Listen to Laura Mitchell on the Peggy Smedley Show

Thursday, March 1^st, 2012

Transforming Social Media for the Senior Community

...To enable a connected living and social aging experience for older consumers, vendors need to begin to design for all, and entrepreneurs and the venture community need a more dynamic relationship with this huge and underserved growth market.

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Plato once wrote, "Necessity, the mother of invention".

How true this was for our founders.

In the early 1990's, Charlie Hillman had a problem. He was caring for his great aunt who lived in a cottage next door. Clara was in her late 80's and was blessed with good health and cognition. She walked over to his house once or twice a day for meals and family gatherings.

One January morning she called to let Charlie know that it was cold in her home. Charlie went over to check it out and found that all of the windows were open. Clara had opened the windows because of a strong, burning smell and thick smoke. Charlie's heart went into his shoes as he navigated the crawlspace below the cottage and noticed flames coming from the furnace.

Subsequent conversations revealed that Clara had been enduring temperature swings for weeks and had heard noises coming from the basement. She, of course, had no idea what this was and "didn't want to bother anyone".

Charlie was incredulous and shaken by the close call. He knew there had to be a solution and thus the vision of GrandCare was born. Unable to find any integrated solution on the market, Charlie put his MIT education to good use and in the mid-nineties, began to design a system from a variety of disciplines. Charlie knew there were many others in a similar situation, who could use a user-friendly system that was easy to install. By 1995, Clara's home was outfitted with a pre-GrandCare product consisting of basic sensors and a device to automatically turn on her TV when Lawrence Welk came on. Clara was safe, happy and was able to continue living independently at home for the rest of her life.

Charlie tabled his GrandCare vision for a few years and came back full force in 2003, started Beta Testing the GrandCare System in 2005 and officially bringing the GrandCare model to market in late 2006.

The GrandCare System is comprehensive, fully featured, flexible, expandable, and value priced. GrandCare is utilized in private home and community care settings.