aging in place

by Lisa Lavin, CEO, Ōmcare

Care for older adults was built around systems, not really around the realities of how individuals and their caregivers actually live. Not only can those realities change for people, as the older adult population grows, caregiver capacity shrinks, healthcare costs rise and people live longer with multiple chronic conditions … doing more of the same thing isn’t enough.

Older adults don’t experience healthcare as a collection of systems

Every time an older adult interacts with:

• Primary care providers
• Specialists
• One or more pharmacies
• Home health providers
• Hospitals
• Insurance companies
• Transportation services
• Family caregivers

They encounter different processes and priorities.

Seen from 10,000 feet, these are collections of systems, but adults ages 65+ are experiencing one life.

If those systems aren’t connected or aren’t willing to try new approaches, the burden of coordinating everything falls on the individual or their family caregiver. That’s especially problematic when someone is managing multiple medications, appointments, diagnoses, mobility challenges and/or cognitive changes.

Instead of expecting older adults and caregivers to continually navigate these systems, we have the opportunity to bring support closer to the person’s actual day-to-day life.

Keeping people at home needs to be more than just a slogan

Most care organizations want the same outcome: help people remain independent and healthy in their homes for as long as possible.

But achieving that requires asking a different question: What does this person need between healthcare visits to actually make that possible?

• A 15-minute visit with a physician
• The every day routine of a family caregiver managing medications
• 8:00pm on a Sunday when someone is struggling to remember if they took their medications on time
• A brief home care visit where a care worker sees warning signs

In that space between those experiences there is enormous opportunity.

Technology, remote monitoring, medication management, community services, home-based care and new models of caregiver support can help fill those gaps.

Crisis prevention is better than crisis management

When something goes wrong, our healthcare systems are very good at responding. But for adults over age 65, relatively small problems can quickly become big.

One missed pill, dehydration, an untreated infection, a fall or a caregiver becoming overwhelmed can quickly result in an ER visit or hospitalization.

Technology and willingness to innovate gives organizations more opportunities to identify problems earlier and to intervene before they become crises.

That’s not just better healthcare, it’s better quality of life. And often less expensive than repeatedly treating preventable complications.

It’s time to embrace familial caregivers as an official and vital part of the care team

Family caregivers are often doing an enormous amount of invisible healthcare work.

• Organizing medications
• Driving to appointments
• Communicating with providers
• Watching for changes
• Managing meals
• Coordinating services
• Calibrating whether something is “normal” or if they should call in higher level assistance.

If organizations design care without considering the caregiver, they’re leaving out a huge and vital piece of the care puzzle.

Meeting older adults where they are also means meeting caregivers where they are. This can mean:

• Providing better and more clear information
• Reducing coordination burdens
• Providing tools that give them confidence that something has been completed and correctly
• Allowing technology to extend the reach of already-overstretched professionals

Innovation doesn’t have to mean throwing everything out and starting over

Being open to innovation doesn’t mean abandoning proven practices or adopting every shiny new technology. It means being willing to ask:

“Is there a better way to accomplish the outcome we’re already trying to achieve?”

Sometimes the answer will be no. Sometimes an existing process is genuinely the best one.

But organizations can become so accustomed to how something has always been done that the process accidentally becomes confused with the goal.

There doesn’t need to be a solo solution

Organizations: You don’t have to solve every problem internally.

Service organizations, health systems, home care agencies, pharmacies, technology companies, community organizations and caregivers are all unique pieces of the puzzle.

The strategy that benefits everyone is willingness to collaborate and let others bring new capabilities into the ecosystem.

The question doesn’t have to be: “Is this our solution?”

It can be: “Does this help our older adults and their caregivers achieve the outcome we’re all working toward?”

In fact, that’s a much more productive way to think about innovation.

The bigger idea

Ultimately, innovation in older adult care isn’t just about technology, it’s about willingness to change the way we all deliver support when the old way isn’t working well enough.

Older adults deserve care that fits into their lives rather than contorting their lives to fit into the healthcare system. Caregivers deserve support that recognizes the enormous role they’re already playing. And healthcare and older adult-service organizations need enough flexibility to experiment, collaborate and adopt new approaches when those approaches can improve outcomes.

The organizations that are willing to do that aren’t abandoning the system. They’re protecting its purpose.

The goal we’re all working toward? Helping older adults live healthier, safer and more independent lives at home. With this in mind, being open to new ideas should not be seen as a disruption of the mission, it’s all in how the mission is fulfilled.

If your organization is ready to reduce hospital readmissions and improve medication adherence rates, let’s explore a partnership.