Tag Archive for: Laurie Orlov

GrandCare featured on The Morning Blend

GrandCare is Making Headlines

GrandCare CEO Laura Mitchell featured on the Chamber Local Business SpotlightGrandCare has been making the news!

1. Today, we were featured on The Morning Blend on TMJ4.

2. Last week, GrandCare CEO Laura Mitchell was interviewed for the Chamber Local Business Spotlight feature on 101.3 FM.

3. GrandCare was singled out as having the “most experience and most robust platform” in an article in Home Health Care News by senior care expert, Bill Thomas. You may recognize him as the founder of the Eden Alternative, ChangeAging keynote speaker, TED Talk speaker (multiple times) and the founder of the Green House Model. His methods were described in detail in the book Being Mortal.

4. GrandCare’s CEO Laura Mitchell was profiled in a blog by industry analyst Laurie Orlov, Founder of Aging In Place Technology Watch.

GrandCare featured in “High Tech = High Touch”

A recent May 1 article in Health Data Management “High Tech = High Touch”, authored by Elizabeth Gardner, discusses the importance of technology for the senior population throughout the continuum of care and to help mitigate hospital readmissions.

She uses a few flagship technologies to exemplify how information technologies are helping individuals to stay healthy.

In a section titled “GRANDCARE: STAYING CONNECTED AT HOME“, Gardner interviews Evergreen, a Silicon Valley-based Long Term Care Provider utilizing the GrandCare solution, GrandCare’s VP of Business Development, Laura Mitchell and GrandCare’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Erick Eiting.

Excerpt of the article:

A profusion of technologies can help people stay in their homes as they age, despite physical and mental disabilities: monitors and sensors to track vital signs and movement, the Internet for communication and entertainment, smart home features to control lights and temperature. However, tying them all together is a challenge beyond most elderly people and even the younger family members who may be caring for them.

That’s where GrandCare Systems, West Bend, Wisc., comes in. Started nine years ago, its goal is “to keep individuals safe, happy and independent at home, whatever that means,” says Laura Mitchell, vice president of business development.

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“I have a 95-year-old resident who reads bedtime stories every night to her great grandchild in Florida,” he says. “She just has to press the button with his picture and they’re connected. No turning anything on, logging in or memorizing phone numbers.”

GrandCare Chief Medical Officer Erick Eiting, M.D., who’s also assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California, thinks the system’s monitoring capabilities will be invaluable for improving communication between patients and their medical team.

“We can look at whether you’re taking your meds when you should be, and if not, why not,” he says. Problems with side effects can be headed off without requiring an office visit.

“We had one CHF patient who thought he was taking his meds, but we could see he wasn’t taking the evening dose of his diuretic,” Eiting says. “When we asked him why, he said it made him have to get up and go to the bathroom during the night. We increased his morning dose and that fixed it.”

Click here to view the entire article

Aging in America 2013: conference report

Now Available: Joop Koopman’s, report for Bayard Presse on the annual conference of the American Society on Aging, March 12-15th in Chicago.

Commentary on presentations by: Aging in Place Technology Watch’s Laurie Orlov, gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, Mary Furlong’s What’s Next Summit preceding ASA, AARP, Scott Collins of Link-age Connect, Caring.com and Louis Tenenbaum.

Technologies: Care Innovations, GrandCare Systems and Philips.

Communities: On Lok Lifeways, Avenidas (virtual).

“The reality remains startling: between 2010 and 2050 the US population of 65 and older will have doubled to close to 80M. There are 40M Americans over 65 today; already there are 5M people older than 85, half of whom are still at home and almost half of whom suffer from some form of dementia. Worldwide, 15 percent of the population is 65-plus—a figure that will increase exponentially. Nearly 40 percent of the developed world will be over 55 by 2050.”

System Comp TRANS HR03-13

… “Key players in the realm of software and hardware that are making Aging-in-Place a reality are, to name but a handful, are Philips’ Healthcare at Home (prominently present at ASA with a large display in the exhibit hall and through sponsorship of general sessions); CareInnovations, a partnership of General Electric and Intel—the partnership forged precisely because the Aging-in-Place market remains scattered and unfocused and thus hard to penetrate; and GrandCare Systems, whose VP of Business Development [Laura] Mitchell elaborated on a major deal with Saga in the UK, that country’s counterpart to AARP, for the sale and distribution of a computer-like device capable of comprehensive health, security, and movement monitoring in the home. The company is pursuing sales elsewhere in Europe as well…”

Joop Koopman is an experienced writer/journalist, with a background in Catholic media (as editor and publisher), baby boomer-oriented marketing, as well as public relations serving both commercial and non-profit clients and causes. He currently provides a stable of European magazines catering to the 50-plus audience with information on US marketing trends. He is fluent in Dutch and French.

