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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Do You Have An Ethical Dilemma About The Cost Of Private Care Management? $?

March 19, 2020

GCM ETHICAL DILEMMA

Limiting access to geriatric care management to the upper 10% leads most Aging Life or geriatric care managers to an ethical dilemma. Should we limit resources-?

PHYSICIAN’S ETHICAL DILEMMA LIKE GCM

The physician of the 20th century treated all patients rich or poor and did not have a business model. Today managed care physicians see everyone on Medicare, although many do not take Medicare because of the low payments. Access to the physician diminishes even more with the advent of the concierge physician, who uses a business model to only treat those elders who can pay privately, which ends up being the upper 10%

Most aging life or geriatric care managers came to the field with inner core beliefs that health care should be available to all elders, yet they chose to start a business. So here ‘s the rub.

HERE IS THE RUB FOR ALCA OR AGING LIFE

That business cannot prosper if the aging life or GCM does not have long term clients who can pay for it. The federal government does not fund the profession, so elders have limited access.

Should you be part of this?

Here is an ethical dilemma. It turns out that you must serve clients long term to make your aging life or geriatric care management thrive. You also must serve clients in the upper 10% because we have no national insurance that covers geriatric care management or any long term care.

Statistics support this financial inequity. Only 8% of Americans have long term insurance Medicare does not cover Long term care. The top 20% of Americans own 86% of the country’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 14%. In 2011, financial inequality was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 43%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%.

According to Christopher Ingraham/The Washington Post, in 2019 the 400 richest Americans now own more than the bottom 150 million causing huge financial inequity. (Christopher Ingraham/The Washington Post)The top 0.1% in 2019 own more than than the bottom 80%

GCM OR ALCA CAN ONLY BILL THE WEALTHY

So only the upper 10% can afford those fees long term. ALCA experts Bob OT’oole explains this quite clearly. Bob Toole a long term member of ALCA, documents this quite clearly in Private Revenue Sources for Fee-Based Care Managers Need vs. Demand in Eldercare in the 4th edition of Handbook of Geriatric Care Management.

Although you began an ALCA or GCM business this is the reality you must practice in. You must reach out to wealthy elders who can afford and sustain you. Find out How

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6 Reasons You Need a Care Management Operations Manual

November 5, 2019

A GCM Operations Manual is absolutely essential.

It needs to be comprehensive, useful, with all your services or products and procedures to deliver them. Here are 6 reasons why your business needs this.

1.With an Operations Manual, You Can Sell your GCM Business for Twice the Amount

The geriatric care owner’s brain is the system. Without the owner, the business has little or no value unless you have made a very large profit. What will make your business more s= valuable and sellable is to have well-designed, well-documented systems that almost anyone can operate successfully? Think of Starbucks. The more your business looks like this, the less dependent it will be on the owner, and the more asset value your business will have.

2. The operations manual will create and maintain the highest quality of gold standard service /products in your business.

Most business owners start their businesses because they believe that they can do a superior job at what they do. Their intent from the beginning is excellent products and/or customer service. However, as a business grows and new employees are added to the mix, the quality often diminishes. If the owner gives a customer one experience but the employees give that same customer a bad experience, it lowers the customer’s opinion of the business. A written operations manual will help give you and your team the discipline to do what it takes to maintain excellence as the business grows.

3. The operations manual becomes the primary tool for training your employees.

Unfortunately, most business owners do not have a strong process for training new employees. They typically walk them around the place of business showing them where everything is. They then tell them what they need to do and then expect that new employee to intuitively do what they were told with excellence. Often the new employee is a

disappointment to the owner.

If there is a manager responsible for the orientation and training of the new employee the results can be even worse. A well-written operations manual will set the standard for performance. It will also give detailed procedures (how-to’s) on the critical functions of the tasks the new employee is responsible for. Mentoring is always a great idea, but an operations manual is essential as both a standard and a reference tool.

4. The operations manual creates more time for the owner.

Most small business owners feel like they do not have enough time to do the higher level, more strategic functions of their business. They lament that they do not have time to plan and think strategically. Time gets consumed putting out fires and solving problems. This typically happens when the company does not have a good operations manual. Operations manuals, once written, are a tremendous time saver

5. The operations manual makes your business scalable.

If you as the owner have to do everything for it to be done right, your business is not scalable. It cannot grow beyond the time that you as the owner have to “do everything.” You must create systems that are documented in an operations manual for your business to grow in a healthy, sustainable way.

6. You Can Easily expand your GCM Business to second office as the Manual gives you a turnkey guide

Find Out More About My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual

Caregiver Assessment- Can it Prevent Caregiver Burnout?

October 3, 2019

Caregiver Burnout is Big Federal Problem

Family caregivers are so many times in a complete state of caregiver burnout. From a policy perspective, the federal government and the long-term care system in the United State cannot afford to neglect the burnout and strain of millions of Americans caregivers any longer.

Despite the rewards caregivers get from giving care we know from years of research that being a family caregiver results in brutal losses. These degradations and deficits include role conflict and overload from the never-ending tasks demanded of a caregiver. Left in a permanent state of worry and anxiety much of the time, caregivers are working in a deteriorating and unpredictable situation.

Caregivers Feel Trapped

Caregivers can feel entrapped by there the restrictions on their own life. They are often beset by fiscal worries because they are not paid except in some states, like California under Medicaid. Yet the caregiving situation explodes in cost through medical bills, medical equipment and informal care that must be brought in, if the family can afford it.

Caregivers Are Not Attorneys

Family caregivers face a quagmire of legal problems including untangling wills, trusts, and inheritance issues which generally complicate care both emotionally and physically. Many times these family caregivers compound their fiscal woes by having to quit their job, running the risk of never being hired again, and that is if they can eventually return to work.

Caregivers Mental Health Ravaged

The caregivers own physical and mental health is often ravaged. They have to do medical tasks that years ago family caregivers never had to do. If they were paid by an agency, this would be a workman’s compensation nightmare for the company, yet these family caregivers are never even paid. So it is time that geriatric care managers and other professionals in aging started to respond to this family caregiver nightmare and use a caregiver assessment every time they assess an older client tended by a family caregiver.

Find out more in the YouTube below from My Geriatric Care 1 Channel.

SIGN -UP For My Newest Free Webinar- 5 Critical Steps To Start a GCM ALCA Business

September 17, 2019

What is a Mission and why is it a Critical Success Factor in Beginning or Adding an Aging Life or GCM business?

A mission is a – tool for communicating fundamental business objectives,

Part of your mission must state that you are 100% clear you are serving high end entitled clients

Read GCM Bob O Toole’s chapter Private Revenue Sources in the Handbook of Geriatric Care 4^th edition on the Fee-Based Geriatric Care Manager.

He shows you about the very limited market you must serve for financial success. That Market is the top 10% who can afford you.

So give a try to rewriting your mission statement – here’s how

Your geriatric care management business plan starts with your mission statement, which should state the core of your business in a few sentences. The mission statement should reflect the goals and values of your organization. It should be short, focused, perhaps only 20 words, written in the present tense, in positive terms, and without qualifiers.

As part of your business plan so you are adding a major part to a document that will allow you to plan your business and perhaps get investors, who will want to be paid back with your profit.

Try a good mission statement on your own that is short focused and those 20 words.

Here is an example :

“Premium care management services and choices delivered by extraordinary health care professionals”

Learn 5 critical success steps to start and run a profitable, GCM business, including marketing to Concierge clients with your mission, from Cathy Cress MSW, the author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management now in its 4^th edition.

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