one-half. As income decreases, smartphone access also becomes a cuttable budget item. Much more in this paper published by the California Healthcare Foundation.

The dilemma of design for older people

May 22, 2015 | by

Is the best design for older people and the disabled not specifically designed for them, but an adaptation of basic good design? Laurie Orlov in one of her apt Aging In Place Technology Watch articles questions the market viability of all those specially designed products we’ve seen since, say 2008. We recall ‘smart homes’, senior desktop computers, simplified phones and the robot caregivers which never seem to get past the prototype stage [TTA 25 July 14]. Her POV is that in most cases ‘designing for all ages is feasible today’ except for healthcare–durable medical equipment (DME) and healthcare delivery (and,this Editor would add, monitoring). One of her commenters points out that not everything can be designed ‘universally’, linking to this excellent article from Smashing on guidelines for designing tech to be used by those over 50. The section on blue color perception was especially interesting, as blue is healthcare’s #1 color. I would also point out that design which avoids stigma (as in ‘it screams OLD’) and has good aesthetics also wins.

Is AARP admitting that ‘tech designed for seniors’ is not a winning notion, as this May’s Life@50+ National Event in Miami is likely the last national event they sponsor? And it would be interesting to go back to the previous ‘Live Pitches’ to see how they are doing. Ms Orlov profiles this year’s five.

‘Rotting In Place’

March 11, 2015 | by | 2 Comments

Laura Mitchell, who was one of the key people behind GrandCare Systems and now is a marketing consultant and healthy aging advocate, has written an interesting article on LinkedIn Pulse, now on her website, springing off an AgingInPlaceTech article by Laurie Orlov.  Like the latter’s article, it commented on the Washington Post profile of Prof. Stephen Golant, whose POV on ‘aging in place’ was mostly that AIP is oversold–that in many cases, it’s ‘rotting in place in their own homes’. It’s a highly provocative topic with equally provocative statements and Ms Mitchell does take him to the woodshed, as does Ms Orlov in a different way. Prof. Galant seems to take a more moderate tone in his book (publicity perhaps?), citing (in the Amazon summary) that “older people often must settle for the least imperfect places to live. They are offered solutions that are poorly implemented or do not respond to the totality of their unmet needs.” a statement with which this Editor finds it difficult to disagree.

This Editor will largely cite her previous LinkedIn comment with a few embellishments/edits: (more…)

66% of ‘tech-savvy seniors’ dissatisfied with current health tech

March 5, 2015 | by

Yes, those same people who–gee whiz–designed computers, did their own programs in MS-DOS and went from Palm Pilots to BlackBerries to iPhones, are already over or hitting 65 (3.9 million in US in 2015)–and they aren’t happy with what’s being served up to them in healthcare tech. The Accenture study across 10 countries and over 10,000 adults points out the demand–67 percent–and the dissatisfaction–66 percent. They want independent self-care tools, wearables to monitor themselves, online communities like PatientsLikeMe, patient navigators and health record tools. Moreover, the more comfortable they are with and value technology, the more likely they are already using technology for tracking weight and cholesterol levels. Couple this with the ‘Drawn and Quartered’ Parks Associates research [TTA 11 Aug 14] and moving past the mHealth hype earlier this week, the study points out a strong market for apps, online tools and other digital health–but designed not for a peer group of most designers, nor to be ‘cool’. Helloooo designers! Wake up! Laurie Orlov does point out on AgeInPlaceTech that there’s not much new here, but that we shouldn’t move on. Accenture release, Modern Healthcare, Fred Pennic in HIT Consultant, Stephanie Baum in MedCityNews

Tech, approaches for caregiving at a distance falling behind

February 17, 2015 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/8001846820_6d2df50ffa_z.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]There’s plenty of telehealth systems and apps that remind older adults of their meds, appointments and take their vital signs–but where are the ones that take care of the reality of ‘aging in place’: the loneliness of the man or woman who lives alone, how that person can communicate with family with their own lives 50 or 2,000 miles away, how family members can better oversee or coordinate her care? The problem hasn’t changed when first addressed over a decade ago by the earliest telecare systems. The technology, while more abundant, is largely uncoordinated, putting the burden on the caregiver. Laurie Orlov points out that ‘finding care is not the problem’ but that the care is at extremes: either too light (daily non-medical assistance) or a move to assisted living housing (average move-in now 80+). No company has truly organized a larger solution (more…)

Life expectancy up, but so is death from falls (US)

October 16, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]The Gimlet Eye falls outside the box, and is writing this from recovery. Our companion in curmudgeonliness, Laurie Orlov, whacks us upside the head with first the good news then the bad. US life expectancy is up: if you are 65 today, on average you will live to 83 (men) and 86 (women), even with the rise in chronic conditions that affect quality of life, such as diabetes and heart disease. But the bad is that death from falls is also up. This is despite all the systems and gizmos the Digital Health Industry has concocted to detect falls beyond 1970s PERS technology. Once upon a rose-colored Telecare Time we thought we could infer falls purely by sensors detecting lack of activity (the basis of QuietCare, GrandCare, Healthsense, the late WellAWARE). Then with accelerometers, fall detection would be automatic, (more…)

Is digital health neglecting The Big Preventable–medical errors?

