Sometimes people ask me, well my grandma is 60 years old or 80 years old,
I don't think she's using an iPad or iPhone.
But the statistics are showing that older adults are one of the rapidly growing
groups that is adopting things like mobile phones, iPhones, and
social media like Facebook.
A common example that I hear is that a lot of grandparents have gone onto Facebook,
so they can watch their grandkids photos and videos and updates about that.
So that's a natural reason why they're using technology.
It's not because it was forced on them.
It wasn't like, here's a login.
Please log in and- >> They don't need a family portal.
>> Do all this work.
Yeah they don't need a family portal.
Facebook is already a natural social network where there's exciting and
interesting content that keeps them feel connected to their family's and
their communities.
And there's also what I'm seeing is that for the very,
very old patients, even if they're not on technology.
Often times if they're very sick their not actually managing their own care.
They're relying on their adult children or grandchildren.
So if you have, for example an 80 year old person,
if they're not tech literate, they're 60 year old child or
40 year old relative is often the one that's coordinating their care.
And they are looking for
and relying on technology tools to make things easier for them.
And when I say technology tools, I don't mean 101 apps to log when they ate and
when they feel pain.
because there's a lot and lot of apps out there that create more burden for,
both patients and clinicians.
It just generates more work and
is not actually providing any helpful information, beyond the effort you put in.
But what I'm saying, in terms of technology tools that are useful is,
how do we simplify and automate what used to be complicated processes just
to make everything easier for both the families as well as for the clinicians.
These type of design considerations are currently available.
This is not science fiction.
There are a number of experts out there that are focused on user experience design
and design thinking.
And If more health care organizations, as well as the technology vendors,
would leverage these design principles,
it would really create much better, easier care for families.
Now, looking forward to, not even the far future, but
in the near future, I don't know if you've heard of products like
Amazon Echo- >> Yeah.
>> And even something like Siri, where the what's called a
>> A voice recognition type technologyies.
>> Exactly, there's voice recognition technologies.
And there's currently a lot of technologies that are being
developed that are going beyond having a tablet or a touchscreen.
Where people have to look and touch and type to input and get the information.
So things like voice recognition, speech processing,
even image analysis, gesture and motion analysis type of sensors.
These are all ways that older adults and
younger adults will be interacting with computers in the very near future.
And, one example that I really like, that I've heard on social media
is there is a family member who is very worried about her mom, who is older.
And bought them an Amazon Echo, and
was given permission to have a log in to look at the search
results from within the Amazon Echo web portal.
And so an the Amazon Echo for those of you if you're not familiar, it's basically
a little electronic that sits at home, and it listens to you talk to it.
And you can talk to it and say, I would like to buy toilet paper, or
what's the weather outside today?
And using this consumer electronic device the family member was able to tell from
a different city from far away, what time does mom always wake up in the morning?
What is she normally ask about?
Is she asking about the weather?
Is she asking to tell jokes?
Is she asking for stories?
What is she looking up?
And based on these patterns this family was also able to see if mom normally
asks about the weather every morning at 6 o'clock.
But then suddenly you know she didn't wake up til 10 o'clock on some days,
is there something wrong?
Is she not feeling well?
Should I call her or should I have someone check on her?
And this is the beginning of simple consumer electronic that's widely
available for very inexpensive price.
That I think we can use to help people both provide better self care of
themselves and their families.
But also there's opportunities to integrate that into the entire health care
ecosystem with providers, clinicians, and health care organizers.
To really think about, how do we provide care outside the four walls of a hospital?
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