Second Brain

 

A few years ago a man named Sandy Halperin contacted us. He wanted to know if GrandCare could be helpful for people with Alzheimer’s Disease. We were intrigued by the idea. We asked Sandy if he had suggestions. He did.

Sandy himself had recently been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 60. Since that time he has become a well-known advocate for the care and cure of the disease, especially in his native state of Florida. As his disease progressed he often found himself stopping in his tracks without any clear idea of what he was supposed to do next or what he had already done earlier in the day.

With Sandy’s help, GrandCare developed features specifically designed to provide cognitive assistance to people with memory problems. Sandy especially appreciated the To Do List and Today’s Schedule. Together, these features help Sandy quickly orient himself and be reminded of what he supposed to do next and what he had done earlier. He began to refer to his GrandCare unit as his “second brain.”

Thanks to Sandy, GrandCare is a more fully featured product designed to meet the needs of seniors of all kinds–even those who need help in their battle with Alzheimer’s and other memory-related conditions.

For more on Sandy, check out this CNN report from Sanjay Gupta.

RSS Monitoring Using GrandCare to Help State of Ohio Give Better Care

 

The State of Ohio is one of GrandCare’s newest fans. And it’s not just because of our rock star good looks.

A recent segment on ABC 6 On Your Side highlighted GrandCare affiliate RSS Monitoring, and its successful implementation of GrandCare technology, to help save the State of Ohio a lot of money in taking care of disabled residents who need nursing care provided in their homes.

The State of Ohio is experiencing a shortage of home health aides. It’s cheaper for people to receive care in their homes, but the staffing shortage meant that people were getting less care than they needed, or care that wasn’t as good as it should be. That’s why, four years ago, RSS turned to GrandCare for a solution.

“The technology in that case takes the place of a staff person,” said John Martin, Director of the Department of Developmental Disabilities. “It’s one of those neat things where we’re both good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars and it improved the quality of life of some of the folks we’re serving.”

The numbers of dollars saved are larger than you might imagine.

According to the ABC news report, “Martin said each person who uses that technology saves the state between $10,000 to $100,000 compared to the cost of having an around-the-clock home health aide.”

Residents are helped by a variety of GrandCare’s monitoring capabilities. Examples include:

“People with autism who function better with a predictable routine can have a sensor in their shower to make sure they’re getting their morning started on the right track. People who suffer seizures can have a sensor detect if they’ve fallen and might need help.”

The residents like the results.

“People help me out,” said Becky Ross who suffers from seizures and now has sensors on her floors to detect if she’s fallen. “I can be more independent (with the sensors).”

If the sensors in Ross’s home go off, she will get a video call to make sure she’s okay. If she’s not, emergency help will be sent to her home.

Currently 170 people have sensors like that installed in their homes. Thanks to the success of this four-year venture, Gov. Kasich’s budget would now expand the program to cover roughly 600 people.

GrandCare is proud to be a part of this effort. We created GrandCare as a way to improve the lives of so many people. And we’re delighted that in the process of helping their residents, Ohio has found that our systems can help save their taxpayers big money.

See the ABC News video

Caring For Elderly At Home

GrandCare for Elderly Woman and Her Caregivers

She Refused Any and All Care. That is, until she met GrandCare.

Sometimes people who need the care the most simply will not accept it. They resist it for many reasons. Perhaps it is denial that assistance is needed, or perhaps the thought is scary. Or maybe they don’t like the way it feels to need care. And, if human caregivers and family members can’t convince someone to accept help, is it a dead end?

The answer is that there has to be something “in it” for the care recipient. There has to be value.

GrandCare became that value for an elderly woman and her caregivers in Canada.

She had been refusing to allow her caregivers to help her. This was frustrating and concerning for everyone involved. The woman obviously required support. The family didn’t know what to do. Then, one clever caregiver had a brilliant idea involving GrandCare technology. She brought a GrandCare large touch appliance into the woman’s room already equipped with many engaging and nostalgic family photos, videos, personal messages, games and other items of personal interest.

The next time the caregivers came, they started the visit by engaging with her on a personal level. They asked about the photos and memories displayed on the GrandCare slideshow. The interaction was transformed. Not only was she now willing and excited to engage in these personalized conversations, she was also now willing to accept the other assistance she needed from the caregiving staff.

It was a perfect example in that attending to social and engagement needs first will lead to an all around healthier and happier life. While vital and activity monitoring capabilities are critical, the socialization and inspirational features of the GrandCare can be equally important.

