John Sharp is an IT Manager for a major medical center in Northeast Ohio. Areas of expertise include: ehealth, personal health records, Web 2.0 technologies, social media and project management. He is active in the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society and the American Medical Informatics Association. The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author.
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Archive for February 6th, 2007
Home Monitoring for the Elderly – NY Times
February 6, 2007
A report in the New York Times features the growing market for home monitoring tools for the elderly. Some can monitor every move of an elderly person living at home and allow concerned adult children to monitor their activities. Others are oriented toward warning alarms for non-compliance with medication or symptoms like high blood pressure. Others are more passive and focused on prevention. Wisely, due diligence in purchasing these systems is encouraged. It is still a young (sic) market but the demand is growing from the “sandwich generation” of the middle aged trying to care for the elderly parents and their own children and juggle careers. The ability to monitor one’s parent even from out of state is a plus for those whose parents may have moved south for retirement. The article does cite privacy concerns but with consenting parties and the opportunity for the elderly to remain in their own homes or living independently, it appears to be a trade-off worth taking.
