Digital Health & Professional Care: What’s the ROI?

Learn about how one GrandCare HomeCare provider successfully utilizes the GrandCare technology as a tool for clients to provide better, more cost-effective and visionary care. GrandCare & Knute Nelson co-presented at the AgeTech West Conference in Pasadena, November 2013. The audience: long term care and in-home care providers, looking to utilize activity and digital health telemonitoring and socialization technologies for a competitive edge and to improve their bottom line!!

Realizing the Value of Care Technologies through Implementation at Scale:
“The New Care Professional: Powered by Digital Health Technology”

PRESENTERS: Laura Mitchell, VP Business Development, GrandCare Systems and Daphne Karpan, Palliative Care Manager, KnuteNelson Home Care
Digital health, social engagement and remote monitoring technologies are designed to not only create a better care experience for seniors and their families, but equally important is enhancing the way professionals can manage the care needs of their clients. This session discusses how an easy-to-use, convenient technology platform has been integrated into a home care organization, empowering and transforming Professional Care Managers into efficient, more knowledgeable purveyors of care and support. Learn how integrating technology with hands-on services can change the way we care for those in need in the most efficient and cost-effective manner without compromising quality.

Join us for a FREE online GrandCare Sales Presentation

System Comp HR11-13

GrandCare is the most comprehensive digital health and remote monitoring technology on the market.  Combining Activity of daily living and digital health monitoring, medication management, event reminders and prompting, remote caregiver coordination, smart home automation, social media and touch-based connectivity, GrandCare offers an easy-to-use, affordable and intuitive solution for individuals that want to remain safe, happy and healthy at home.

Event Details:

GrandCare’s VP of Business Development, Laura Mitchell will deliver an hour long presentation describing the market need, showcasing GrandCare’s rich features, applications for private home settings, long term care, in-home care providers and post-acute hospital transitions.  Join us for this hour long informative and entertaining session on how and why technology can play an important role in mitigating long term care & health care costs, empower professional and familial caregivers and reduce hospital readmissions.

Join:

Wednesday, February 12, 2014
2:00 pm Eastern Standard Time
1:00 pm Central Standard TimeWhere: GrandCare Systems on Webex

Who should Attend:

Consumers looking to keep a loved one at home, in-home care providers, long term care providers, nursing staff & hospital providers, anyone interested in technology tools that can help individuals remain at home, improving outcomes and saving costs.

Laura Mitchell, VP Business Development, GrandCare Systems

Laura Mitchell, VP Business Development, GrandCare Systems

Laura Mitchell is a founding member of GrandCare Systems, a software technology that combines aspects of Activity of Daily living & Telehealth remote monitoring, Video Chat, Medication Management, and family social connectivity into one comprehensive platform. Laura was responsible for bringing the product to market in 2006, while educating the industry on the importance of technology tools for the aging population. Laura specializes in Social Media and non-traditional, guerilla marketing. She was featured in Forbes for her social media strategies and was a 2011 recipient of the Flame Award for Excellence in Leadership and Innovation from Silicon Valley’s Boomer Awards. She was featured as a “Young Turk of CE” by Custom Retailer Magazine and was awarded the 2012 Dealerscope’s 40 under 40 award.

Laura speaks throughout the country at industry events, radio shows and internet publications on Digital Health, Mitigating Hospital Readmissions using Technology, Social Media and Go-to-market Strategies in the Aging Industry including at AARP, Connected Health Symposium, CES, CEDIA, AHIMA, etc. She has authored various magazine articles for online readers and magazine publications. Laura has consulted for major cable providers, in-home care providers as well as fellow innovators. She has been a key organizer for the EHX and CEDIA Future Home Pavilions and Educational Tracks, and in 2008, created the industry-wide, well attended Thursday GrandCare Aging and Technology webinars (these continued for 4 years).

GrandCare featured in MobiHealthNews “Point of Care” article from CES 2014

GrandCare’s VP of Business Development, Laura Mitchell was a panelist on the “Point-of-Care Everywhere” track at the Digital Health Summit during last week’s CES in Las Vegas.

Dr. Joseph Kvedar, director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare moderated the discussion on trends in mobile health technology and the process of moving healthcare out of more traditional clinical settings to patients on the move and in their homes. Additional panelists included Walter De Brouwer of Scanadu Inc., Nersi Nazari of Vital Connect, and Yasmine Winkler of UnitedHealthcare.

CES: Mobile health has a lot of power, but it’s raw and new

[…] It’s an uphill battle for sure to sell certain healthcare organizations on new technology. Laura Mitchell, VP of business development at GrandCare Systems, maker of communication and monitoring systems for independent living, said that some long-term-care providers see the West Bend, Wis.-based company as a competitor rather than a useful service.

“We’re sort of the baby monitor but we’re not the mom,” said Mitchell. It is GrandCare’s job to deliver useful, actionable information—with as little “noise” as possible—to caregivers. The caregiver needs to be able to act on the information GrandCare delivers, but the vendor needs to eliminate “noise” in data.

Information should be in the form of “constant reminders,” integrated into the lives of patients and their caregivers, Mitchell said.

