Tag Archive for: Digital Home Health

HomeCare Magazine highlights grandCARE as an aging in place solution

HomeCare Logo

GrandCare Systems was recently featured in HomeCare Magazine in an article by Graham Miller about aging in place. Technology is transforming the way both aging populations and health care professionals view and manage health care, with the reality being that the best way to keep people out of hospitals and long-term care is through prevention. Digital health tools, such as the grandCARE system, can be the key to greater prevention and managing long-term health needs for seniors.

In the article, Graham Miller writes:

“Every day, tens of thousands of Americans are turning 65, and three factors—longer life spans, rising health care costs and aging baby boomers—are driving the growth of this demographic. An overwhelming percentage of these aging adults desires to stay at home, maintaining an active, independent lifestyle for as long (and as safely) as possible.”

“The Affordable Care Act has changed how both consumers and companies view health care,” says Dan Maynard, president and CEO of GrandCare Systems. “The cost of health care continues to rise, especially for the aging populations that require more frequent and longer-term health care monitoring.” A large part of the new legislation focuses on hospital readmission reductions and consequences for reactive versus proactive care, he says, and there are significant financial incentives for hospitals to actively work with Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs) to reduce costs associated with patient readmissions. Products like grandCARE incorporate resident information and support, captured resident data and professional caregiving tools, encouraging everyone in the caregiving support network to work together to achieve true patient-centered care. “A path of a patient/provider partnership results in better outcomes for both the patients and the caregivers because it creates greater efficiency for the caregiver staff by allowing virtual care, which results in fewer at-home visits,” says Maynard.

Our product is designed to reduce health care costs and improve outcomes by enabling family members, caregivers and health care professionals to remotely care for an individual living at home. The system uses a large touch screen in the residence, which provides the individual with social communications, health care monitoring, visual daily reminders and medication prompts. The easy-to-use interface means that no computer skills are needed for the resident to engage in all of the touch screen features. The system also supports virtual video visits, telehealth device recording (which takes vitals such as wireless blood pressure readings, weight, pulse oximerty, glucose and thermometer readings) and remote in-home activity sensing.

We recently incorporated a new professional caregiver and user task management feature into the system, which allows the resident and caregiver to follow a daily schedule of tasks (such as medication administration, caregiver education, scheduled appointments, etc.).

Caregiver showing grandCARE user new task list feature on the resident's touchscreen.

Caregiver showing grandCARE user new task list feature on resident’s touchscreen.

“This new feature enhances the resident engagement aspect by giving the resident a daily to-do list and establishes complete transparency for professional caregiving organizations by providing a task list that is required to be completed during home visits,” says Maynard.

– See more at: http://www.homecaremag.com/aging-place/mar-2015/smart-home-solutions-aging-population#sthash.Hxk28Xpy.dpuf

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).

Nick McLain, CEDIA – On Digital Home Health

Nick McLain has recently written a great article on entering the digital home health field. He covers not only the basic demographics and applications, but takes a moment to point out the challenges and need for integrators to really understand the health care industry.  He used industry experts: Laurie Orlov (Age in Place Technology Watch), GrandCare’s own, Laura Mitchell, and GrandCare partner, Tom Ardolf of Cybermation .

“This is more about understanding home health care and its industry than it is about understanding the technology, which most integrators can get pretty easily.” – Ardolf

Digital Home Health Continues Its Ascent –
But Is It Viable for the CE Industry?

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Nick McLain

Ed Thelen, 69, of Cold Spring is able to live in his apartment with the help of an integrated monitoring system marketed locally by Cybermation.
Jason Wachter, jwachter@stcloudtimes.com

“You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger endorser of digital home health technology than Ed Thelen of Cold Spring, Minn.

That’s not how the 70-year-old originally felt when his daughter, who also acts as his caregiver, proposed getting such a system a year ago. “My first reaction was, ‘I don’t need anything like that,’” he says. “But she talked me into it, and I’m really glad she did. It’s absolutely wonderful.”

Thelen, who has Parkinson’s and diabetes, records his blood pressure and weight, and the results are sent to his doctor. The unit he uses, a Grandcare System, also has Skype capabilities so that Thelen can talk to and see his relatives, and in particular his grandchildren, often. “I can see them all the time now,” he says. “It helps me keep in close contact with everybody.”

