Non-Medical Home Monitoring Technology is starting to get media attention as distant Family Members search for better and more affordable ways ways to track how mom and/or dad are doing. 

We've been following great stories about these trends in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Laurie Orlov's Aging in Place Technology Watch and Time Rowan's Home Care Technology Report.  If you want to get quickly up to speed, review these two posts:

• http://www.ankota.com/blog/bid/47034/Telehealth-Home-Monitoring-and-Home-Care-Business
• http://www.ankota.com/blog/bid/48813/Telehealth-Home-Monitoring-and-Home-Care-Business-Part-II

This week more coverage is available, this time as a four part series on NPR.  The first article spoke about the emergence of "Villages" like Beacon Hill Village and a rapidly growing list of others that are essentially support groups to help with aging in place.  The next two, talk about non-medical remote monitoring technologies.  Here's a link to today's article (which has links to the first two in the series).  You can also access it by clicking on the picture below.

So now that we've established that this technology is out there, the question we need to answer is whether it poses a threat to our home care private duty agency or an opportunity?  The pessimist would say it's a threat - that families are working around us.  But the smart entrepreneurial agency sees this as an opportunity, and a way to provide differentiating service to win more business.  Here's a specific idea for you:

1. Offer a service to evaluate for a home monitoring system.  Your evaluation can evaluate how the client is doing, check for safety issues in the home, and determine what monitors would make sense for this client and their family.  (To learn more about the monitors available, check out the demo videos at www.beclose.com).  Note that you generally provide this service for free to a prospective client - in this case you can charge.
   
2. Install the System and Train the Family: It is guaranteed that someone in your caregiver community has a spouse or friend who can do a great job providing this installation service.  You can charge a nice margin here.
3. Couple it with a short weekly visit and an assessment using Ankota FamilyConnect: This technology makes it easy for you to let the remote family members know how their loved one is doing.  learn more here.
   
4. Grow with the Client: The above three items will be a great service to the client and their family, and will make you some money.  But looking at the bigger picture, you've also gained a client and family who will turn to you when they need more help.

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.