tech-enabled home care

For too many years, high quality data about care of seniors has been elusive.  Lack of standardization of technology platforms – or lack of care platforms altogether – hobbled the care industries -- senior living, home care, home healthcare. Yet the merger and acquisition of companies in other industries ultimately results in consolidation of data. Platforms matter—they enable data standardization which in turn fuels growth. Consider Jet Blue’s interest in buying Spirit, getting planes and pilots(infrastructure) that match its current business. Consider Optum’s acquisition of Amedisys home health business. Note its 2015 $72.5 million write off of a failed in-house software deployment process. No doubt, Optum’s own data standardization business will help integrate Amedisys if the acquisition is improved.

Six mobility offerings from AARP AgeTech Collaborative. AARP’s AgeTech Collaborative launched in 2021 with a splash (and 50 startups) that has widened into an age wave, or a sort of Match.com for age-related companies to find others, including collaborators, sponsors, pilots, and more. Today’s collection includes 104 companies, many of whom have gone through the AgeTech Collaborative Accelerator process, including pitch competition, Accelerator program enabling entry into the AgeTech Collaborative program. The categories span Caregiving, FemTech, Health, Mobility, Savings & Planning, and Social Connections. Read more.

An optimistic view of home care’s future as seen from 2012. Several times in the past decade, interviews were conducted with experts that lead to some reports about the home care industry. This chart came from a report, The Future of Home Care Technology 2012 that was sponsored by Microsoft, Verizon and LivHome, in 2012. And represents a vision for home care and what technology should support.  To build this chart, interviews were conducted that included  senior execs from Philips, the VA, Visiting Nurse Services, home care associations, Home Instead, Volunteers of America, and several home care organizations. As seen in 2012, the future of home care would transform, supported by software.  Some of these changes occurred, particularly care delivery in the home, the growing adoption of health-related portals: