The United States is rapidly aging. Within a decade, there will be more Americans aged 65 years and older, than those younger than 18. This is at once a massive market opportunity for health care providers and workers, and a potential demographic crisis for the country, if not handled well. The pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities that adult communities face. Indeed, the pandemic has widened already existing inequalities affecting the quality of healthcare of millions of people across the country and the healthcare workers who serve them. For healthcare workers and providers, the next decade is ripe with opportunity and they are responding in kind, embracing technology to meet demand, drive change, offer better healthcare, and work more efficiently. In this article, we will discuss how tech tools are transforming eldercare.
Various areas lend themselves to innovative solutions to drive better healthcare outcomes for elder patients. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health requested information on how technology could be used to improve healthcare outcomes in chronic disease care management, particularly for underserved elder patients. An analysis of the information gained by the Office revealed that applications for technology fell under three broad categories.
Expanding Health and Digital Literacy
Studies show that low health literacy costs the economy between $106 and $238 billion per year. Elder patients, ethnic and racial minorities, and those suffering from chronic diseases, disproportionately suffer because of low health literacy levels. At a time when there is so much talk of a shift to digital, around a third of older adults are not digitally literate. This is despite the benefits of using social technology, namely, lower feelings of loneliness, improved self-reported health levels, and fewer depressive symptoms and chronic illnesses. Expanding digital and health literacy promises to improve health outcomes as well as the patient experience.
Improve Remote Healthcare Delivery and Monitoring
The pandemic fast-tracked a shift to remote healthcare. The technology for remote healthcare has existed for a long time, but the pandemic forced many patients and healthcare providers to use it more aggressively. In that time, we have seen the benefits of its use, and have become more comfortable in using it. Not only are people comfortable turning to telehealth services, they have also embraced assistive technologies like heart rate monitors integrated into phones. Improving access to these technologies can improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations who traditionally cannot afford to see specialist doctors or go to clinics and hospitals to do what the technology can do for them from the comfort of their homes.
Remote monitoring allows doctors to form more complete pictures of the state of a patient’s health, at least compared to what can be gained from even the most regular visits to the doctor. A doctor will be able to have access to a wealth of data on a patient’s heart rate, weight, blood glucose level, and blood pressure.
Biometric monitoring can be combined with real-time feedback from AI systems, allowing telemedicine services to provide more proactive services. This is because AI systems can unearth patterns and invaluable insights, including predictions, based on the biometric data it receives. Many health care providers have taken to digital tools to enhance their ability to care for their patients. One survey found that 65% of healthcare providers used a digital tool to assist them with their responsibilities. 40% of caregivers reported wanting to use even more digital tools for care management.
Given the proactive insights available from embracing technology, vulnerable populations can enjoy earlier diagnoses with greater accuracy than before (because of the richer data that goes into diagnoses), meaning that healthcare costs are reduced, hospital readmission rates dramatically decline, and patient experiences significantly improve.
Many patients are already participating in this new reality. A fifth of medical visits paid last year, which amounts to $29 billion of healthcare services for the year, were conducted through telehealth services. The profound benefits of telehealth services have led to a consensus that these benefits should be enjoyed beyond the pandemic era. Yet, we are still early in the game, with business models and markets in flux and in search of more stable, mature, and sustainable business models.
Optimizing Models and Care Plans
Over 90% of elder patients want to age in their homes. This has driven a massive demand for telehealth services as well as facilities such as Skylark adult daycare. As patient expectations evolve and along with them, employment models, and telehealth ecosystems, there is a need and an opportunity for healthcare delivery plans models that cater to the individual.
For instance, if we can ease the shift from acute to post-acute healthcare, hospital readmission rates would decline. Using the combination of technology collecting biometric data, AI-driven analysis, monitoring, and real-time feedback, with solutions catering for the individual, will go a long way to developing customized healthcare plans and models. This will, in turn, improve healthcare outcomes for patients as well as caregivers. This kind of granular, or customized approach to healthcare is just what is needed to improve the quality of life of older adults.
Conclusion
The pandemic and the aging of the American population, have shown just how important it is to embrace technology to provide better healthcare. Technology promises to create a healthcare ecosystem in which the individual patient’s particular needs are met more directly, rather than as a benefit of plans and models devised for larger populations. Technology puts the individual rather than the group at the heart of its plans and models. At a time of rising inequality, it is a great leveler, giving vulnerable populations access to high-quality healthcare for a fraction of the cost that they would have to pay for similar healthcare minus the technological solutions.
Reforms to Medicare Advantage, such as the Value-Based Insurance Design Model, have opened the door to the adoption of more technological innovations and consequently, improved healthcare outcomes for older adults with multiple chronic conditions.
The future certainly promises greater use of technology and improved healthcare outcomes. We can expect to age where we want, live longer, and live better. This is the great triumph of technology.
