What is Futurehome® / Aged Care Assisted Living?
FutureHome® Aged Care is a development model working on the future of technology in the home. The model will initially focus on collaboration with New Zealand industry partners using media blogs, interviews, partnerships, and joint research. Two primary areas of interest are Aged Care – Assisted Living, and Eco technologies.
How will we do this?
Develope key partnerships within New Zealand to form the technologies behind FutureHomes® of tomorrow. Its important that the partnerships foster recognised Standards compliance and take advantage of New Zealand’s cheaper research investment opportunities.
Those partners will provide focused interviews, and articles that encapsulate NZ innovation and creativity. Solutions must be practical, sensible, simple to use, and most of all within the financial reach of the masses.
“These baby boomer children will want and expect products that give their parents the freedom of unobtrusive personalised home care.”
Why do this in New Zealand?
New Zealand is an ideal test bed in terms of demographics and topography. ie bodies of water, mountains, tropical, and subtropical conditions which offer some of the best testing environments. Our unique conditions with a population of 4 million is recognised globally.
Older people are staying at home longer and today’s in home elderly management technologies still use 20 year old pendant technologies. We believe retiring baby boomers who are already familiar with some form of current technology; computers, and the web, will be demanding smarter living in their environments and their personal life.
We know from statistics elderly people live longer happier lives if they can stay safely in their own home. Relocation of elderly from their family home is believed to be related to additional stress and other health problems manifesting that could be avoided if they remained within their own home for as long as possible. This segment represents one of the single biggest growth markets world wide for elderly care and assisted living within the FutureHome® of tomorrow.
“industry must take a lead in securing New Zealand’s place in elderly care technology research, developments, and trials”
What might be in a FutureHome®?
What we think proven technologies like Zwave, Zigbee, RFID Tags, surveilance tracking, wi-Fi, and movement monitoring within the home, when combined, could potentially offer a cheap upgrade to smarter technology. The facts are that we are moving away from pendant / dial up / panic buttons which are still being sold with little to no change in concept over the past 25 years.
FutureHome® technologies could offer a compliment to carers or doctors with various levels of integrated options for monitoring and patient management statistics. i.e. smart-fridge what’s been eaten or food that needs to be ordered on-line or automated, txt monitering if theres an issue that needs attention like have they fallen over. Blood pressure, heart rate, etc.
In the near future we feel it will inevitably be the children’s responsibility to manage their elderly parents and possibly carry the cost of their health care and living conditions etc. These baby boomer children will want and expect products that give their parents the freedom of unobtrusive personalised home care. Initial benefits would be less time demanding on them, and allow more quality time with their own families while not neglecting their responsibilities to their parents well-being.
Smart security systems and Surveilance systems combined could double as personal information statistic gathering platforms for numerous applications within the FutureHome® of tomorrow.
We strongly suspect Government spending may well continue to be kept to a minimum. On this basis there will be limited access to money from the government for future elderly care. We feel the industry must take a lead in securing New Zealand’s place in elderly care technology research, developments, and trials.
Some of the questions we aim to answer include:
- How will New Zealand’s FutureHomes® take shape?
- Form your experience, what is your perspective of the FutureHome® industry? Today? Tomorrow?
- How big is the market? New Zealand wide? Australia wide, world wide that could use these FutureHome® technologies?
- Is the cheapest option is too keep elderly in their own homes for as long as possible?
- Would retirement homes only be for those that need palliative care such as severe dementia, altzimers, chronic heart lung conditions etc?
- Will tomorrows retirement communities and homes use smart service robots combining services such as relaying recorded info and helping with day to day living?
- Should vital statistics be monitored in real time via the web, delayed, and stored in-house so doctors, family members, and care givers can track and share common information relating to real-time individual care? i.e. movement tracking? how many times a monitored person visits the Fridge?, Toilet?, bedroom?, garden?, or within their home care community? relayed to the FutureHome via RFID tags, tablets and or smart phones, Bluetooth pendants, and other technologies.
We welcome your comments. Please use the box below to post your thoughts.
We are proud to have been in this exciting industry for more than 15 years within New Zealand and Australia.
Previous articles of relevance: Home is where the IQ is!
Pictured: Left to right: Shane walls-Harris, Eric Sagmeister. Founders of FutureHome®
