It’s a common refrain in senior living that today’s assisted living communities are closer to yesterday’s skilled nursing facilities.
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Comments
Good points; caregivers using tech on behalf of older adults
hi Laurie,
Thanks for this post. Am right with you, wishing that the movement for patient engagement would better accommodate the needs of older adults and their families.
I think more and more seniors will have smartphones over the next 5 years; remains to be seen how user-friendly the apps and tech will be.
You have probably already seen it, but Pew recently release a report on caregivers and they are very involved in digital health and online activities, often on behalf of an older person.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Family-Caregivers.aspx
Healthcare & tech focus
I am 75 years old and, obviously, tech savvy. My only grandchild is 30 - and not apt to reach the age of 75. From what I'm seeing, online, her generation's life expectancy is less than my generation's. Please don't fret over us oldsters. Too much of the healthcare dollar is spent on the last few years of life. Let something be done to improve the lot of the youngsters.
Tech is a two-edged sword
I spoke yesterday to a small group of home healthcare providers about "Moore's Law and The Future of Healthcare," where I come at that future from a different perspective.(http://www.mhealthtalk.com/2013/07/moores-law-and-the-future-of-healthcare/)
They all shared a concern for not having enough time for the human touch, and we talked about reasons for that, including our for-profit healthcare system that keeps patients as paying customer by treating symptoms and being compensated for each visit, procedure, test, and prescription. We talked about technology, how it helped get us into the situation we're in now and how it might help get us out. And we talked about the pending doctor shortage as the tsunami of boomers retire and how tech can help, with telehealth, remote sensor monitoring, cloud computing, big data analytics, personalized medicine, and more.
As you can tell, I disagree that healthcare has too much tech focus. My issue is that practitioners, public policy and regulation can't keep up.
Should have been clearer -- investors focus was my point
Actually my point, which could have been made more clearly, is that the investment community is very focused on tech, but the areas they focus on will not be particularly helpful to seniors -- who consume the largest share of health care spending.
Hospitals Trying to Avoid Re-Admission - Some Simple Answers
Hospitals could first of all look at the obvious - the way their final paperwork to the patient is done. During the first hour of the entry process, it seems that a nurse comes in at every different stage to ask the patient's medication list - and dutifully enters it into the computer. Why then when the patient leaves and is given their list of medications is it so often wrong? So often the paper work will indicate to continue taking the medications they were taking when they entered the hospital - they are listed, and inevitably they are out-dated and wrong. Where does it go wrong? Do the over-worked nurses fail to "SAVE" their entries in the computer system? Far too often the elderly patient goes home, looks over the paper work and is totally confused. So the hospitals need to start there.
Next, the wording needs to be made simpler on the forms when the patient leaves. Too often the wording is vague and not specific enough to the patient's actual diagnosis. These simple facts could be a basis for improving care of the elderly at hospitals. Start at the beginning!