Six Health and Aging Technology Blog Posts from October 2018

October – autumn leaves drift down and large events gear up.  Traversing the trade show world, so much tech, so little time. And other shows await, including Aging 2.0 Optimize in California, GSA in Boston, Innovations in Longevity in DC (see you at there!) all ahead in the remains of the year of 2018.  For each of the trade show events, look for startup garages and innovation sections grouped at the back or on the side of convention centers. Study the exhibit halls online if you can’t be there in person.  Show organizers want you to find new companies – and some may be the most innovative ones you encounter in the entire event.  Here are six blog posts from October 2018:

What is Caregiving Technology, Anyway? A term that means what you want it to mean. It's crazy. Search for the term 'caregiving technology.' At the top of the retrieved page – an ad for ClearCare to help you 'improve client and employee management' – sounds like paid (agency) home care. Over at AARP, there is a long list of resources (non-tech) on the AARP caregiving site for family caregivers, who may use paid care. There’s the 2017 AARP reportthat surveys caregivers about what they want from technology -- they are interested in but not currently using.  There’s the Family Caregiver Alliance report that lists technologies from firms, but was last updated in 2013 (perhaps the date of this FCA list).   The National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC/AARP) report is dated 2014 – and focuses on a vision for what caregiving technology should be. Read more here.

TenTips for Launching a Product or Service – October 2018. It’s 2018 and in full sprint to the year-end finish. Soon you will launch a boomer/senior, home health tech product or service, or maybe a caregiver advisory service.  As your company gets ready to travel into battle or a booth this fall with the sound of lively pitches all around, it is time to for you to revisit this guidance. Perhaps sometime soon, your new or existing company will officially launch a new product or service, or perhaps a long-awaited, over-described and much-anticipated offering will finally ship. First read existing content and research reports on your particular market segment.  Look over this updated checklist that continues to hold true – with updated links and references. If necessary, refine tactics. Read more here.

Five Offerings from the Boston Connected Health Conference 2018.  Held each year – but has much changed? The Connected Health Conference is still a Health IT conference, owned by HIMSS, spruced up by the pre-conference Voice Health summit, task forces, and even onstage singing by health tech folk that may wish they were in show business. There were more sessions acknowledging caregiving and even acknowledging aging adults -- as well as gnashing of teeth about non-adoption of technology in healthcare. But many attendees (also exhibitors) seem still to be circling the health care universe from the vantage point of the IT buyer -- health IT consulting, tech vendors seeking health IT customers. And vendors trying to nurture innovation, tackling one not-so-integrated healthcare and engagement process at a time.  New offerings appearing at this event include (material is from the company sites). Read more here.

Help Yelp Serve Families with Information about Nursing Homes. Consider CMS Five Star Rating system and how it ‘serves’ families.  Rant on.  No doubt you know someone who was baffled at how a terrible nursing home gets a 4 or 5 star rating from CMS’s Five Star Rating System, while a good one can appear to have a lower rating, applied from an inspection before management overhaul several years earlier.  Why, you ask? Indeed.  Others have asked as well – noting the obvious missing link, family satisfaction with the nursing home, including dealing with the staff. For starters. Retiring outdated information, next.  Read more here.

Voice First and Health – What’s Notable and Not So Much? You probably knew this – that 2018 was the year of voice tech and healthcare.  Summits were held, experts have declared, pilotswere piloted, partnerships formed, enthusiasm reigned, and so it has gone. As for 2019, according to Sara Holoubek, CEO of Luminary Labs, "expect a proliferation of bad voice experiences."  C​onsider the healthcare experiences we have endured – it’s a good time to consider a new way to interact with the health system. From a technology perspective, what is each players doing to help us use our voice to have a better health and patient engagement experience?   Are any of these initiatives tuned to the needs of older adults? Read more here.

Five New Technologies from Leading Age Philadelphia 2018. From AAHSA to LeadingAge.  In 2010, this association was renamed LeadingAge – from the Association of Homes and Services for the Aging – a mouthful, shortened to AAHSA. As it was at first encounter in 2009, it is an association of faith-based and non-profit senior living and aging-related services. A rhetorical question, does LeadingAge, the association and event organizer, lead in the world of aging services?  Or is it dragged into the future, one which older adults do not necessarily want – and also cannot afford?  From the 2016 event, attended by 6500, attendance had shrunk from 2009’s attending 9000. Meanwhile, the ‘aging in place’ concept is a reality for most older people. A small percent live in nursing homes. Most don’t move to senior living communities, which have been overbuilt in recent years -- and today are only 86% occupied. Read more here.