Strengthening the Workforce to Support Community Living and Participation for Older Adults and Individuals with Disabilities Proceedings of a Workshop (2017) / Chapter Skim
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5 Harnessing the Potential of Technology to Enable Community Living and Participation and Optimize Person-Centered Services
5 Harnessing the Potential of Technology to Enable Community Living and Participation and Optimize Person-Centered Services
Pages 57-70
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From page 57... ...
APPS TO PROMOTE INDEPENDENCE AND CONNECTEDNESS THROUGH THE COORDINATION OF SERVICES David Gustafson Director, Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies University of Wisconsin–Madison David Gustafson of the University of Wisconsin–Madison began his talk by showing a video demonstrating how one elderly widow living alone in her home used a computer program called Elder Tree,1 which was developed by Gustafson and his colleagues, to schedule her day, remind her of appointments, check in on her health status, order pre 1 For more information, see https://eldertreewisconsin.com/About/Index.aspx (accessed September 21, 2016)
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From page 58... ...
Over the course of this project, he and his collaborators interviewed some 300 older adults in the three test communities to identify their assets and needs and interviewed clinicians to find out what they were focusing on when providing care for these same older adults. As an example of the disconnect these interviews identified, Gustafson said that the older adults were saying their concerns were loneliness, difficulty finding out what was happening in the community, and getting to interesting activities, while their health care providers were concerned about preventing falls, addressing dementia, and improving medication adherence.
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From page 59... ...
Elder Tree has now been disseminated into 43 counties in Wisconsin. Gustafson said that the clinical trials and dissemination efforts show that Elder Tree appears to lighten the burden that clinical teams experience in providing care, which, he said, raises the question of whether there really is a need for more primary care physicians in the United States.
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From page 60... ...
"There was the sense that a lot could be done if the needs of those with disabilities were understood and," said Yousuf, "technology could be married to those user's needs." Yousuf and his colleagues soon broadened their thinking to include the challenge of using advanced transportation technologies to help wounded warriors and older adults, two groups of individuals who also find transportation to be a barrier. The ATTRI group decided to work on solutions for three target populations: people with disabilities, veterans with disabilities, and older adults.
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From page 61... ...
However, said Yousuf, this is the type of problem that should be easy to correct with wireless technology and connected vehicles. The ATTRI team also examined the state of practice and research in the transportation field and conducted a search to identify technologies outside of transportation that could be useful for addressing the transportation needs of the three target populations.
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From page 62... ...
Pre-trip concierge and technologies that would provide pre-trip and in-route traveler information and virtual caregiver help for pre-trip planning and on-route support; 3. Shared use, automation, and robotics to enhance mobility, to pro vide the ability to plan and execute trips and associated services, and to produce transformative transportation alternatives; and 4.
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From page 63... ...
He also mentioned work aimed at developing applications that interface with traffic lights to enable an individual with a disability to request that the traffic light provide additional time for crossing the street. In closing, Yousuf explained that ATTRI's goal is to take advantage of the smart city movement, the Internet of Things, advances in artificial intelligence, and technologies that are creating the connected citizen in order to develop a system that can learn a user's needs and automatically connect to a menu of technologies that would enhance the mobility of that user and enable him or her to engage fully with the community.
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From page 64... ...
. In this landscape, a combination of personal sensors, medical devices connected to electronic health records, fall-prevention technologies, voice communication, smart medication-management systems, assistive technologies, the Internet of Things, mobile applications, big data and predictive analytics, and a host of other technologies will connect the individual to both formal and informal caregivers and to the community.
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From page 65... ...
Developers are now starting to link wearable technologies with machine learning and predictive analytics and to build smaller, cheaper robotic systems that will be useful for individuals. Lindeman said ridesharing companies, such as Lyft,6 are increasingly providing door-to-door transportation solutions that will empower older adults and individuals with disabilities to be more engaged in their communities.
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From page 66... ...
In 2016, CITRIS created Navigating the Human Path, an ongoing program in which older adults and people with disabilities work with university students to co-design new technology solutions. CITRIS has also used its nanotechnology laboratory and its incubator to bring together teams that include researchers and entrepreneurs from both inside and outside of the four universities, and offers access to testbed facilities that include age-friendly communities, senior living, transportation systems, health and hospital systems, and dementia programs.
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From page 67... ...
He and his collaborators are partnering with Ministry Health Care,9 part of Ascension Health, to determine whether sharing data from Elder Tree with the clinical team is effective in preventing the onset of expensive health care costs. "We want to develop a system that is going to make a difference in the lives of people," said Gustafson, but "you have to pay for it in some way, and the way in which we think we have to pay for it is by linking it directly back to helping the health care providers." Yousuf said that public–private partnerships may be a promising solution for moving accessible transportation technologies into the public 9 For more information, see http://ministryhealth.org (accessed September 16, 2016)
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From page 68... ...
Lindeman replied that there are a number of opportunities for using technology in curriculum development, including a remote training program that he is developing for social workers but that could also be used for geriatric nurse practitioners and geriatricians. A key point, he said, is the need to think about training care managers, certified nursing assistants, and other frontline members of the health care workforce who are working in individuals' homes.
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From page 69... ...
For those who do not have Internet access in their homes, his program pays for it using grant money. Though he admits that this is a short-term solution, he said he believes it should be possible to find a way to have health care providers and insurance programs, such as Medicaid, absorb the cost if they can demonstrate that these technologies significantly reduce health care expenditures, producing a very high return on investment.
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From page 70... ...
70 STRENGTHENING THE WORKFORCE TO SUPPORT COMMUNITY LIVING when in just a few years both the technology and the measures may be outdated. Lindeman commented that this is a key point.
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