Telehealth, digital home health, remote monitoring, aging in place, e-health, m-health — whatever you want to call it, the industry, which aims to deliver health care remotely through technology, is a burgeoning one. Laurie Orlov, an industry analyst and founder of Aging in Place Technology Watch, puts the size of the digital home health care industry at approximately $6-7 billion — and growing.”

Laura Mitchell, vice president of business development for Grandcare Systems, says many of her dealers lower the initial upfront cost of the equipment and instead spread it out over monthly fees. After the equipment is paid for, the monthly fees are pure profit.

Ardolf started offering digital home health products and services in 2010. After two years, he is so satisfied with it that he sold the low-voltage electronic portion of his business, and now Cybermation focuses exclusively on digital home health.

Read more at www.cedia.net/blog

In Response to: Joe Coughlin’s It’s the Services Stupid”

I just read an extremely insightful blog entry called

It’s the Services Stupid! Transforming Old Age & New Technology Into Business Innovation

by one of my favorites in the industry, Joseph F Coughlin.

I have included a link to his blog entry below, but he basically starts out with “There is not a shortage of technology being developed for old age so why haven’t these gadgets flooded retail shelves or become a routine government procurement tantalizing contractors in the Fed’s Commerce Business Daily? President Bill Clinton’s advisor James Carville coined the phrase ‘it’s the economy stupid’ to capture what the 1992 American public was most concerned about – the economy. Today’s investors, technology researchers and the aging community need to see the promise of technology but understand what older people, families and payers really care about – complete service solutions that lead to improved outcomes in living.”
… this kind of thing has been on my mind these days…what are the stumbling blocks and what can we do to overcome them? Here is my list of just some initial hurdles that we need to get through in order to get to the point where Digital Home Health Technology & Services can easily be deployed in a retail situation or in a medical situation:
1. REIMBURSEMENT!!! Insurance providers and Medicare providers need to recognize telehealth & remote monitoring as worthwhile and cost-effective investments…they will save money. How many studies do we need to prove this is the case? In the same way that computers saved banks money (eventually, after the learning curves)….this will be a huge cost savings (not to mention, we simply don’t have the physical caregivers nor the brick and mortar to support the massive disruptive demographics)
2. Hardware costs need to come down!  Just like the early laptops and cell phones, the cost of the touchcomputers and bluetooth enabled telehealth devices are significant….mass adoption will drive these costs down and make the solutions more affordable to the software developers and end-users.
3. Acceptance of the public!  This will come with time…GrandCare has been in this market since Jan 2005 and the acceptance has already grown by leaps and bounds (maybe not as fast as we expected), but it’s coming around. People are starting to understand WHAT this is and HOW it can apply to their own lives.
4. Acceptance in the Long Term Care & In-Home Care industry. Again…we are getting there…moving there. It is changing from being viewed as competition to being viewed as a caregiving tool…but how do they best utilize and who should play that role? Plays into #5.
5. There is a new role that will be created for the person that can help implement the right technology into the right situation. Just like in the 90’s when a brand new job role emerged (IT)…there is a need for someone that has enough technical know-how, with a healthcare/caregiving background. This person would be responsible for helping a person transition from hospital to home or even to develop a care plan that married hands-on care along with technology…  I wrote about this new role in my white paper “Healing in Place”: Mitigating Hospital Readmissions Using Technology –
6. Business Models!! We need to create sufficient business models for in-home care providers, hospitals & Long Term Care Facilities. How do they charge? How should they monitor? How should they deploy? We need to define the exact process…in fact, I am working on defining this process at the moment for in-home care providers. What new roles they may need to hire, what an example charge could be and how they might utilize the socialization piece, perhaps add some in-home hands-on care and supplement with 24-7 monitoring.
Thanks again for your thoughtful post Dr. Coughlin!
-Laura Mitchell
GrandCare Systems
www.grandcare.com
reposted on http://www.grandcare.wordpress.com
Read the full blog entry here

GrandCare Systems and CoroHealth Announce a Harmonious Collaboration

West Bend, WI – November 2, 2011 – GrandCare Systems and Coro Health today announced a strategic collaboration to integrate Coro Health’s Streaming Music into GrandCare’s fully-featured remote activity of daily living monitoring, telehealth and socialization system.  The result is a harmonious experience: giving the GrandCare customer a deeper level of musical entertainment, passion and familial communication.

