tech-enabled home care

Six mobility offerings from AARP AgeTech Collaborative. AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative launched in 2021 with a splash (and 50 startups) that has widened into an age wave, or a sort of Match.com for age-related companies to find others, including collaborators, sponsors, pilots, and more. Today’s collection includes 104 companies, many of whom have gone through the AgeTech Collaborative Accelerator process, including pitch competition, Accelerator program enabling entry into the AgeTech Collaborative program. The categories span Caregiving, FemTech, Health, Mobility, Savings & Planning, and Social Connections. Read more.

An optimistic view of home care’s future as seen from 2012. Several times in the past decade, interviews were conducted with experts that lead to some reports about the home care industry. This chart came from a report, The Future of Home Care Technology 2012 that was sponsored by Microsoft, Verizon and LivHome, in 2012. And represents a vision for home care and what technology should support.  To build this chart, interviews were conducted that included  senior execs from Philips, the VA, Visiting Nurse Services, home care associations, Home Instead, Volunteers of America, and several home care organizations. As seen in 2012, the future of home care would transform, supported by software.  Some of these changes occurred, particularly care delivery in the home, the growing adoption of health-related portals:

Sensor technology is increasingly useful in the care of older adults.  As part of the research into  the Future of Sensors and Older Adults, interviewees outlined ways sensors could be useful for mitigating fall risk. And their role tracking trips to the bathroom has been useful in detecting UTIs, identifying wanderers, alerting about sleep issues, noting whether a person has eaten. In senior living or home care, permission to track this type of information is likely (hopefully) given at the onboarding of a new care recipient or resident.  By mitigating some of these issues, older adults could remain home longer, supported by home care.  Or they could extend time in a senior living home, prior to moving to a higher level of care.

 A well-known consulting firm assesses the growing care gap. Boston Consulting Group analyzed the care crisis recently asserts that the lack of paid or unpaid care workers to provide care of children or aging parents may prevent them from filling unfilled jobs, noting the 99 million people today who are not in the workforce. y do an interesting analysis built around the premise that some people who could work do not because of care responsibilities. The conclusion -- the one hand, quality affordable care could be subsidized so that more would want to do the work, filling the unfilled care jobs (day care, elder care). And family members could thus remain in jobs that they would otherwise abandon to provide care. Okay, hard to argue with this macro view, but there are some key points missing. Take a look at Exhibit One in the document which asserts that nearly 50 million people, aged 18-64, could become part of the care labor force, particularly those that have children and remain at home to care for them.