Long Distance Care technology Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

6 Tech Ideas For Long Distance Care Providers During Covid on Holidays

December 12, 2020

Long-Distance Family Stocking Brimming with Coal

Christmas and Hanukkah are upon us, and many long-distance families will be celebrating remotely with elderly parents due to the nationwide COVID onslaught. Long Distance adult children will make the dangerous journey anyway. Those that do travel may call an Aging Life Care Manager after coming across piles of junk mail, consistently dirty clothes, or a house and/or aging parent that looks like lumpy turkey gravy. Those adult children who stay safely home in the pandemic will need their aging parents to have some technology to communicate with them. Both groups should consider technology as a gift to seniors

Technology Pushes Coal Out of Stocking

Before you get that call, you should read Laurie Orlov’s blog, a fellow Geriatric Care Manager now very well known in the field of aging for her expertise in aging technology. This is what Orlov has to say about long-distance technology in the pandemic. When they call you you might suggest one of the high-tech items Orlov suggests a part of an older family member’s life. Especially during the pandemic. These gero-technologies can help an older parent or relative shelter safely in place, avoid loneliness and isolation through connecting with others, age in place, and improve communicating with loved ones.

Videoconferencing

Videoconferencing is a great way to keep elderly parents connected and less lonely and isolated. It can also be a good tool for adult siblings who live apart to have chats or meetings about Mom or Dad. Free programs like Skype or another parent-friendly plus easy choice Facetime and the built-in webcams on many computers, make this easy on elders. Zoom has become the number one way that families communicate, during the pandemic. . For the holidays, birthdays or even a crisis, it is how we virtually gather now and has a free version.

Amazon Echo Show uses Alexa, by activating Amazon’s voice and can make calls to adult children or anyone, making it easy for seniors to talk to anyone including family. An older standard telephone conference service is still highly rated and still free, as well. Freeconferencecall.com

Med Dispensers

Here is a review of several med dispensers on the market

A device that is very appropriate for elders who have medication abuse problems is Hero Electronic Pill Dispenser

Alexa has a new pill reminder feature

A more modest choice is Electronic Pill Box with Flasing Reminders

Caregiver Video Cameras

Cameras like Google Nest can monitor an individual’s activities of daily living and provide caregivers with direct video feed on a smartphone, tablet app, or the Web to check on the status of a family member.

Monitoring sensors

Wireless systems. Cameras can be viewed remotely from a smartphone or computer. You may be able to get video motion alerts and the ability to pan and zoom

GCM Laurie Orlov at Aging Tech suggests many new 2020 sensor programs among them. Caregiver Smart Solutions

Canary Care. lets you place wireless sensors around the house to monitor the activity of an elderly parent who is declining, while the family is long distance. The information is sent to your Canary Care portal. The sensors are battery powered and the hub uses mobile data to send the information, so no need for a landline or broadband.

TruSense – can alert long distance or even local adult children if a probable fall occurs. An alert is triggered when TruSense detects that your loved one has not moved from high-risk fall areas (such as a stairwell or restroom) in an unusually long time. Other alerts include doors where the older person could wander.

Other Sensor Products

Sensor products can check a number of items within a house: motion patterns, stove on/off status, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide levels, air quality, and presence of smoke or fire. They can also lock doors and control other items in the home remotely.

Daily activity monitoring. Activity sensors can be placed on the refrigerator, stove, door, and other objects around the home. Your relative may also wear a watch that monitors activity. You can allow caregivers and physicians to access the data. Set up notifications to be delivered by e-mail, text, or mobile app.: Live!y is a good choice

GCM Technology Guide

Technology moves in nano-seconds and changes almost as fast. Give clients and their families the updated information. For a totally overhauled technology chapter,” Technologies That Support Aging in Place “, by GCM Julie Menack and Berkeley’s head of the Center for Aging and Technology, David Lindeman Ph.D. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition

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Use HIPAA Compliant Telehealth to Coach Families on COVID

August 22, 2020

Why must Telehealth Be Hippa Compliant?

The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. It is designed to reduce healthcare fraud and abuse by setting industry-wide standards for health care information on electronically shared information. When care managers are giving and receiving health care information through telehealth, that is protected under HIPAA. Plus, importantly, want to assure your clients that you are never sharing their private health care information, just like most people protect themselves from spam by not allowing cookies.

Geriatric care managers can really benefit from telehealth during COVID-19 and after. If your agency does my employ, essential workers, you cannot see clients in person. But they must choose a product that is HIPAA compliant.

Telehealth Protects Your Caregivers and Clients

Even if your employees, nurses, and social worker, geriatric care managers, are essential workers they may be reluctant to expose themselves to COVID-19 risk. Many times your clients do not feel safe seeing your care managers. If you have clients in skilled nursing or assisted living you may be prohibited from seeing any clients at all- So how do you see your clients- through telehealth.

What is telehealth in geriatric care management

What is Telehealth? Telehealth refers to the exchange of medical information from one site to another through electronic communication to improve a patient’s health . Telehealth is the use of digital information and communication technologies, such as computers and mobile devices, to access health care services remotely and manage your health care. These may be technologies you use from home or that your doctor or in this case care manager uses to improve or support health care services.Geriatric care managers can see an older client in their residence and talk to the family caregiver or private caregiver without the care manager traveling to the home, especially during the pandemic when the care manager, client, and care provider may be exposed to the virus during the visit.

How Do Geriatric Social Workers, Nurses Use Telehealth?

