Innovation Opportunities in Senior Care
For creative types looking for industries that could use their talents, consider Senior Care. In North America, “demand for senior care is outpacing the solutions that providers are prepared to offer.” In the U.S., as healthcare reform will be directing funds into improving senior care, there is growing pressure to push standards of care ever higher, and competition is fierce, according to recruiting firm Witt/Kieffer. Canada too, is expected to experience a surge in people requiring nursing home care.
Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging has recently Identified 10 Senior Living Trends which should provide plenty of inspiration for inventions. Among their forecasts:
1. Technology will be key to promoting and sustaining independent lifestyles among senior living residents. Senior living providers are developing residences equipped with advanced “smart home” technology to provide safe environments where residents may maintain a high level of self-sufficiency as they age well.
2. Senior living residents are choosing to “age in place.” Residents will seek services and programs that will support “aging well” in place. These include home care and home health services, onsite health clinics, and geriatric assessment programs.
iRobot Corp. is one company who, last year, formed a new research and development division to pursue opportunities in home healthcare robots for seniors. “We (in the U.S.) are facing a demographic shift”, said CEO and co-founder Colin Angle. “If you think about where we are today, really in rough terms, there is four potential caregivers for every one person over the age of 65 who may or may not need care. The next 20 years goes from 4 people able to give care, to 1. So every one of us is able bodied will have someone that potentially is in need of care, and it’s going to create a crisis that will overwhelm our assisted living facilities. It’s going to change our society – unless we can deliver technology-based products to our aging population so that they can remain independent longer.”
Reader Comments
One of the reasons why the "demand for senior care is outpacing the solutions that providers are prepared to offer" in countries like North America is because the life expectancy and general level of health among older people living in the first world is so much better now than in previous generations. What's more, people are being encouraged to retire at an earlier age (in their mid fifties as opposed to mid sixties) which means that there are people retiring who are still physically active and want to retain their independent lifestyle. Nevertheless they will at some stage come to need things like 'smart home' technology.
Posted by on October 4, 2012
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