Aging and Health Technology Watch

​What is the likelihood of living to 100 for older adults? Greater than you think – can you imagine that that by 2050, the number will grow from 72,000 to 1 million in the United States – in Canada, centenarians are the fastest-growing age group.  Today there are 450,000 centenarians worldwide – with the longest disability-free life expectancy found in Okinawa, Japan. Is society ready to accommodate double the number of seniors who will be living to 100 and beyond?  What will the experience be like – today’s centenarians offer a clue to how they came to live as long – genetics, healthy lifestyle, marital status. What these individuals were not, however, is socially isolated, as many of today’s boomers may be.

Check out this startling sampling of Apple user complaints...Rant on. ZDNet published a list of Apple complaints posted on Reddit (which has an Apple forum of more than 800K members) – the list was eye-opening and filled with rage about (storage, connector, power) limitations. Oddly, in the center of the online article was an iPad ad. One commenter compared the Apple customer experience to buying a high-end Audi and discovering that the price did not include tires. Today Apple has 44.3% market share phone ownership – compared to Android’s 54.5% (led by Samsung and LG).   Users feel locked into Apple's ecosystem, but some commenting said it was easier to switch than people believe. Phone replacement cycles are lengthening, due to high prices for new phones coupled with apparent (or fixable) durability of existing devices.

Interested in innovation in the age-related market?  You are based in the west coast or needed to be there to do other business?  Then you may have attended Aging 2.0’s annual Optimize event this week in San Francisco to hear Dr. Joseph Coughlin of the MIT Age Lab describe his insights about the Longevity Economy. And you may have viewed the pitches for partners, spoken with investors, and learned about Aging 2.0 progress in meeting its 2017-identified Grand Challenges -- augmented in 2018 with two additional, Care Coordination and Engagement. In addition, OhmniLabs won the Global Startup Competition. With that as context, here are five startups that exhibited at Aging 2.0 this week – all material is drawn from the firms' own sites:

​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:

Who doesn’t want to live in their 'forever' home? After all, AARP has surveyed us for 2018 – staying there is apparently what 76% want, though only 59% expect that they will.  But responders also know that you can’t always get what you want. Concerns included the need for transportation regardless of physical status, ability to stay active in the community, and availability of hospitals nearby (though that 911 call can fail to find us).  And no, ride-sharing and self-driving cars are not viewed as panaceas.  We know many of the reasons older adults will leave their homes – families and the draw of grandchildren pull them nearer; a spouse dies; the home itself is too costly to keep.  

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? 

You probably knew this – that 2018 was the year of voice tech and healthcare.  Summits were held, experts have declared, pilots were 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." 

Consider 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?

Go forth and network this fall. Especially for startups, but useful for long-time members of the field, going to events can reveal contacts that you may need or initiatives that you did not know existed. Over next few months, there are a number of events around the country that are worth attending if schedules permit and interest areas match. Useful, besides sessions themselves, are exhibit areas where vendors offer new and existing solutions for the target audiences of the attendees.  For those who cannot attend, check the exhibit hall online after the event if the organizers make that feature available.  Here are five events upcoming – the information provided from the websites of the organizers:

​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. 

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.