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

2012 SCU Boomer Venture Summit Finalists Announced

This will definitely be one of THE events of 2012. Congratulations to the finalists of this year’s business plan competition! We look forward to seeing who wins.

Aside from the competition the summit has much to offer for the vetreins as well as the newcomers in this industry. Speakers include Jeff Makowka, Laura Mitchell, Laurie Orlov, Mary Furlong and Lori Bitter, just to name a few. This years keynote “A Fireside Chat: An Investor’s Perspective on the Longevity Economy”, will be presented by Marc Yi, Managing Director of Intel Capital. [More]

The top 5 finalists have been chosen!

The five finalists will give a five-minute presentation of their business plan onstage at the Summit. The finalists include:

  • Calcula Technologies – has created a treatment for kidney stones that are smaller than 10mm in size. Calcula’s minimal evasive therapy can be provided in a doctor’s office.
  • CircuSonic Therapeutics – has developed the CircuSonic Limb Tank to address peripheral artery disease (PAD). The patented non‐invasive medical device alleviates pain, accelerates wound healing and increases blood flow to the lower limbs.
  • HyloMimetics – is developing a bioinspired molecule that prevents the progression of osteoarthritis and restores healthy cartilage, getting patients out of pain and remobilizing their lives.
  • My Wonderful Life – is a free website where you can plan and personalize your funeral to celebrate the life you’ve lived. Its mission is to encourage the discussion of our deaths with our family members, and to take the burden off of our survivors.
  • ROTO Mobility – designs and creates ergonomic and efficient mobility products that improve people’s health and active lives.

The grand prize winner will be chosen by a panel of distinguished judges that includes Andy Donner, director at Physic Ventures; Anne Hawkins, vice president at Great Hill Partners; Jody Holtzman, senior vice president, Thought Leadership at AARP; John Hopper, managing director at Linkage Ventures; Xander Mahony, venture capitalist for Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Scott Oliver, partner, Morrison Foerster; and Jeff Shoemate, vice president of innovation and business development for the senior markets segment of United Health Group.

It’s not too late to register.

Sign up now and take advantage of our promo code sv12grandcaremp SAVE 20%!

GrandCare Systems listed by AARP blogger as a top technology must have

GrandCare is honored to be listed by AARP blogger, Sally Abrahms as one of the top 9 technology must haves.

9 Need-to-Know Technologies for Caregivers

“Can you say the Jetsons? Increasingly, family caregivers are getting a helping hand through high-tech products and services.

Bone up on these trends:

GPS safety technology provides the location of the wearer: devices can be used on the wrist, as a clip-on, or on a pendant. Some cars and smart phones have them – enabling you to speak or touch your desired destination – and see or hear turn-by-turn instructions.

With some devices, the caregiver sets the parameters of where the recipient can be – sometimes referred to as ‘geo-fencing’. If the person goes outside those areas, the caregiver is alerted via phone, text, or email. At any time, the caregiver can log on to a website and track the location of the elder

Personal emergency response systems, known as PERS, also contain GPS technology. It’s the Medic Alert model—if in trouble, the wearer can press a button and be connected with a call center that can dispatch help and notify caregivers. Many PERS devices only work at home, but a few allow the wearer to get help wherever they are—on the golf course, in the car, around the block.

Other safety technology includes wireless sensors around the house (in the bathroom, on the bed, door, or refrigerator, for example) that that let caregivers know if there is activity out of the ordinary i.e. not leaving the bathroom. A fall, perhaps?”

GrandCare, on the market since 2006, is a fully-featured care management platform designed to solve the healthcare crisis and aging boom. 

The GrandCare solution is the most comprehensive system available today, combining 6 technologies into ONE system with extensive remote caregiving capabilities.

Read the whole article HERE

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

Laurie Orlov predicts GrandCare will benefit from software-based design

Laurie Orlov had a great newsletter this month with a number of aging/technology industry predictions.

She mentions GrandCare Systems as a software-based platform that she predicts will benefit from the innate architecture and structure of the GrandCare technology.

