Here is Why Elder Care May Be The Next Billion Dollar Engineering Chance

I was asked recently which industries will be most disrupted by the the Internet of Things. While no doubt all industries will be impacted long-term, I said some of the greatest alterations will be in the elder care marketplace.

Here’s why:

The value of elder care is massive

Elder care is projected to be approximately $ 319 billion in the US alone by 2016.  While this is a enormous income possibility for the incumbent elder care market, the other side of the ledger represents a enormous price for fixed-revenue seniors and their loved ones.

One of the quickest expanding segments of this industry is at-home elder care companies. While the good side of this is that the ‘at-home’ care section is portion of a broader trend in direction of aging-in-place (which relieves the burden on the elder care and assisted residing infrastructure), conventional at-residence care is still costly for each seniors, their family members and society in general.

Engineering for managing elder care is in it is infancy

We’ve come a prolonged way from the ‘I’ve fallen and I can not get up days’. Security monitoring and support technologies are enhancing rapidly, being driven by advances in bio-sensing, sensory networks, robotics, telecommunications and cloud computing.

But it is not just the enabling technologies that are getting far better. New buyer-facing engineering categories like wearables will aid in the elder care area as well. New firms like VitalConnect are establishing wearable health sensors that not only can detect body vitals like temperature and heart fee, but can also detect falls and other varieties of incidents.

Applying technology decreases costs

New technologies can carry down charges: Britain has been able to track a reduction in emergency space visits by twenty% by way of the use of a  telehealth monitor.  The FCC FCC has estimated use of body sensors decreases fees of hospital born infection by $ twelve,000 per patient.

But possibly the biggest value for families is that of live-in care.  The price for standard home care fees for live-in care – ranging anywhere from $ 300o to $ 6,000 a month – can be back breaking, and if new technologies can support reduce or hold off these expenses for a couple of many years, there is no doubt that elderly and their families will embrace them.

Increases high quality of lifestyle and autonomy

Healthcare is part of a hugely regulated and convoluted bureaucracy. By embracing preventative and dwell-in-place technologies enabled via the IoT, the elderly and their loved ones can get more control of their very own wellness and properly-getting in the long-term.

In quick, by trying to keep them out of the the healthcare and expensive caregiver market longer, they’ll have more many years and much more cash down the line.

It is Early Still

Here is Why Elder Care May Be The Next Billion Dollar Engineering Chance