Technological Advancements in Home Care

By Dana Pavelock,
Dir., Home Care Operations

One of the most challenging issues faced by the aging population and family caregivers is how to insure they are safe at home alone or when 24-hour home care or live-in services may not be a viable option. Thanks to technological advancements there are many excellent products available geared toward electronically managing one’s health, insuring medications are taken properly as ordered by the physician and emergency alert systems that provide the necessary measures to promote independence while at the same time providing peace of mind for family members or caregivers.

Imagine the peace of mind provided to a family caregiver when told that we have the technology allowing us to monitor patient care 7 days a week by use of a tele-monitoring service. Imagine the sense of security to the patient or family member when we can demonstrate that in many cases, use of tele-monitoring reduces re-hospitalizations and emergency room visits anywhere from 40 percent to75 percent. Imagine the sense of independence and privacy one can continue to enjoy by use of this easy-to-use technology.

Basic tele-monitoring programs involve placement of very sophisticated FDA-approved monitoring devices in the home (by doctor’s order) that patients are easily trained to use. Within 4 minutes, a basic monitoring device can check weight, blood pressure, heart rates and blood oxygen levels and automatically transmits that information to a tele-health nurse who reviews the reports and responds accordingly. In cases where the test results are beyond the parameters set by the doctor, the nurse will provide an intervention, sometimes as simple as contacting a doctor and facilitating a medication change or, perhaps scheduling a nursing visit for further assessment. More sophisticated devices are capable of adding peripherals to monitor glucose, peak flow, PT/INR, ECG and temperature. Some Medicare-certified home care agencies offer this service free of charges as part of their overall care plan. Licensed agencies may offer private pay models focusing more on a wellness model.

Having difficulty managing those medications? Tired of filling those pillboxes only to find that there are continuous issues of under or over medicating happening in the home? Nearly 30 percent of hospital admissions, 40 percent of skilled nursing home placements, and approximately 125,000 deaths occur each year because patients are unable to manage their medications at home. Fortunately, new technology has been revolutionizing ways to effectively manage and monitor medication compliance in the home setting.

Our preference, the MD-2 Personal Medication System is a viable solution for individuals who have trouble remembering, organizing or taking their medications. The system works well for individuals who experience forgetfulness or who may be likely to take too much, too little or perhaps even the wrong medication. This device simplifies medication organization and delivery so that oral medication dosages will be taken on-time and as prescribed. The unit can hold up to 60 doses of medication (each dose holding up to 25 pills), can be programmed to deliver up to 6 doses per day and uses voice, tone and flashing lights to remind the patient to take their medication. When medication schedules are twice daily, the system can store a 30 day supply of medications. It also can be programmed to give specific verbal and text reminders to take or apply non-oral medications, to take with food etc. In the event the individual doesn’t respond to the prompt, after an hour and a half of reminders every minute, the unit will automatically shift the missed dose to a storage chamber in the unit and alert up to four caregivers that the user has missed a dose. Lastly, the monitoring service notifies caregivers when medications are running low and needs to be refilled.

Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) have been around for years and probably the most popular systems used in the home, but in my opinion under-utilized. These units are also attached to the home phone line and by use of a panic button (often set up on a pendant or wrist bracelet) which when pressed dials an emergency response center that first calls the home to verify the emergency and then dispatches emergency responders. At minimum, I would suggest anyone living at home alone that is frail, has an unsteady gait or is at risk of falls seriously consider a PERS system. The cost is usually just a little more than $1 a day. Most devices now have a 2-way voice feature allowing a patient to communicate even when they are far from the unit.

We have only begun to see the very beginning of a very exciting time with regard to all the new technology that will be continued to be developed allowing our ever-growing aging population to remain living safely at home, empower people to manage their own care, improve overall quality of life and give them the therapeutic advantages of better health and well-being while promoting more independence. There are different products available and various agencies that offer some or all of these new technology devices. Contacting your local Office for the Aging is a good first step.