“PREDICTION – mHEALTH REVIVES MONITORING:  The stationary nature of in-home activity and telehealth monitoring will give way to a disconnect-and-go tablet world that can be docked at home and plays nicely with a cell/smart cellular model. For those walking the floors at CES, you will see tablet apps of every type flowering hither and yon – perhaps you’ll see them tether to a phone. RIM, the anti-marketer, produced an early version of this with the Playbook-BlackBerry tethering. Why not a few tablet apps for seniors (in addition to health and activity monitoring) that sync up with a phone-like device? It may be like trying to cram a large box into a flat rectangle, to start at the hardware end — look at Care Innovations Guide, for example. Why not a partnership between a fitness device vendor (like Fitbit or Philips DirectLife) and a remote monitoring vendor like BeClose or Healthsense?  And software-only products like Independa and GrandCare may well benefit from both platform flexibility and a new interest in combining activity sensors and health monitoring.”

Read the entire newsletter here

Home Health Technology Webinar from 2010 What’s the same…what’s changed?

Just thought we’d share this. This is from 2010, a webinar led by GrandCare’s Laura Mitchell to the NAHB & CEDIA audiences… interesting what’s changed and what has stayed the same!!!

Home Technology Alliance Update

Aging in Place: Home Health Technology Webinar Recap

CEDIA, founding sponsor of NAHB’s Home Technology Alliance (HTA), offers quarterly educational webinars to supplement fundamental concepts highlighted in their joint newsletter.  Moderated by leaders in the industry, these webinars offer insider’s tips to help you and your business take advantage of growing trends.

To this end, CEDIA welcomed Laura Mitchell of GrandCare Systems in Minnesota to share her insight into “Home Health Technology: A $20 Billion Industry.” Throughout this webinar, broadcast on September 1, 2010, Ms. Mitchell explained the impressive target base that currently is or will be shortly interested in home health technology while touching on some available solutions.

As indicated in the title of this webinar, the home health technology field is a $20 Billion industry and growing with many contributing factors. With a baby boomer turning 63 every seven seconds, the target audience for this technology is growing exponentially. While this fact remains undisputed, another fact also plays into the hands of this growing field: this group wants to remain independent as long as possible.

“A study conducted in 2005 indicated that 80% of the respondents would be willing to pay an extra $100/month for services and technology that would allow them to stay independent,” mentioned Mitchell.

Mitchell cited Laurie M. Orlov’s Aging in Place Technology Watch, a market research firm providing thought leadership, analysis and guidance about technologies and related services, while she discussed the four main aging in place technology categories available. Each addressed a contributing factor toward a person’s inability to stay independent. The first category, home safety and security, would attends to the fact that one-third of all people aged 65 and older fall each year. Utilizing a home monitor, care givers or loved ones will be alerted immediately in case of an accident. The second category, learning and contribution, recognizes that people who are connected socially live longer. The third category, health and wellness, relates to the fact that medication management is one of the leading drivers to assisted living and nursing home facilities. Utilizing technology for both cognitive and medication management at home can help prevent the necessity of moving into those facilities. Finally, the fourth category, communication and engagement, relates to utilizing email, video phone, cell phone and PCs to stay in touch and traverse the other categories as well.

Perhaps most importantly, trades need to become educated about the newest available technology and how to use it to service this growing cross-section of our society. The consumers all want this technology, but don’t know how to ask for it. It is imperative that each builder and ESC ask questions to determine which technologies best suit their clients both now and going forward into the future. With the demand and the willingness to contribute monthly income toward technologies to stay independent, it would behoove both builders and ESCs to explore home health technology options.

“We are currently experiencing the largest population shift in history,” said Ric Johnson, Chief Technology Officer of Elite Systems Solutions. “This particular group is much different than the previous generation in that they are technology-driven. Any builder who is ignoring this market is losing out because this generation not only has a lot of equity in their current homes, but also more discretionary income to put toward the technology they desire. Options exist today to allow those in the 50+ market to remodel their existing homes or upgrade to new homes and be fully equipped with home healthcare, entertainment, home safety and communication devices. All of this technology equates to a common goal shared by most people in this cross-section of America: allowing the population to age in place.”

Click here to visit CEDIA’s archive of past Webinars including Home Health Technology: A $20 Billion Industry.

In addition to these quarterly Webinars, CEDIA also offers online CEDIA education classes, which can be accessed here, that NAHB members may take for continuing education credit:

  • Introduction to Sub-System Design
  • Introduction to Sub-System Control
  • Fundamentals of Home Theater Design
  • Introduction to Digital Media Servers
  • The Designer, the Client, and the Process
  • Design Documents
  • Project Management Process Flow: An Overview of the PMI Model
  • Home Theater Room Design
  • Introduction to Project Management

About CEDIA

CEDIA is an international trade association of companies that specialize in designing and installing electronic systems for the home. The association was founded in September 1989 and has more than 3,500 member companies worldwide. CEDIA Members are established and insured businesses with bona fide qualifications and experience in this specialized field. For more information on CEDIA, visit the association’s Web site atwww.cedia.org .

