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The Digital Health investment frenzy is running out of superlatives. Words are crowd-funding out the clichés – are we nearing a tipping point, re-imagining, having a frictionless health experience, or becoming consumer cultural force? Watch this overview of the 59-second pitch – and wonder, have we ever seen such breathless entrepreneur energy and excitement since the days of the dot-com boom and browser wars?  Executives of these companies are practiced and smooth – eliminating needless words and clearing of throats, they cram confident assertions about money raised, consumers helped, design implications, and future strategy -- into 59 seconds.  Speed dating investment meets deal-making -- and optimists claim that the pace of deals will apparently be solid in 2014.  

What do we mean by senior? Well, it depends on where you stand and what you are reading. Seen through the Google Glassy lens of young adults, it’s everyone aged 50+, that is, the AARP market demographic, who might be considered a senior. Or perhaps it is age 65, when Medicare eligibility and public transit discounts appear. Age 65 is also the statistical baseline for longevity projections – 20 more years of life expectancy, with one in four projected to live past 90. Now mull over a new Pew global survey about attitudes on aging -- the US stood out as "one of very few countries where a large plurality of the public believes individuals are primarily responsible for their own well-being in old age." Consider that point and read on.

How do elderly patients and their caregivers leave the hospital?  Apparently with reams of paper that include post-hospital care instructions and medication lists.  In addition, a patient receives detailed verbal instructions from a nurse, perhaps for wound care, plus reminders to follow up with the doctor.  Note the 'best practice' outlined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality -- more paper. Yet in the age of smartphone adoption by boomers – more than half of Pew responders were in the 35-44 age range, 39% were 55-64 – something seems odd about this document-intensive process. Consider a scenario in which an elderly person is going home, driven by a family member, or perhaps they are going to a rehab facility/nursing home.  

A long holiday stretch ends.  No, I’m not talking about Christmas decorations in shopping malls. The media frenzy that was CES 2014 may soon wane away, although post mortems and predictions persist. So let’s review: there were Silvers Summit exhibitors (6) and then there was Digital Health (77). For CES health-related overall, count 170 per Mobile Health News – and that includes "e-Cigarette makers that categorized themselves as Digital Health."  See one of a few cynical posts – where we can find a new word -- track-a-holism -- and a new slogan -- "sitting is the new smoking." But in the Digital Health exhibit list, note the presence of GrandCare and Independa – two long-standing players in what could have been categorized at a different event as senior technology.