Staying up-to-date by rounding up recent announcements. As the recently published 2016 Technology Market Overview noted, most older adults will remain in their own homes, served by home/companion and home healthcare providers and assisted by a variety of tech-enabled products and services. Over the past month, new offering announcements have that can help seniors, care providers (family and professional) meet the objective of remaining at home. Here are five, noting as always, that all material is provided from the websites/announcements from the companies themselves.
(NEW YORK)—HERO, a Brooklyn-based health technology company, debuts the HERO smart appliance, the world’s first household companion for managing vitamins and medicines. HERO is now available for pre-order at an early bird price of $399 at herohealth.com. HERO is built in Brooklyn and expected to ship in early Summer 2016.
Consider this a heads up about new technology-enabled options for older adults. Sometimes it is helpful to know about offerings before or just as they are being released, if only to look for their availability in the future. The five interesting offerings that are noted below are all going to be available within the next six months, possibly sooner. Each in its own way strives to solve a problem experienced by older adults or those who serve them:
An age-friendly event in young Boston. Last week, LeadingAge returned to Boston after an absence of 23 years, now that the city has a convention center that can hold the 8500 attendees. Perhaps more remarkable, is the desire of the city to become age and dementia-friendly, as opined by the Mayor, Marty Walsh, who received a citation for such efforts. For convention attendees, that may need some more work. The pedestrian walk time duration near the convention center was just enough time to (walk quickly) and only reach the road's median. No surprise – as the town is for the young, and this new area was likely designed by them: Boston's median resident age is 31.7. The event exhibition hall was the expected mix of food service providers, furnishings, bathroom supplies, technology suppliers, and health-related products for the senior living industry. There were quite a few sizable technology companies known in the CCRC/Senior Housing market, including CDW, Stanley Healthcare, Panasonic, LG CNS, Hamilton CapTel, IN2L, SimpleC, Care Innovations. Here are just five new technologies drawn from the event, with the material from the company websites:
With the PillBox, you will never forget about taking the right medicine at the right time. After finishing the prototype, creators from dr Poket are asking international crowdfunding community for a help with finalizing the project.
PharmRight Corporation, a healthcare technology company based in Charleston, SC, announced today that Reconnect4Health, headquartered in Greenville, NC, has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to purchase LiviTM devices. LiviTM is a fully-automated, cloud-connected home medication dispensing system designed and developed by PharmRight.
New, newer, and newest startups to help older adults. Typically it has made sense on this site to not discuss companies until they are in the market, in production, with customers and funding. But crowdfunding has changed that paradigm. Some startups chose to surface through crowd-sourcing campaigns, gaining visibility and ideally some funding. If all goes well, they gain some funding, credibility and even bug-fixes. And as one executive from Lively observed prior to its launch, they get feet on the street and customers. In this post, check out a few of these companies that have launched or recently moved onto media and funding notifications. As always, press releases -- with actual text! -- might help, as do notifications through Indigogo, Kickstarter or other funders. One more thing If any new, newer, or newest startups plan to be at the AARP Ideas @50+ event in San Diego in 2 weeks, let's get together!
What's new and tech-related for helping older adults? Every few months this site attempts to sweep up and refresh a few of the announcements about technology in the market that can be helpful both to older adults and to those that care for them. These five announcements meet the criteria older adults remain safe, healthy, secure, and well-connected in their homes of choice. The information in this list (alphabetical order) comes directly from the websites of the individual companies themselves and includes:
CreateAbility Concepts, Inc. was selected to showcase three new products that assist in the transition from inpatient care to the home, in the new Intelligent Medical Home™ (IM Home) at the HIMSS14 Conference in Orlando, FL last week. These products extend the capabilities of CreateAbility's Independence Keeper system.
This new IM Home addition complimented the already popular Intelligent Hospital Pavilion™ and demonstrated the continuum of health and wellness technology available to recovering patients.
Online searches – not always helpful -- underpin the caregiving role. The latest Pew research about health information and family caregivers reinforces what we know. Family caregivers search online for information to help them provide care. Information about medical problems, treatments and drug information top what they seek – and I bet they find. The Internet has become a 'neighborhood' for asking what might be difficult to ask your next door neighbor. In this online neighborhood, you find that others have symptoms like yours, experienced relief from medications or found a cheaper pharmacy. Yet these resources are not quite like the neighborhood of old: Given that 84% of family caregivers have gone online seeking information, only 59% of caregivers with Internet access indicate that online resources have helped them with caregiving, and only 52% indicated that they help with caregiving stress.