“It’s a natural fit” states GrandCare Systems Founder and CEO, Charles Hillman.  “GrandCare Systems has always embraced a holistic approach by considering the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of wellness. We are excited to collaborate with Coro Health, one of the pioneers in therapeutic music.”

“Music is much more than a series of notes” remarks David Schofman, Founder of Coro Health.  “It can reach deep into the human spirit and change a mood in an instant. GrandCare’s platform provides a perfect home for Coro Health’s therapeutic music and will help to enable Loved Ones to remain connected and happy in their homes.”

GrandCare Systems and Coro Health will be showcasing the Digital Home Health and music partnership at the upcoming AgeTech California Technology Conference & Exposition on November 15th at the Hilton Hotel in Pasadena, CA.

About GrandCare Systems: On the market since 2006, GrandCare Systems is a pioneer in the aging and technology digital home health industry.  GrandCare offers a senior friendly, Internet-enabled, private home touch screen system aimed at maintaining independence, enabling full family socialization, controlling chronic conditions, and reducing hospital readmissions. It combines the technologies of smart home, activity monitoring, wellness monitoring, and social connectivity. The wellness aspect includes wireless physiological readings (weight, blood pressure, oximeter, glucometer), self- assessment, and medication compliance with associated rule sets, alerts, and congregate analytics. The social aspect includes one button Skype, Coro Health music, wellness videos, reminders, and other standard social media content aimed at reducing isolation, educating the resident, and influencing them to better self-manage his/her own health.

About Coro Health: Coro Health is a new media healthcare company. We create, design and distribute therapeutic media to support individuals within a wide range of healthcare settings. Our flagship products include MusicFirst and CoroFaith. Both programs are individually designed for users and delivered via a cloud-based and device agnostic network. Our customers include long-term care communities, hospitals, rehabilitation agencies, home health companies and end consumers.

GrandCare Media Contact:
Laura Mitchell
VP of Marketing
262-338-6147
laura@grandcare.com
www.grandcare.com
Press kit: https://www.grandcare.com/presskit/docs/PressKit.pdf

Coro Health Media Contact:
Leanne J. Flask
Chief Content Officer
512-553-6482
leanne@corohealth.com
www.corohealth.com

Join us for tomorrow for “Digital Home Health in 60 Minutes or Less”

Tomorrow, November 3rd, 2011 

2pm EDT – 1pm CDT – 12pm MDT – 11am PDT

http://grandcaresystems.webex.com

Digital Home Health in 60 Minutes or Less

Explore the aging in place solutions available and how to successfully promote and install them. Featuring Laura Mitchell, VP of Marketing for GrandCare Systems

This webinar will focus on:

  • Overview of Digital Home Health Solutions
  • Marketing Tips & Tricks
  • How to avoid common sales faux pas

Join us at: http://grandcaresystems.webex.com  Dial-in:  1-408-600-3600   Pin: * 669 477 157#

Sponsored By GrandCare Systems

The Digital Home Health Boom – Custom Retailer Magazine

Wanted to throw this article out there for you. Written by one of our distributors, Home Controls, this article emphasizes why Digital Home Health is the market place to be in!  GrandCare’s VP of Marketing took some time with Jonathan (the author and Marketing for Home Controls) to speak about this industry and what it means to the dealers.  GrandCare is quoted in this article as one of the aging in place technologies.

Are you ready to expand into the aging in place market. Read this article to learn more….

http://digitaleditions.napco.com/publication/?i=86888

11/3/11 Webinar “Digital Home Health in 60 Minutes or Less”

Thursday November 3rd Aging & Technology Webinar

2:00 pm ET  1:00 pm CT  12:00 pm MT 11:00 am PT

Download/Watch Here

Explore the aging in place solutions available and how to successfully promote and install them.

