The home monitoring market for seniors is a potentially converging set of product vendors, some with medical interests and origins that may over time be marketed for use in advance of medical need -- these include HealthHero, Honeywell HomMed, Dovetail Health (even linking to nurse monitoring). Some like QuietCare and Grandcare in the middle, are primarily targeting assisted and independent living caregiving (where seniors may prefer to live) and some approach from the security angle, like Alarm.com's partnership with SafetyCare -- linking to EMTs, Xanboo, or Monitronics. Perhaps they will later add more medical monitoring.
For the sake of argument, let's say there are evolutionary steps in the need for monitoring, starting with the home's safety from break-in, smoke, drastic temperature shift, or moisture. Next is the communication with and about the person's status, primarily focused on communication and checking in. Next is the person's safety, including whether they have fallen or perhaps haven't emerged today from a home or apartment. Next is a person's health (taking their pills, unusual weight changes, and so on)and finally their medical status (including recovery from rehab, chronic condition monitoring, etc).
So let's say baby boomer children are concerned at a distance about their parents who persist in wanting to live in another area -- what I refer to as the "Florida Syndrome." And let's say that their parents are independent and fairly active today -- still driving, still shopping, still cooking, still taking care of their home. Isn't this the ideal time to help them stay that way? Shouldn't the adult children begin to acknowledge the steps in the monitoring cycle -- perhaps an inevitable process -- by giving the gift and carrying the cost of home security technology? Monitor the house's health first and many other more vexing problems can be averted. This is a question, not an answer. Thoughts welcome.
