Stress-free Home Care!

Recently a large health care technology company asked me to help them develop a different model for home care, one that depends on more technology and fewer hours of hands-on care to keep seniors safe at home. We envisioned a system of sensors, closely monitored by a local care manager who follows up with the client, family, or physician. The need for this system is clear: we have all heard about the coming crisis in elder care; as the baby boomers age, the elderly are becoming a larger percentage of the population, living longer and preferring to stay at home as long as possible. As their needs increase, their families are now dispersed far more than in previous generations, leaving our personal and professional care giving resources poorly equipped for the need at hand. This company’s question was, Technology has transformed many aspects of our lives; can it help reduce cost and improve care for seniors living alone?

I believe it can, at least for a portion of this population. Already, several technologies help keep seniors secure at home, although chiefly as communications devices after an event has occurred. Personal Emergency Response Systems, in which a senior wears a bracelet or pendent with a button that summons help in emergencies such as a fall, make living alone much safer for seniors. Some systems include fall monitors that are designed to recognize a fall rather than wait for the button press. Still others include GPS tracking to aid in finding a senior who may have wondered off. These emergency technologies are important, but new technologies are exciting because they can help prevent emergencies from occurring in the first place.

Seniors often lose independence because small, unrecognized problems snowball: a lingering cold becomes pneumonia, requiring a hospital stay. A UTI has a senior getting up repeatedly at night, which leads to a fall, which leads to a broken hip, requiring hospitalization and rehab.

The new monitoring systems can track daily activities and alert the care manager to many changes that suggest a problem is developing, or confirm that status remains safe. These systems use motion sensors and contact monitors confirm that medications have been taken on time, PT exercises completed, or meals taken on schedule. In some cases, meds can actually be dispensed and tracked by automated med dispensers.

When daily activities change – when a senior rises several times at night or misses medication doses or falls sleeps overnight in a living room chair instead of returning to the bedroom – a care manager can check on the client via telephone or video call, and can notify the client’s family if help is needed.

This type of monitoring system can provide peace of mind for the senior’s family, reduce the expense of keeping the senior safe at home alone, help to intervene earlier when support is needed, and extend the years in which that is possible using existing family resources.

I see the role of technology chiefly to be replacing data collection and monitoring activities currently performed on site by family and professionals. Daily calls for reminders and follow up can confirm or investigate sensor-supplied data and provide some social interaction at a fraction of the cost of a traditional home care visit.

There is much that technology does not do: it does not provide a human touch or a kind word. It does not cook a meal or do a load of laundry or drive someone to an appointment. Our seniors will continue to need this from family, friends, and caregivers.

But when the need is better information to keep the elder safe, technology supported by regular phone or video calls from case managers offer a model that is less expensive and more effective than what most families and home care agencies are doing today. Our experience suggests that in some cases as much as 40% - 60% of a home care budget is devoted to monitoring or to providing on-site presence “just in case something happens.”  Freeing these dollars might allow a senior to stay at home independently far longer on the same budget than current approaches provide.