This webinar will focus on:

  • An overview of Digital Home Health Solutions
  • Marketing Tips & Tricks
  • How to avoid common sales faux pas

Our Presenter: Laura Mitchell
VP of Marketing for GrandCare Systems

Laura is a founding member of the GrandCare team. A significant part of her role was to bring the product to market through the development of a nation-wide GC-Partner and Distributor network. Laura has spoken in various  venues and educational forums including ASA, Silicon Valley Boomer Summit, AHIMA, LSN Tech Conference, CEDIA and EHX about enabling technologies for the aging population, the importance of social media in the aging industry, industry disruptive demographics and technology-enabled medication management. She is What’s Next Boomer Summit Flame Award Winner for Innovation & Leadership, a co-founder and a Director on the AgeTek Alliance board (www.agetek.org), the creator and host of the bi-weekly industry-wide “Aging & Technology Webinars,” and a key organizer for the EHX CE Pro Show and CEDIA Future Home Pavilion and Educational Tracks.

This webinar is free and requires no registration, simply join us at:
https://grandcaresystems.webex.com
Call in: +1-408-600-3600
Access code: 669 477 157

GrandCare Systems featured on “Into Tomorrow” by Dave Graveline – from EHX

I ran across this video today while searching online and thought I’d share! It’s a great little clip of two of our GrandCare team members giving a demonstration back in March 2011 at EHX: The CEPRO event in Orlando. GrandCare R&D team member, Nick Hall and GrandCare Las Vegas Sales Rep, Brietta Smith, were interviewed by Dave Graveline & Rob Almanza from Into Tomorrow about the GrandCare wellness sensors (namely the blood pressure device) and the newer integration of the Rx Tender, Medication Dispenser.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozk_d3hhCbM]

 

Finding Opportunities for Health Care Technology Integration – Residential Systems Reports

Lee from Residential Systems does a nice job of discussing the opportunities in Digital Home Health. GrandCare’s VP of Marketing, Laura Mitchell & CEDIA’s Dave Pedigo weigh in on the dealer/integrator opportunities in home health technology and why the in-home health care providers should be listening…  NOTE: the technology called Health Fronts, should be HealthSense

RX Integration
By Lee Distad, September 6, 2011

Full story: http://residentialsystems.com/article/63422.aspx

inding Opportunities for Health Care Technology Integration

Technology is getting to the point where in-home technology can do things that help medical professionals monitor their patients remotely, long term.

In the AV and automation channels there are categories that are widely adopted, such as AV distribution, as well as ones that are less so, such as energy management. At least at present, home health care is a category that is in the latter group. But a partnership between CEDIA and manufacturers of these technologies is seeking to make it both better known and a successful profit center for integrators.

CEDIA’s director of technology, Dave Pedigo, has been personally embedded in home health care research for the past year. As he puts it, “The elevator to get on and understand the category would be to take away the technology for a second and look at sheer numbers: there are 100 million in the U.S. alone who are reaching retirement age. At the same time there’s a serious shortage of doctors: as many as 150,000 fewer than needed according to the Wall Street Journal.”

With the growth of an elderly population and decreasing number of medical professionals, the question becomes how that disparity is going to be handled. Pedigo explained that, “Technology is getting to the point where we can do things that help the medical professionals.” By which he means the ability to remotely monitor patients, long term.

The home health care market is very much in its infancy, according to Laura Mitchell, VP of marketing for GrandCare Systems. Although she warns that it’s not as undeveloped as some people might believe. “Maybe it’s better to say that it’s an adolescent with braces,” she joked, going on to assert that the category has been around for some while now and is seeing more vendors and more advanced technology.

Mitchell explained that when GrandCare was being developed in 2005 there were only three major players: GrandCare, QuietCare, which is now a part of GE, and Health Fronts. While educating the market is still ongoing, Mitchell said that it was more of an uphill back then, requiring her to get out in the field, telling people that the technology exists, and getting health-care professionals to accept it. “I went from place to place,” she said, “including long-term and in-home care providers, many of whom saw us as competition.”

Mitchell said that her mission was to teach health-care professionals that home health-care technologies are supplemental to the health-care workers, and not a replacement for the human touch. “A baby monitor is not a replacement for a mother,” Mitchell said, noting, “Our products enable a better standard of care and a bigger picture of wellness.” For example, a computer algorithm can see patterns of behavior and vital signs that a family member or in-home care provider might miss. That said, the system is simply reporting information. “The smartest part of the system is the caregiver who’s making assessments based on that information.” She concludes.

GrandCare Systems’ Laura Mitchell said that her mission has been to teach health-care professionals that home health-care technologies are supplemental to the health-care workers, and not a replacement for the human touch.