This sounds simple, but it so far has not been. Kvedar said that Wellocracy, a social community for health that the Center for Connected Health spun out and launched at CES last year, still searching for its audience.

However, he is optimistic, given the changes going on in healthcare and the merging of institutional and consumer technologies. Despite the rocky rollout of HealthCare.gov, Kvedar said that health insurance exchanges are a “powerful force for engaging consumers.” Kvedar acknowledged that these exchanges are about connecting people to insurance coverage, not managing health conditions, but he said that they at least start people thinking, perhaps for the first time, about being consumers in the healthcare segment.

New payment models that reward outcomes rather than value also are driving growth in nontraditional care settings, plus, as Kvedar illustrated with the smartphone “addiction” example, consumers – all of whom are potential patients – are already so familiar with so many technologies on display at the massive CES show this week.

Read the full article at by Neil Versel at http://mobihealthnews.com/28673/ces-mobile-health-has-a-lot-of-power-but-its-raw-and-new/

GRANDCARE SYSTEMS UNVEILS AT CES 2014 NEW ECOMMERCE WEB STORE

WEST BEND, Wisc. — January 6th, 2014 —

HomeBaseGrandCare Systems announced today at CES 2014 LVCC South Hall 2 Booth 25724 its new online web store at www.GrandCare.com, offering socialization, medication and telehealth packages. This debut launch of the GrandCare.com store showcases the company’s new direct-to-consumer model: a plug-and-play system that eliminates the need for professional installation.

“GrandCare is one of the earliest players in the aging and technology industry, which has given the company time to build out the most comprehensive and flexible platform on the market,” said GrandCare Chief Executive Officer, Dan Maynard.  “Seven years ago, the technology wasn’t there and we required professional installation through a network of dealers, but times have changed and now almost anyone can set up the GrandCare System, using our intuitive instructions and online help guides.”

The GrandCare HomeBase System is an easy-to-use and affordable consumer solution that offers a wide variety of sensor and feature choices in one comprehensive and expandable platform. It easily grows with changing needs.  Activity or digital health sensors can be added at any time.  The GrandCare HomeBase is the perfect solution for individuals that wish to remain independent, healthy and connected.

Family and friends keep in touch through photos, letters and one-button video chat.  Reminders and medication prompts can be enabled on the large and easy to read touchscreen.  GrandCare also enables family and professional caregivers through an online care portal. There they can set up alert parameters (e.g. being notified if someone fails to take blood pressure reading or doesn’t acknowledge medications were taken) as well as share care coordination notes.

The GrandCare HomeBase System can be utilized alone for socialization, reminders and prompts.  Digital Health Sensors and Medication Management features can easily be added right from the online store. More sophisticated packages including activity sensors and smart home devices can be purchased by contacting GrandCare directly.

About GrandCare Systems:
Since 2005, GrandCare Systems has provided the most comprehensive caregiving technology on the market, enabling individuals to remain safe, healthy and happy at home. GrandCare’s simple, touch platform enables a Resident to view pictures, receive incoming messages, watch videos, video chat with family, listen to music and play fun games. Using a series of wireless activity and telehealth devices, GrandCare can alert designated caregivers by phone, email or text if anything seems amiss (medications not accessed, glucose levels not taken, abnormal activity, etc.)

For more information: www.grandcare.com or call 262-338-6147.

GrandCare is exhibiting at CES 2014, LVCC South Hall 2 Booth 25724.

PR Contact:
Laura Mitchell
Media@grandcare.com
262-338-6147

CEA’s 2014 Technology Trends To Watch

Consumer Digital Health Care: Featuring GrandCare Systems and VP Business Development, Laura Mitchell
By Rachel Horn

An excerpt from Remote Monitoring and Health Maintenance

Some remote monitoring products combine software and hardware to track and transmit multiple data points and virtually connect people with doctors and loved ones. The GrandCare System, for example, incorporates daily living monitoring with health data capture technologies, socialization tools, video chat capabilities, entertainment features and medication management tools. “We’re a platform that interacts with and engages with a ton of different technologies and different sensors,” explains Laura Mitchell, vice president for business development at GrandCare. The system is designed to be fully customizable and very easy to use. “The system is as intuitive as an ATM or a microwave. It’s very simple,” Mitchell says.

On FDA Approval for Medical Apps

GrandCare’s Laura Mitchell says it makes sense for the FDA to get involved with software in the same way they get involved with hardware, to make sure these services work properly. GrandCare is in the final stages of securing FDA approval for its aging-in-place system. “We had to prove that our software is actually accurately reading those devices,” Mitchell says. “Does it stop innovation? A little bit, definitely, but it’s also sort of a necessary evil because we’re dealing with someone’s health and wellness. It makes sure that we’re giving them the right information and sound advice.

Additional Articles included in CEA’s 5 Technology Trends To Watch include:

  • A Hundred Billion Nodes, By Shawn G. DuBravac, CFA
  • On the Road to Driverless Cars, By Jack Cutts
  • Robots Ahead, By Richard Kowalski
  • The Curators of New Video, By Mark Chisholm

Download the full report at http://content.ce.org/PDF/2014_5tech_web.pdf