It’s time for a quick August update of more new and notable tech offerings, from emerging vendors and new offerings from existing vendors – including beta testing. Please let me know about others you know about and are not spotted via the Product Snapshots term on this site:
LifeMatters will integrate the AFrame Digital personal health monitor into its home health practice to enhance the ability of its senior clients with mobility concerns to live independently.
RICHMOND, VA, July 14, 2010 -The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, the nation’s largest not-for-profit provider of senior care and services, will study the effectiveness of using WellAWARE Systems monitoring technology in providing care to seniors living at home or in assisted living centers.
Buzz in the press is good for all. Articles about using technology to monitor aging parents -- like the most recent two in the Thursday NY Times by Hilary Stout and Eric Taub can be great for the aging tech industry. They generate buzz and interest in the media; they are syndicated and carried throughout the Internet; re-mailed (many times to me); they boost awareness of prospective buyers; and create curiosity and even leads, both of consumer prospects as well as vendors and dealer channels. Given buzz like this, one might think that technologies to help monitor your aging parents will now be well-understood and vendors will have to spend less of their time educating and explaining, and more time just taking orders. We thought that when we read the February, 2009 Times article by John Leland. Meanwhile, Living Independently Group, now part of GE, launched QuietCare in 2003 -- when remote monitoring then really was fairly 'new'. And then again, in September, 2009, in Business Week, when Arlene Weintraub wrote about the business of aging in place. Oh, were it true.
OAKLAND, Calif., July 19, 2010 – The Center for Technology and Aging today announced grants to five organizations for remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology projects that will demonstrate how RPM improves the quality and efficiency of chronic disease management and post-acute care of older adults. Each project involves a coordinated effort among patients, families and caregivers.
myHalo, PERS 2.0, Automatic Fall Detection are Redefining the Medical Alarm Market
Huntsville, Alabama (July 19, 2010)
Halo Monitoring, Inc., provider of the world's most reliable and easy to use elderly fall monitoring system, will exhibit myHalo® at the Seventh Annual Healthcare Unbound Conference this week in San Diego, CA. Company co-founder and CEO, Chris A. Otto, will be speaking during a panel presentation titled "PERS 2.0", a term Otto and Halo Monitoring coined in early 2009.
Tech coalitions -- small steps to the start of a community service? Last week was the start of a new Forum category, Community Coalitions About Aging Technology, with San Diego County as the first entrant - 'to help local organizations become more familiar with technologies that could help seniors in the county.' Soon to have their first meeting, Denise Nelesen spoke about the intent, which is to bring local organizations up to speed on what products are out there. She is particularly interested in moving beyond 'computers in libraries' to other categories of products that could be useful to seniors. If others have similar local initiatives and ideas about how to do this, please post in the forum.