In the Spotlight: Ed Kmetz from Pure Sight & Sound, Inc.

Pure Sight & Sound provides design, installation, and consulting services for residential and commercial technology systems in Pennsylvania. Ed Kmetz, president of Pure Sight & Sound, has been a long time visionary, as one of GrandCare’s early implementation & integration experts in the senior and disability market.

We had the opportunity last week to sit down with Ed and really find out what drew him to GrandCare and explore his passion for helping others, particularly in the aging and disability space.

Q: Thanks for talking with us, Ed. Can you start by telling us a little about your background? How did you become involved in technology for seniors?
A: My background is all in technology. After graduating with a materials engineering degree from Drexel in Philadelphia, I immediately went into international sales and engineering, studying in Japan and working globally in Asia, Canada, and Mexico for 15 years.

About 13 years ago, I started my own company doing audio/video and automation in homes and businesses. I hadn’t thought of technology for the aging/disabled market specifically until I learned about GrandCare. I thought it was such a great idea and it fit right in with an initiative I started years ago called “The Grandma Guarantee.” This means Grandma will be able to operate everything Pure Sight & Sound provides, and with little to no training.

Q: Why did you choose GrandCare?
A: In part, because GrandCare started developing their software technology in 2005, clearly making them the pioneer. When I started working with GrandCare, they were the only company that combined the various protocol-driven home and activity sensors, telehealth devices and touch-based socialization platform into one complete package. As great as it was then, they’ve come a long way since. And the support has always been fantastic.

Q: Who is your target audience for selling GrandCare?
A: We sell our GrandCare Systems to two main groups of people. Our first target is the clients of home care agencies, and our second target is hospice (end of life care) facilities.

Q: How do you approach marketing GrandCare?
A: I have a wonderful international business network that I’ve built through the years in this industry. So of course, I leverage that. But it was also important to make closer, personal relationships with local homecare agencies and hospices.

Q: What’s one misconception about aging that you’d like to change?
A: That aging folks are intimidated by technology. Some are, of course, but for the most part, if we can get them touching the interface, we can get them comfortable in a very short time. We bought my mom a computer for her 75th birthday, and had to upgrade her hardware for her 80th!

Q: If you could tell everyone in the world one thing about GrandCare, what would it be?
A: We’ve had better support from GrandCare than probably every other vendor we work with. (And we work with a LOT of vendors!)

Q: What are you most passionate about?
A: I’m passionate about making sure that my customers are comfortable with, understand, and can actually use everything we supply.

Pure Sight & Sound provides design, installation, and consulting services in Pennsylvania, for home theater systems, smart home technology, audio, video, automation, and a variety of other types of residential and commercial technology systems, including GrandCare technology, for assisting seniors and the disabled population. For more information about Pure Sight & Sound, visit www.puresightandsound.com, call 570-992-2992, or email Ed at ekmetz@puresightandsound.com.

For more information about GrandCare, and our growing dealer/reseller/aging service provider network, visit www.grandcare.com or email us at sales@grandcare.com. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Upcoming GrandCare Affiliate Training:
July 25-27 at CEDIA HQ in Indianapolis, IN
August 17-19 at GrandCare HQ in West Bend, WI

GrandCare Makes Healthcare Accessible Via Telemedicine

 

GrandCare is in the news again. Rural telephone companies have partnered with local health care providers to improve access to care using telehealth devices. GrandCare is instrumental to this effort, according to Rural Telecom magazine.

The article “Making Health Care Accessible via Telemedicine,” features innovator Dave Wolf, CEO and general manager of Gardonville Telephone Cooperative in Brandon, MN. Wolf used GrandCare’s monitoring system as the vehicle to partner with Knute Nelson, a senior care organization serving rural Minnesota, to offer in-home services to hospice patients. “They want to go home and be surrounded by family and a familiar environment,” Wolf said.

GrandCare is proud to help.

In the article, Wolf praises GrandCare for its simple and intuitive design that makes it easy for seniors to manage, as well as its security features.

“These are very simple and intuitive and designed for someone who may be a little foggy and on meds,” he said, adding that it’s also easy to lock out unintended users. “We don’t want family visitors jumping on the tablet and clogging it up with games or videos.”

Wolf identifies two other reasons he chose GrandCare: quick installation, and a monthly payment schedule rather than a long-term contract. Wolf pointed out that these features, important to all clients, are especially important to hospice patients where time is of the essence.