September 6, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

 

Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the US – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.

(US Senate hearing, cited in HealthcareITNews 18 July 2014)

At the end of last month, this Editor questioned the efficacy of our current state of ‘consumer engagement’ in Patients should be less engaged, not more. The ‘less engaged’ was a call for simplification: regimens and devices which were easier to use, less complicated and far easier to fit in everyday life. (Aesthetics helps too.) Back in 2013, HeartSister/Ethical Nag (and Canadian) Carolyn Thomas called for health app (and by inference consumer engagement) designers to ‘skate to where the puck is going’–as in “For Pete’s sake, go find some Real Live Patients to talk (and listen) to first before you decide where you’re going!” Often it seems like these apps and platforms are designed in a vacuum of the entrepreneur’s making. The proof is the low uptake (Pew, Parks, IMS) and the apps’/programs’ lack of stickiness after all this time (Kvedar 8 Sep blog post).

Now Laurie Orlov tells us we were looking at the wrong puck, as analysts do. First, all that ‘nudging’ and all those apps haven’t moved the needle on diabetes and obesity. Second, why are app developers neglecting that third largest killer, preventable medical errors? Add to that 400,000 yearly–over 1,000 per day–the 10,000 estimated patients every day who suffer serious complications. (more…)

Philips Lifeline introduces a mPERS app

August 28, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/philips-lifeline-app.jpg” thumb_width=”120″ /]Philips Lifeline has debuted in the US an unbranded mPERS-like app which allows the user from a smartphone (iPhone/Android only) to access the Philips Lifeline call center. The app is free but the service to voice connect to their call center, according to their customer center, is a (bargain compared to standard PERS) $13.95. The phone’s GPS geo-locates the person in need. The fact that the introduction is in the ‘dog days of August’ is one indicator that they are readying well ahead of the late fall (autumn) bump in demand. (Both this Editor and Mobihealthnews see a back and fill for the much-touted GoSafe introduction which 18 months later is still not in market.)

But walk with your Editor through this scenario:

  • Smartphone-equipped older person takes a fall, has an accident or is a crime victim
  • Despite the fact that all smartphones have accelerometers, the app does not tie in to this data, (more…)

Eimo UK telehealth device fundraising via Kickstarter

July 24, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Eimo.jpg” thumb_width=”190″ /]Updated 25 July    If our exclusive on the ‘tricorder-like’ Eimo device caught your attention [TTA 19 May], you will be interested in the extra information about it given on its Kickstarter page. See the second video down and read some more on its background, history and the philosophy of the developers, iMonSys, located in North Yorkshire. You may even want to pledge some cash to help produce the first 1,000 units! (Unfortunately, funding stands at only £2,000 of a required £145,000 pledge by Wednesday, 13 August.) iMonSys will also be developing two versions: for home use to retail at £300 and the medical version to retail at £600. What is different about this is that based on the demo, anyone can be taught to use Eimo and it produces a reading of core body temperature, full ECG trace, oxygen levels, pulse and blood pressure in well under two minutes as seen in the video. Also it stores data so that the ‘funny turn’ that doesn’t consistently happen can also be captured and stored for later analysis by a doctor. Will it actually be a vital signs monitor ‘which even Granny can use’? Based on the video it certainly seems so.

Update: Laurie Orlov picks up iMonSys’ local roots in Staithes in her post on Boomer Health Tech Watch linking to an article in the Whitby Gazette. Founder and developer Graham Priestley’s original concept resembled the ‘black box’ on an aircraft to monitor a soldier’s vital signs, with the original research under the aegis of the (UK) Ministry of Defence but shelved around 2008. He picked this up two years later with the assistance of the University of Hull, and is currently seeking to

Our readers can help spread the word on this UK product on Kickstarter!

Is consumer digital device engagement sticky? Or just the hype?

