Home Care

Family caregivers cannot provide enough care for a growing population of the 80+. You may remember. AARP Public Policy research in 2013 revealed a future crisis in availability of people to care for an aging population (“You take care of Mom, but who will take care of you?”). The report indicated that the Caregiver Support Ratio (CSR), the number of potential caregivers aged 45-64 compared to the population of individuals aged 80+, was going to significantly worsen. The projections showed that it would move from a ratio of 7 to 1 (using 2010 census data) down to 4 to 1 by 2030. That was worrisome, long before the term solo agers was coined. A 2015 blog post examined census that data by county (Stranded by Geography) and identified retirement destinations that had the worst ratios.And in 2017, analysis was published showing the ratio of population aged 80+ to care workers, calling it the Paid Caregiver Support Ratio, or pCSR.

So much happened in 2021 that should benefit older adults.   It should be more feasible to purchase hearing aids ‘over the counter’ without an exam (offered for many years in Japan, but whatever...) and at a price point that is more reasonable for largely uninsured devices.  Honor bought Home Instead – which should result in more technology used in the home care industry -- and soon, hopefully, for an industry suffering from  a severe labor shortage. LifeStation (never a first mover) became the latest to introduce a PERS watch, which should be the non-stigmatizing form factor for Personal Emergency Response devices. Big tech revealed growing interest in older adults and investors saw the potential in firms like Papa, which provides (reimbursed) varied assistance to older adults. Lowe’s prioritized helping older adults and partnered with AARP, which should help older adults benefit from smart homes.  And maybe the big deal starts now -- the oldest baby boomers turn 76, which should trigger even more investment in 2022 and beyond. Here are the four December posts:

It's 2021 -- are older adults well-served by technology? Some progress has been made -- Apple and Amazon seem interested in the older adult segment. Smartphones are being adopted by the majority of older adults, including those aged 70+. That’s despite their touchy screens, inconsistent app designs, and now silly warnings about app tracking on Apple devices. Those self-righteous warning are especially amusing, given that Gmail is the most frequently used email client (with 53% of the US market), including on iPhones. And you know that for Gmail and other ‘free’ software (like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), you are the product for advertisers and more. But we digress. In home care, technology plays a tangential role at best, though tech exists, including AI and machine learning, that could improve care of older adults. And the potential for a smarter (and healthier) home is growing -- an upcoming research report will describe that potential in December. For now, here are four blog posts for October:

What could have happened in the home care industry didn’t.  In 2012, based on interviews with the best and the brightest in and around the home care industry, an idea was born and documented.  It was radical – the idea of a network for sharing relevant information across organizational boundaries about a home care recipient with stakeholders, family, health providers. In this vision, the care recipient was at the center of this information sharing across the stages and steps of living independently, senior housing, rehab, hospital, and home.  Instead of this vision outlined in The Future of Home Care Technology 2012, we have today’s franchised and fragmented home care industry – regionally focused, achieving the most minimal advances in technology deployment.

Honor buys Home Instead: one of the newest acquires one of the oldest.  Honor, a recipient of $255 million in total investment (Series D in October, 2020), has pivoted here and there since its $20 million-fueled launch in 2015, always intent on disrupting the home care industry. For a while, many in the industry were skeptical. They viewed it as a threat – see interviewee comments in 2017’s Tech-Enabled Home Care.  Honor began as a home care company, then a home care tech platform company and buyer of smaller home care companies -- bulking up prior to Friday, when it acquired the largest home care company in both the US and UK– Home Instead.