In his experience, patients and caregivers liked many of the features of the GrandCare system, for example the medication reminders, music and entertainment features, and video communication with health care providers, caregivers, and family members.

GrandCare’s Clinical Advisor, Daphne Karpan worked with Wolf to help make the partnership a success.In the article, Karpan praises Wolf and rural telecommunication providers for bringing high quality care to people who might otherwise not have access, saying, “Meeting the folks at Gardonville and working with other small telephone companies over the years has given me newfound respect for this group. They work hard, and they care about people.”

Karpan notes that progress has been made toward reimbursement for telehealth.

Medicare is doing pilot programs on telemedicine and home-based care, and it’s starting to do some limited reimbursements. While this is a slow-moving regulatory process, Karpan said the fact that Medicare reimbursements are now based on patient outcomes is good news.

The article also highlights the importance of HIPAA compliance for telehealth reimbursement. Successful partnerships use tools such as GrandCare that meet or exceed the requirements of HIPAA.

The advances in telehealth create a big opportunity. Using a tool that is a proven market leader, and that works, such as GrandCare, will be key to success. As Karpan explains:

“So many health care agencies are coming online to offer in-home services. If you get the package and system figured out, you’ll be the one to get that business.”

GrandCare is a caregiving tool that is designed to reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes by enabling designated family members, caregivers and healthcare professionals to remotely care for an individual in a residence, regardless of geographic location. The heart of GrandCare is a large touchscreen in the residence, which provides the individual with social communications, instructions, reminders and medication prompts. No computer skills are needed for the resident to fully engage in all of the touchscreen features.

GrandCare is the winner of the 2012 CEA Innovation Entrepreneur Award for Small Business of the Year, and is a two-time winner of SeniorHomes.com’s Most Innovative Senior Products Award.

LB Homes Achieves Four Star Medicare Rating, Attributes Success to Technology

 

Minnesota-Based Home Care Agency Uses grandCARE Technology to Improve Patient Care and Outcomes

 

Over100YearslogoFergus Falls, MN – Lakeland Home Care, an LB Homes agency, announced today that they have received a four star quality of patient care rating by Medicare. The average quality rating is 3 stars. LB Homes attributes their high rating to a number of factors including GrandCare’s remote monitoring, telehealth and socialization platform. LB Homes uses this technology in a service called “LB Homes Connect” to provide top-notch care to remote clients.

Medicare ratings, which are determined through an analysis of nine separate quality measures, include flu vaccination rates, drug education, increases in mobility, and fewer hospitalizations. Telehealth, telemedicine, and medication adherence technology from the GrandCare platform can assist in mitigating readmissions and proactively alerting LB Homes nurses should something go wrong.

LB Homes monitors patient vitals using GrandCare telehealth devices like blood pressure cuffs, weight scales and glucometers. The LB Connect system reminds LB clients when and how to take their readings, instructions for medications and can alert trained caregivers of potential problematic situations.

“We have seen healthier and happier clients and we know that [LB Homes Connect] has prevented emergency room visits.” said Carrie Miller, Telehealth Program Coordinator at LB Homes. “Our nurses are more efficient and effective knowing that…we can intervene long before things get critical.”

GrandCare CEO Charlie Hillman understands the importance of in-home technology for the health and well-being of our aging population:

We’ve built a robust and comprehensive caregiving platform, but we have learned that better outcomes are delivered through the people using these tools. LB Homes is proving that remote technologies can empower the best caregivers to provide even better care. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Congratulations to LB Homes on this prestigious recognition.

About LB Homes: LB Homes began helping seniors find quality housing and healthcare services nearly a century ago. Founded in 1915 in the town of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lutheran Brethren Homes began its ministry in senior services and eventually expanded to Arizona and Texas. In 1959 they opened the Broen (Memorial) Home in Fergus Falls, MN.

Over the years LB Homes expanded to now include long term care, home care services, end of life care, short stay care, assisted living, and enhanced assisted living.

For more information, please visit www.LBHomes.org
805 E. Channing Ave, Fergus Falls, MN 56537

About GrandCare: GrandCare Systems, founded in 2005, combines digital health assessment, biometric readings, activity of daily living sensing, medication management, smart home automation, video chat and virtual touch-based communications into the most comprehensive and fully-featured technology in the private home market. GrandCare is designed for individuals seeking a caregiving solution for an aging loved one or for professional in-home, long term care or clinical caregiving providers.

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

PR Contact:
Laura Mitchell Consulting
Digital Health Marketing
media@lmcllc.us
262-707-6726
@laurahmitchell