Intel/GE recognizes the HUGE importance of linking socialization to remote monitoring…we’re obviously on the right track!!!!

This is great news, seeing the big giants like GE & Intel embracing and realizing the value of socialization, reminders and cognition (being equally important to the wellness & ADL monitoring). QuietCare was bleeding edge, I would venture to say they were the first ones to really get out there with their Activity of Daily Living remote monitoring system back in 2005.  GrandCare & HealthSense were not far behind. The three of us watched each other, paved roads for one another and learned from each other. I am so glad that QuietCare is being used in this venture, it really is a great system. GrandCare founder, Charlie Hillman, was so visionary back in 2005 – being the first to combine socialization/cognition along with ADL monitoring into one system. Funny thing is, even I (at the time) didn’t “get it” – didn’t see why it would be so important to have that “GrandCare Communication Station”, which of course has turned into the interactive touchscreen/video chat… Think of how far we all have come since 2005, especially with all of the new players in this market and the new focus to the digital home health field. I see great things happening every day in this industry and look forward to what the future will bring…

 

Take a look at Laurie Orlov’s blog entry on this:

Care Innovations Connect Makes Telehealth Social

Submitted by Laurie Orlov on Wed, 07/20/2011 – 09:49

http://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/care-innovations-connect-makes-telehealth-social

Care Innovations — tackling social isolation and wellness.  In some ways, yesterday’s launch of Connect from Intel-GE’s wholly owned Care Innovationjoint venture should come as no surprise. When the companies combined last year, spun out of Intel’s Digital Health group and GE’s QuietCare business units, I was hopeful that they would transcend limitations of the previous parents. Especially given Intel’s investment history of researching social needs of seniors, Omar Ishrak’s comment last August really resonated: “We recognize that the conditions faced by home health patients are not necessarily clinical. It is part of our core mission [in the Joint Venture] to address social and support needs.”

Beyond patient to the person behind the monitoring.  A touch-screen device placed in the home enables a senior to have access to social networks, customized content, news, and also wellness surveys that are typical of telehealth devices – which historically have been useful for health providers, proven beneficial to seniors with chronic disease (reducing those dreaded re-hospitalizations).  But fun, social, two-way experiences, as much about enabling a senior to see out as well as caregivers see in? When the person is viewed as a patient, that can’t happen. Care Innovations’ Connect targets the person (and patient to a lesser degree) in a device paradigm that, for now, can be useful to frail seniors. When I chatted with him a few days ago, Care Innovations GM James Pursley did not rule out the possibility that future versions may take advantage of growing tablet mania – placing Connect as a starting point in the evolution of technologies that will connect caregivers, providers, and seniors together – as it must be.

Tech platforms are transitory – vendors must pick a platform for now. We are in yet another platform shift today – recognizing that a relatively small percentage of the frailest seniors are comfortable with computers or have high-speed data plans, for that matter, so dedicated appliance solutions make sense during the transition – Sonamba’s Wellbeing Monitor uses a picture frame paradigm to provide similar social connection functionality as  Connect. Other vendors, including Independa’s recently launched Angela targets the same market by customizing software into an ‘off-the-shelf’ tablet that also enables video chat.

Despite tech paradigms shift, products must launch.  In some ways, it is a particularly murky and complex time to be launching technologies in this market.  Complicated channel strategies must parse a fragmented prospective audience –healthcare? Senior housing? How to reach families? What about home security and electronics dealers – are they vested and interested in this space? Can they reach the last few feet into the home?  Today’s PERS pendant/service (a market that’s been around FOREVER) may migrate right onto a smartphone, Telehealth devices may migrate to tablets (Dell thinks so and doctors ‘embrace’ the iPad), and there’s the television, sitting not so quietly in the corner of every senior’s living room – maybe a future social engagement device that is (comparatively speaking) designed for all.  Designing for all (including the loneliest seniors in nursing homes or their own homes) is what vendors must do.  Emerging markets reflect flux in both user willingness, channel interest, and market readiness.  Let’s applaud Care Innovations – and its Intel/GE backers! They validate and verify the value this market brings to the lives of older adults.