digital health

HLTH 2024 wrapped up last week in Las Vegas – where else?  AI was a big topic – transformational, embedded in health tech, capitalizing on the buzz. Or growing caution, concern about regulation, data quality issues, depending on the perspective. Others fretted about the state of healthcare in the US (not good), physician burnout (not good) and the health status of Americans, especially the mental health of young people (not good).  All these despite the promise of AI-enablement of laborious processes, hospital at home, conversational AI, new drugs, and many tech innovations. Looking through the exhibitor list, fifty-eight companies self-identified as AgeTech at HLTH.

A new study offers a conundrum, or maybe a marketing problem.  Most Americans 50 and older don’t trust AI-generated health information, says a new poll published by the University of Michigan. But they do trust their own ability to figure out what information is good and what isn’t when they look for it.  They say they trust WebMD, Healthline. And yet only 32% said it was easy to find accurate health advice.  But how would you know what is accurate? And the 84% who said they got health information from a health care provider, pharmacist, friend or family member in the past year. A friend or family member?  Really?

Exceeding expectations in every way.  The next report was going to be titled – “The Future of AI in Senior Living” but that was so yesterday.  One 2023 document, The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Senior Living offered up  the categories where it would/could be useful – including in remote home monitoring, and its ‘emerging’ categories of AI solutions for seniors and senior living communities.  The report referred to a 2023 study about how an AI algorithm could predict patients at highest risk for readmission to the hospital – using multiple data sources as inputs. No surprise – the algorithm’s recommendations were used, and the predictions and care recommendations enabled a 21% reduction of rehospitalization.

Aging baby boomers – the demographic looms large – and their future is likely underserved.  You see it everywhere, baby boomer-focused marketing, articles about their wealth and interests, etc. Yet the 30 million peak boomers also represent a bleak future ‘peak burden.' This Economic Impact study published in April 2024 notes that two-thirds are not prepared for retirement. The details of this study are depressing – about a future that will be financially worse for women than men, in total representing 30 million people who will all be 65+ in six years. On the positive side, according to an AARP survey there is growing interest in technology from the older adult population, particularly in fitness apps. But are useful technologies viewed in combination for the baby boomers’ life and health span? Not yet.