Parks Associates https://www.parksassociates.com produced the virtual event Connected Health at Home: the Next Smart Home on November 10-16, 2020 which enabled over 1,300 attendees to hear new ideas and thoughts on how to effectively deliver medical and healthcare not only in the year of COVID-19, but also how to effectively move forward with connected technology.
One session at the Parks Associates event on Independent Living: Serving Seniors and the Chronically Ill provided information on how seniors and the chronically ill can stay in their homes in a safe manner. This can be achieved by using enhanced communication technologies to stay in contact with their doctors, family members, or caregivers in charge of their care.
Kristen Hanrich, Senior Analyst at Parks Associates discussed how lessons are being learned in this year of COVID-19 that apply to seniors but also to the disabled experiencing mobility challenged, and also to help their caregivers, and family members. Seniors fortunately are adopting to the use of technology such as video conferencing and online videos with demand expected to rise.
Rodney Harrell, PhD, AARP, VP for Livable Communities and Long-Term Services and Support, https://aarp.org/ppi/experts/long-term-services leads AARP’s Future of Housing Initiative. As reported, it is reported that the U.S will face a severe shortage in accessible and affordable housing in order to meet the needs of 1 in 5 Americans who will be over 65 by 2030. This is expected to result in a severe shortage in accessible and affordable housing.
Dr. Harrell reports, “Today, our communities are not designed for the aging population. There is an urgent challenge to provide the solution. We must develop livable age friendly communities, housing to meet the needs of seniors, plus ways to have adequate transportation easily available for the elderly and disabled population.”
A panel was held to hear from experts in the field. Panelists included Emilie Carignan, Marketing Director, for Aerial Technologies https://www.aerial.ai, Aerial recently reported that the company launched their AI-based ambient Remote Care Solution.
The new product enables broader access to remote care at a fraction of the cost and provides greater convenience to users by providing access to the remote system without the need for installation, wearables, or devices.
Ritch Haselden, GM and Senior VP of Sales at Essence, https://www.essence-grp.com an Israeli company, has been able to deploy millions of devices worldwide. The Essence Care@Home solution has developed pioneering loT platforms for healthcare and senior care providers that uses AI and Machine Learning to continuously collect actionable data. The data provides the ability to respond accurately and rapidly to elderly fall events along with better care management.
According to Sarah Jones VP, Commercial Product https://healthcare.bestbuy.com, at Best Buy Health, “The company’s goal is to help people live their best lives through human care and connection in the home. This is being accomplished by providing proactive monitoring, medication management, providing Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS), initiating data science capabilities related to health and safety needs, providing continuous disease management via remote patient monitoring, and developing technology partnerships with industry to find innovative solutions.
Karsten Russell-Wood, Portfolio Leader, Post-Acute & Home, with Philips https://www.usa.philips.com, reports that the new next generation solution helping senior living community operators, is the use of a modern e-call system called Cares for Senior Living Platform. This system is able to provide fall detection, wander management, utilize a mobile alert service on a technologically flexible cloud-based platform. The Cares for Senior Living Platform currently operates in several communities across North America.