Laurie Orlov's blog

The VA continues to "set the telehealth table." That line is from 2010 when the VHA's telehealth pioneer Adam Darkins observed: "“The patients have to do less travel, and they can get problems resolved quickly.… They feel the care coordination system is their lifeline." The program was cited as having 43,000 Veterans enrolled with a long road ahead. Fast forward to 2014 -- the VA's Telehealth program served 690,000 veterans in its most recent fiscal year, or 12% of all veterans. And the long-term study of members of the Geisinger Health Plan showed a 44% reduction in readmission rates of those monitored in a 4-year telehealth study.

Start with the premise -- Silicon Valley VC firms matter for entrepreneur success.  Is this true? And especially, is it true for early stage companies, with founders that are known to VCs; or do angel investors or startup money from friends and family matter more? Instead of speculating, consider the leading Silicon Valley VC firms -- and examine their online featured list of investments. Note mention in this article that the venture 'industry has gone back to its IT- and IT-enabled services roots.' So let's take a look at their historical successes. Sequoia Capital -- health-related investments are disease oriented, big hits include LinkedIn, PayPal, Instagram, Kayak, and eHarmony. For sure, the full list contains many useful tools for people of all ages, but unless we're talking diabetes and glucometers, nothing much that is age-related for seniors.  

Fast Company marks a trend -- let's stereotype older adults as Grandma.  Rant on. The latest article title was the last straw. Undoubtedly, as with the others, it was selected by young headline writers: "…the next hot market for wearable tech -- Grandma." Never mind that much of the tech wasn't wearable -- this one pushed me over the edge. So I looked around for other examples because I have seen it so many times -- there was the Huffington Post, 'reconstructing Grandma' and Amazon -- 'Grandma Talks Tech (baby boomers take to iPads too!)'. And Popular Mechanics -- 'smart tech will take care of Grandma.'

Startup mania is one thing -- but bigger companies like tech too.  AARP has a Longevity Network to encourage startups and an updated market overview report --  and funds are blossoming -- see Linkage Ventures and Aging 2.0. Then there's the StartUp Health billions and billions, and RockHealth (more billions) -- yada yada yada.  With all of that money flowing and hype flowering around startup wannabes, who knows what other incubators, accelerators, and motivators in 2015 are ahead? The new year starts off at CES in Las Vegas -- will it bring new companies to light that are focused on seniors? Meanwhile way back here in what's left of 2014, a number of firms that are NOT startups by any definition have recently announced new offerings -- each of these acknowledges and encourages seniors to use cell phone, tablet, and smartphone technology today.  List is alphabetical, and all content is taken from press announcements and/or the organizations' own websites.  

First the good news -- life expectancy is up.  So as boomers cross the 65-year-marker at 8000 per day, 10,000 per day, or whatever, they just received some good news, for a change, from the CDC.  Life expectancy has inched up. A woman who is 65 today can expect to live an average of 21 more years (to age 86), and a man at 65 has an average life expectancy of 18 more years (to age 83). Note that these are averages and that the averages include those with chronic diseases. That average includes the nearly 26% likelihood of diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) -- and that diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the US  and that heart disease is the number one cause of death among women and ditto for men.  Thus life expectancy outside of those conditions is most certainly far longer.

Proliferation of device types is also proliferating malware.  159.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (66.8 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in January 2014, 51% were Android devices, 41.6% were Apple iOS and rest were 'other'.  There were 70 million tablets in the USA around then as well, 51% Apple, and 40% Android. Both device types are of interest to the malware hacking communities. Researchers at Georgia Tech showed how to hack an iPhone in 60 seconds, removing the Facebook app and replacing it with an imposter.

Some cool tech enters the market. Consider the Apple introduction of the HealthKit (for the health care industry) and the smartwatch which joins the Pebble (which helped fuel interest in smartwatches) and Samsung smartwatches.  Intel found smartwatches intriguing enough to sponsor a clinical trial in conjunction with Parkinson's disease.  Why? Smartwatches (and smartphones) contain accelerometers that enable the device to determine sudden motion -- like detecting a fall, gyroscope and compass to detect whether you're on of the 61 million people out there running.  And they are able to determine location by enabling GPS position of the device. These devices have geofencing capability -- used in Apple devices for setting up a Location Reminder when you arrive at or leave a location (don't forget to do such-and-so errand).

The numbers of our boomer lives.  So you launch your market messages with an assertion about the addressable market for a product. So one of the timeworn ways used is to start with a concept.  For example, they are going to turn 65 and are retiring -- or perhaps they are unretiring and starting businesses -- at a rate that is big, really, really, big.  So let's consider the following oddity. In 2010, boomers were going to turn 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day for the next 18 years. Then in 2014, you perhaps noticed a different phrase about boomers, including this one from AARP: They are going to turn 65 at the rate of 8,000 per day for the next 18 years. This caused me to wonder, what happened to 2000 of them?  Could they have died?  Left the country?  How many people there are in a certain age range making up an addressable market -- that should be fact, right?  Sort of.  I turned to Brent Green, an advisor to boomer marketers.

Next week is Active Aging Week 2014.  According to the International Council on Active Aging, there are 3000 events (all over the place) to celebrate beginning tomorrow -- there are "never more reasons to get off the couch."  So now there are 43 million people age 65+ in the US. (Remember when it was 39 million, back in 2012?) Today there are many reasons for older adults to get up and get moving. Seniors are saddled with ever-lengthening life expectancies (one in four of today's 65-year-olds will live to 90! They are stuck in their awkward and costly houses, with questionable health status and a propensity to be overweight.  Meanwhile, more than half of those aged 65+ rely on Social Security -- with its average payment of $1294/month -- for more than half of their income. 

Gadgets and gizmos all around, but when is a watch a timepiece? Consider the Apple announcements. How prophetic was the Little Mermaid who said "You want thingamabobs? I've got twenty!" Now think about Maxwell Smart's shoe phone. Somehow the new Apple Smartwatch reminds me of gadgets that were so silly and fanciful, they could only have been in the movies (Captain Kirk, Dick Tracey had a variety of amazingly smart watches) or on television.  Just think how many other tech products have emerged from the movies -- or for that matter, read this article about the technologies today -- like the Flip phone -- that were imagined by the creators of Star Trek. Just because they can be created -- they are, and often have amazing and compelling implementations (3-D printers and replacement body parts?)