What it Means to Integrators

So why should integrators consider home health care? According to Mitchell, with an aging boom under way in the USA “This is something that has to happen, and must happen to assist Americans coping with the aging boom.”

According to Mitchell, there is a lot of education that needs to be done. As far as people outside the industry are concerned, home health care is synonymous with PERS, the Personal Injury Service, and better known by the iconic commercial tagline, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” Mitchell said. “One of the biggest hurdles is explaining that this category is more than that. With crisis management, you push a button and something happens. But that’s a reactive technology. Other solutions, such as what GrandCare focuses on are proactive, preventative solutions.”

It’s Mitchell’s assertion that prospective clients should not wait until an emergency to get a home health-care system in place. Rather, that they should be looked at in the context of ongoing wellness; using the feedback and data from the system for preventative care. “Think of these systems as being in place as ‘no news is good news’ systems,” she explained.

Technology continues to progress, with recent innovations including medication management and GPS-enabled reporting, for tracking when a subject has gone beyond their normal parameters.

“Some of the medication technology can dispense medication at the right time and provide health and dose advice,” Mitchell explained.”

Although she points out that without a throat camera, there is no verification that the meds have been swallowed. Even then, technology is being developed with tablets that can alert the system that they’ve been dissolved. While that remains a future technology, monitors that track blood pressure, bodyweight, movement around the house, including frequency of bathroom breaks, and sleep patterns exist now, and these provide care givers with a more complete picture of a subject’s well-being.

Pedigo suggested that there are dual issues in play that make home health care ideal for integrators. The first is that there is a large potential client base, which translates to lucrative recurring revenue opportunities. The other is the nature of the technology itself.

“I don’t think it can be cookie cutter, which makes it ideal for integrators; we’re used to installing motions and dry contacts, and we’re already installing other systems,” Pedigo noted.

CEDIA’s Role

So what’s CEDIA doing to help raise awareness of home health care with integrators? “Well, we’re doing a couple of things,” Pedigo replied. “We’ve formed the Home Health Advisory Group, which comprises manufacturers that are advising us on what we should be doing for the industry, and helping CEDIA develop training materials.”

GrandCare Systems Laura Mitchell says that one of the biggest hurdles to selling home health-care category, is explaining that it’s more than just, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” technology synonymous with with PERS, the Personal Injury Service.

A big part of CEDIA’s outreach is clarifying what home health care really means. “We’re taking this nebulous concept and honing it so that our members can sell it,” Pedigo explained.

At the moment, the home health-care field is wide open, yet with risks and unknowns that integrators will need to sort out.

“I think that at the moment there are few specific certifications involved, but I can foresee that changing,” Mitchell said. However, she pointed out that if integrators get involved with offering any healthcare devices, like blood pressure monitors, they have to be HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant.

“GrandCare has a HIPAA compliance officer, and we are teaching a course on this on September 7, 2011, before CEDIA EXPO begins,” Mitchell noted. This introductory course is an eight-hour session that covers everything integrators need to do to receive HIPAA certification. HIPAA compliance means that vendors are unable to sell to a dealer unless that dealer has achieved certification.

Mitchell also noted that integrators need to address the category with their commercial insurance provider, and be prepared to educate them. “From an insurance point of view there really are no rules yet,” she said. “The insurance companies still view it as a crisis system, like fire alarms, even though it isn’t that at all.”

Integrators may need to explain to their insurance carriers that they aren’t selling lifesaving devices; they are selling wellness devices.

And the business model itself may be more “industrial” than retail. Rather than being a quickbuck business, it requires cultivating connections in the health-care field and a potentially large list of decision makers who need to agree to the installation, including health care professionals and family members.

“Our dealers have an average of three meetings with the principal decision makers before a sale is made,” Mitchell said. “It’s not a quick cold call.”

As a result, she strongly recommends partnering with a care provider that specializes in aging, whether in a long-term care or a home-care capacity. Those partners understand how to have this conversation with prospective clients without sounding like a door-to-door salesman. “Dealers should stick to what they’re best at, which is the installation” Mitchell said. “A person who is used to dealing with the elderly has the patience and empathy that will help build your credibility.”

Lee Distad (www.leedistad.com) is an Edmonton, Alberta-based writer.