Likely where AI cost benefit is being compared to human labor.
Washington DC, September 25, 2023
University of Pittsburgh, School of Health And Rehab Sciences October 13, 2023
What's Next Longevity Innovation Summit, Dec 7-8, 13, 2023
AARP’s Care Gap report sets the table for innovation possibilities. Driven purely by population changes over the next several decades, AARP predicts that there will be fewer people in the age group (45-64) that can provide care to the baby boomer population when aged 80+. Based on this model, says the report, boomers at that age will likely have various disabilities and thus may need some level of care. What technology categories would be useful and likely in-market with this multi-year lead time to think about them? Of course, today there are millions of people who are 80+, but if you follow AARP’s logic, today there seem to be enough available family members, home care, nursing home and assisted living aides between the ages of 45 and 64 to care for them (emphasis on available). If caregiving availability shrinks, what are the technology implications for those who would serve that future wave of baby boomers?
Comments
From Adam Hayes via LinkedIn
Nicely done Laurie, a veritable smack to the back of the head of Tech co's.
Wishful projections... The Future Ain't Going To Be Like That.
Adult day care near shopping centres, higher wages for care givers because there are fewer of them ... sorry ... just not going to happen.
This is old think... projecting into the future by fiercely looking in the rear-view mirror. Medicare is becoming Medi-scarce, or systemic rationing as currently goes on iin many parts of the 3rd World. There is a generational resource war about to happen, unless a 'geriatric Manhattan program' is widely supported to solve the boomer geri-care bomb by those most at effect of it... local and state governments. Local welfare systems will be expected to actively handle the looming boomer aging/care crisis ... not Washington. Washington will only issue reports, more rules, and more incessant nagging. They will never get their hands dirty and do the real work. And this is a very dirty, big problem
Oldsters increasingly have profound mobility and cognitive issues .. and simply do not seek more socialization with new faces, or many new and unfortunately indifferent changing faces, whether in a nursing-home, geri-day care or other so called newly invented venue as a stop gap approach to true aging in place ... which implies safety, care, access to their social needs ( not ours), rehab, nutrition/meds, and home maintenance needs.
Oldsters value existing relationships and their core family, and want those enriched with more family access and better quality. Human nature has not changed that much and a overly e-wired technocentric approach, although helpful for some communication and health status measurements will not lift granny, toilet her, change her diapers, or give her meds or hugs, and certainly not at 3:00 am, holidays, or weekends. Enabling technology that will solve the scut work of geriatric nursing care is the order of the day. especially for the latter stages of frailty where 90% of the costs occur usually in the last 3 years of life. These 80 and older patients consume 50% of all health care resources per capita, yet are only 1% of the population. If your going to revolutionize geriatric care for millions of so called 'change-agent boomers' then we technologists will need to deliver a 'hospital-at-home' one that solves ADL's, stays wired for vitals within your local tele-med hospital nexus, and provide skilled nursing care through a practical nurse team, abetted by minimal, very low skilled, home-care help. This recombinant approach will lower legacy care costs by 80%, and rebalance general health equity for the rest of Americans by stripping the insane $75,000 to $150,000 a year for a dysfunctional, often unsafe and unsanitary nursing home which have become a default 'concentration domiciles' for high needs and all too often abandoned seniors. We don't need institutional nursing homes... we need 'nursing zones' in our own homes.
Showing Love through Technology
The need is already here. We need technology solutions to offer care and love to our elders and still cope with our own frenetic life styles. WWW.Stay-in-Touch.ca is one step in this direction. How important is "a few kind words" compared to a "Personal blood Pressure Monitor"? Is old age a sickness to be monitored or just a step in life to be dealt with respectfully and lovingly.