Kristin Apple is the President of LINUS. We talked about the future of healthcare specifically for seniors 60-79 and how they think about it based on a recent survey (Link below).
This is worth paying attention to because this age group is the fastest growing segment of the population. How they think about aging and what innovators can do to meet the needs of this group represents a big opportunity.
They did a quantitative survey of 1000 people and followed up with a qualitative conversation style study.
First of all this group doesn’t see itself as old.
We found out that, no matter what, how unhealthy they get, two in three want to stay in their home, even if they can no longer properly take care of themselves or have to be dependent on others.
The same percentage haven’t done anything to ensure that happens. So what would they give up in order to enable aging in place?
It's okay to be tracked… We thought, nobody's going to want to be tracked. They're definitely not going to want to have their gen-X daughter like myself, knowing when they're opening the refrigerator or whatever it might be. But the answer is. That's okay. So they're willing to give up some sort of privacy to be able to be at home.
Where they put their trust is in traditional brands involved in healthcare. Think Mayo Clinic and Walgreens. Google, Apple and Peloton - not so much.
This means there are opportunities for remote monitoring and other products that allow seniors to stay in their home as they age.
I’ll call out three areas where innovation is needed:
Usability - “Am I seeing a pink line or not? How do I decide?” Develop products for at-home use that give clear, easy-to-interpret answers.
Education - Following from above, “Can I take a test or collect data and communicate clearly with my doctor about the results or know what to do on my own?”
Reduce physician burden - This comes up in every conversation I have about health tech. Doctors have plenty to keep them busy with the patients they currently see face to face. How do we avoid overwhelm and eventually burnout when we throw a constant stream of data their way? There have to be thresholds or other mechanisms to flag what’s important while holding on to all the collected data.
Beyond all that, it will be important to align the patient and physician experience. A doctor can’t be expected to become an expert at every device or test available on the pharmacy shelf.
Report: Home is the Center of Health
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