September 2020

It’s been an interesting technology week. New announcements in the voice first category were of particular interest. These include GreatCall’s new Lively Flip phone with voice services and the announcement that Amazon’s Alexa has added 80,000 answers to healthcare questions through a partnership with Digital Health company Sharecare. And today (9/24) it announced CareHub, a way to monitor family members from afar. As if that weren’t enough, a tech track at Argentum’s annual (now virtual) conference included a session on Voice First (with Ryan Elza and Nick Patel, sponsored by CDW Healthcare) in a long list of tech enablement session entries. Also on the Argentum site is a product category listing. Here are five from Argentum 2020:

Surprise (maybe) – Philips puts Lifeline business up for auction.  How do I know this? Not from any news article other than PERS Insider, a newly created newsletter for those who track the medical alert industry.  Probably given the Q1 profit drop, they had to do something about the steep revenue decline of their Personal Health businesses.  You may not remember that Philips acquired the Lifeline business in 2006 for $750 million.  What did they get for that investment? The leader in the “Medical Alert/Medical Alarm/PERS space.” You pick the term -- or let the search engine do it in order to show you each paid ad after paid ad.

What happens when people avoid health-related in-person care? Rant on. Nearly a third of older adults, according to a National Council on Aging post, are foregoing visits to emergency rooms, afraid of catching the virus. Or they are avoiding outpatient visits, afraid of Covid-19, but also concerned about cost of care.  And the cumulative number of lost visits since mid-March continues to grow.   Family concerns about health and Covid-19 also continue to delay or prevent some move-ins to senior living communities.  Presumably, some avoidance is occurring even in circumstances where there is a pressing need for a move, such as worsening dementia.  But is telehealth viable for the oldest?