June 20, 2014 | by

A wonderfully cranky essay by Laurie Orlov on her new blog Boomer Health Tech Watch might make you think The Gimlet Eye was her guest writer (see below). Ms Orlov observes the ratched-up noise level around wearables, fitness bands, smartwatches (in which your Editor will be drenched quadrophonically next Wednesday at CEWeek NYC, glutton for punishment as she is). Yes, we’re swooning around Apple Health [TTA 3 June] and having a minor swivet around Samsung’s Simband and SAMI [TTA 2 June]. The bucket of cold water in Ms Orlov’s grip is the high dropout rate among fitness band users (33-50 percent, cited from Endeavour Partners and NPD Group); this Editor will also add the devices’ relative inaccuracy, fragility and glitches [TTA 10 May]. But ‘the investor community (via the media) clearly IS being transformed, at least temporarily’ as well as outside the health industry, by a belief that these devices will push the world into Quantified Selfing for the Masses. Will wearables herald our arrival at the New Jerusalem of Health? Certainly it’s been trumpeted and tromboned by the D3H (Digital Health Hypester Horde) badly needing a fresh fave rave. But can digital health survive another Hype Curve dive? Can we? The Consumerization of Health Care — is it working?

Further in this jugular vein, Business Investor, in a superficial swipe, dubs smartwatches uncool just because they trail fitness bands by six points. They did a better job in March delving into the real challenges that wearables face: smartwatches look and feel like a brick on your wrist (Ed. D’s term), Google Glass is socially unacceptable in many quarters (banned in Silicon Valley!) and wearables are still in Early Adopter-Ville.

Update: Ms Orlov just sent to this Editor a brief comment with a link to a thoughtful NY Times article not only on The Trouble with Apple’s Health App, but also how the barriers are more subtle–and more common-sensical–than the hype around how consumers are eager to register every burp on a PHR (they’re not), they don’t want to be nagged by technology (easier than your mom to be rid of) and the group that needs it most (the old, poor) has the least, for now, access to it. But largely ignored by the D3H.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”75″ /]On assignment off Cape May, New Jersey inventorying readiness of coastal defense fortifications. Just between us. Shhhh!

The ‘grey’ market is where it’s at for ‘quantified selfing’

April 29, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

Surprisingly in the tech-addicted (and young-skewing, based on subject matter) Gigaom is this short piece on how health tech companies are missing the boat by targeting the young, healthy fitness addict or plain addicted-to-the-data Quantified Self (QS) market, rather than those over 50 and their families. ‘Simple’ and unobtrusive are the keywords, especially for what the late and much missed MetLife Mature Market Institute termed the ‘old-old’–those over 80. Mentioned are home activity monitoring systems such as Lively, BeClose and GrandCare Systems supplanting the PERS pendant (Lifeline) and the additional alert capabilities offered by GreatCall/Jitterbug. (This Editor will also mention a new telecare system entering the European and Americas markets, Essence Care@Home, which premiered at Mobile World Congress 2014. More on this in the next few days.) What’s notable about the article is the emphasis on the market size (via expert Laurie Orlov): $2 billion now, ten times that in 2020. What’s incomplete about the article is no ‘look-ahead’ to how devices like smartwatches (and watch-like forms such as AFrame), sensor-based wearables which connect to smartphones–and sensor-equipped smartphones, tablets and even Glass-type devices with simple apps which can help with self-or group-monitoring, prompts for those with cognitive difficulties, and more. Worldwide, we are also running out of carers [TTA 24 April]. Who will crack the code on tech for seniors?

The ‘ginormous’ hype around forecasts

September 10, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blue-blazes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Our readers may have noticed that your Editors of late have skipped the relentless tracking of eHealth/mHealth/digital health/wearables forecasts, save Editor Charles nominating research2guidance’s latest for ‘What in the Blue Blazes’. Yet r2g’s $26 billion by 2017 forecast for the category was but a lagniappe* compared to MarketsandMarkets‘ puffy $59.7 billion by 2018. Laurie Orlov has artfully skewered the relentless forecasting (she is a recovering veteran of Forrester Research) with the sobering comparison of the current D3H**-fed bubble to the fluffy eCommerce forecasts circa 2000. And we all know how that ended. Do not miss her tale of “mythical John and the XLife Preserver” and how it attracts a VC named Head, Clouds, Smoke and Vapor (HCS & V), located down the hill from a Napa winery. (Presumably the product flows downhill?) The Wireless Health market is ginormous — so forecasters say (Aging In Place Technology Watch)

Another factoid from the M&M report: Mobile apps alone by 2018 will be valued at $20.7 billion from $6.3 billion now. Yet 90 percent are currently free and the rest are $1-2, except for medical apps targeted to professionals. The Gimlet Eye is still trying to compute this one in Monopoly® money, and is requesting a large bottle of Panadol (Tylenol). Drug Store News

* Lagniappe: something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure (Merriam-Webster)–American French by way of New Orleans   **D3H=Digital Health Hypester Horde