Tag Archive for: Affiliate Training

GrandCare Goes to CEDIA

These are four CAN’T MISS items for your October Check List

This October, as we enjoy the brisk fall season, we will decorate for Halloween, purchase candy for the lucky trick or treaters, rake up piles of colorful fallen leaves, and in some areas get our snow blowers tuned up for the inevitable snow. But, there is another October opportunity that you won’t want to miss!

GrandCare is offering deep-dive training for new affiliates at CEDIA’s headquarters in Indianapolis. This comprehensive, 3-day look into the connected health and aging technology space includes a mix of instructor-led sessions, roundtable discussions, and hands-on labs. Home technology professionals will learn key aspects of technology implementation in the growing aging and disability market.

CEDIA is the leading global authority in the home technology industry. It represents 3,700 member companies worldwide, and serves more than 30,000 industry professionals. CEDIA also prides itself on offering industry-leading education. This training is a unique opportunity for CEDIA members, who will receive the added benefit of a discounted price.

This training is for home technology professionals, technology enthusiasts, custom integrators/dealers/distributors, professional care providers, healthcare providers and senior housing organizations who are interested in being a GrandCare integrator or distributor. It covers all aspects of technology and successful implementation into the growing aging and disability market. Learn about medical, social and remote monitoring technologies; installation and support; sales and marketing, and more.

“This training is an excellent opportunity for home technology professionals to learn more about the emerging home health market and how those offerings could be incorporated into their business plan,” said Luke Amos, CEDIA Senior Director of Learning.

“We are enthusiastic about working together again with CEDIA and its members,” said Charlie Hillman, CEO of GrandCare Systems. “This training goes beyond a typical technical product training and educates on the extensive and fragmented healthcare, aging, and senior housing landscape.”

As an industry pioneer, GrandCare helped define the aging & technology market. GrandCare provides digital health, activity monitoring, socialization and caregiving technologies designed for the senior and disabled population. GrandCare clients include seniors and their families, professional in-home medical and non-medical caregivers, senior housing providers, healthcare systems, insurance providers, rehab/post-acute, and end-of-life providers. Dealers who attend this training will become authorized GrandCare affiliates.

This training is open to any and all CEDIA members and non-members. Make sure to add GrandCare Affiliate Training to your to-do list this October. CEDIA members receive a discount.

Get more information, or register for training.

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’s Training at CEDIA Makes the News

GrandCare has made the news again. Residential Systems, a magazine for professionals in the home technology arena, featured GrandCare’s 3-day, deep-dive training workshop, which is being offered later this month at CEDIA headquarters in Indianapolis.

The training is a comprehensive, three-day connected health and aging technology training, especially valuable for custom home integrators interested in the growing aging technology market. It’s a deep dive that includes a mix of instructor-led sessions, roundtable discussions, and hands-on labs, “to help home technology professionals understand key aspects of technology implementation in the growing aging and disability market.”

The training will be held at CEDIA’s headquarters in Indianapolis, July 25 – 27,

“This training is an excellent opportunity for home technology professionals to learn more about the emerging home health market and how those offerings could be incorporated into their business plan,” said Luke Amos, CEDIA senior director of learning.

The bootcamp-style training will be hands-on, and will include installation and implementation of an actual system and peripherals, including Bluetooth health devices, integrated HIPAA-compliant video chat, and activity of daily living monitoring. The training also includes strategies for breaking into the market, a comprehensive sales and marketing session focused on sales strategies, effective online marketing campaigns, the competitive landscape, healthcare reform, long-term care opportunities, and how to brand your company as the “go-to” in the aging and health technology space.

“We are enthusiastic about working together again with CEDIA and its members,” said Charlie Hillman, CEO of GrandCare Systems. “This training goes beyond a typical technical product training and educates on the extensive and fragmented healthcare, aging, and senior housing landscape.”

The event is co-hosted by GrandCare and CEDIA, and will include special guest speakers Michele Ahlman, CEO of ClearSounds Communications on hearing loss in the aging population and Jeff Hill, CEO of MyGait on easy senior computing solutions.

“This training goes beyond a typical technical product training and educates on the extensive and fragmented healthcare, aging, and senior housing landscape.”—Charlie Hillman, CEO of GrandCare Systems

Learn more or register online.
Or contact GrandCare at info@grandcare.com, or (262) 338-6147.

See the complete text of the Residential Systems article here.