Geriatric Social Workers use Telehealth to assist patients and families navigating healthcare and welfare decisions in these confusing and critical moments; they also coordinate or provide therapeutic services to the affected and their loved ones. Telehealth nursing is a tool for delivering nursing care remotely to improve efficiency and patient access to healthcare. A telehealth call or inquiry is more than just a phone call, however, and the nurses who respond to these calls are participating in the healthcare continuum.

The benefit of Telehealth by Family Caregivers

For caregivers who commit time and money to care for an aging loved one, telehealth can be a valuable lifeline. From a merely practical standpoint, it helps ease the burden of traveling to engage with health providers. Family caregivers with have full-time jobs can avoid taking excessive time off work to meet with you by using telehealth. Moreover, these services empower family members by giving them more opportunities to ask questions and take a proactive role in their loved ones’ care and recovery.

Long Distance Clients Really Benefit From Telehealth

Family Caregivers who live a long distance from their family members can often really benefit from telehealth as they can meet with the care manager from even thousands of miles away, get coaching on caregiving, ask questions about the care of their loved one, and report symptoms or status.

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Successfully Market Your GCM COVID 19 Service

Learn to market and sign up new clients for your Aging COVId-19 coaching services for, both long-distance and local- adult children, based on science step and sound public health policies. Help family care providers faced with a pandemic, support an aging loved one through a COVID Hospitalization, and recovering at home.

Be able to sell care management COVID services that fill the gap created by the federal government, state, county, cities and CDC‘s mixed messaging have created, leaving family caregivers confused frustrated, with no clear path to safety from the raging pandemic,

Gain new customers and help aging families stay safe from COVID using care management’s most potent tool – navigation- through the potholed path they have right now.You will learn

How to create an e-newsletter with the right copy, to get out the word about your COVID 19 services

How to Use social media to alert aging family caregivers to the clear path your GCM agency provides to safety from the accelerating virus in the US

Be able to set up a Zoom webinar to teach local aging agencies and caregivers about your COVID coaching services and other local resources to assist caregivers in the community

Get local media coverage of your COVID -19 Coaching Services with radio and TV coverage plus pick local newspapers where adds may pay off to sell your COVID Products

How to generate word of mouth customers for your COVID -19 service using your continuum of care in your community

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When: Sep 10, 2020, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (the US and Canada)
Topic: 5 Steps to Market Your COVID Coaching Service for Aging Families

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How Do Long Distance Families Cope with Elders Threatened by COVID-19

July 19, 2020

Caring for COVID-19 Risk From a Distance

Long-Distance Family caregivers are trying to get a handle of the new reality COVID 19 has on their lives. as caregivers, at a distance. For many families, the number one concern is the seniors in their family. As a Long-Distance Care provider, finding the balance between safety and well -being for seniors during the COVID 19 pandemic can be a new challenge added to the many overwhelming challenges that long-distance families face daily. Care managers can now overcome the distance with telehealth and Hipaa certified telehealth platforms.

Long-Distance Care Providers Already offer the Most Expensive Care and Now COVID-Care $

They already live far away from their loved one, a national average of 450 miles, and travel an average of 4-7 hours to give care. Long-distance caregivers have the highest annual expenses (about $8,728) compared to co-resident caregivers (about $5,885) or those who care for a loved one nearby.

The experience of a long-distance caregiver is much different from and more complicated than that of a caregiver who lives in the same town. It’s important to know the local resources and services. Long-distance care providers are either not familiar or have vague memories of stores and resources that have changed since they moved away.

Long-Distance Caregivers Suffer Depression, Anxiety and Now Fear of COVID

The crunch of caregiver demands frequently leads to depression, anxiety, and a feeling of helplessness. Caregiver overload is especially common among the long-distance sandwich generation, or those caring for their distant aging parents along with their own children and many times grandchildren. Long-distance caregivers are more likely to report emotional distress (47%) than caregivers either residing with their care recipient (43%) or residing less than one hour away (28%).

Neglecting Everyone in the family

When the long-distance caregiver tends to ailing parents, they feel they are neglecting their own family and work responsibilities. Yet when they tend to their family, spouse, or job, they feel they are neglecting their parents. They live in a double bind.

Keeping seniors safe yet socially connected

For most families, keeping senior loved ones safe coronavirus infection is their number one priority as it is with families that live locally. But Long Distance Families must do this remotely which means forgoing in-person visits and finding other ways to create a connection. These families their number one concern is the safety of the seniors among their families or friends. It is important to find a balance between safety to avoid contracting coronavirus and being able to maintain happiness through social interactions with family and friends.

Seniors and their concerned families want to avoid isolation, depressions, and hospitalization with COVID while sheltering in place.

Like any disaster but especially with this pandemic- you may not be prepared and are desperately seeking a plan.

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Create 5 Telehealth Products for COVID 19

WHEN. THURSDAY AUGUST 6

TIME- 2 PM Pacific Standard Time

Care Management businesses are struggling with pandemic close-downs.

Support your business bottom line, clients, and their families.

Create 5 COVID-19 products.

Products from sheltering in place through the hospital, recovery at home, discharge from an SNF, or hospital for local and long-distance elders. Increase your bottom

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Learn Step by Step How to Consult with Aging Families and Seniors to:

Choose the best Hipaa Compliant Telehealth Products to Remotely Consult with Client

Help a Local Family Help a Loved One Safely Shelter in Place

Help a Long-Distance Family Help a Local Loved One Shelter in Place

Help an Aging Family Help a Loved on Hospitalized for Covid-19

Help an Aging Family Help a Loved one Recover when Discharged from a

Nursing Home

Help an Aging Family Help a loved one Recover when Discharged from a

Hospital

WHEN. THURSDAY AUGUST 6

TIME- 2 PM Pacific Standard Time

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