Caremerge is the newest senior housing partner. The make it easy for senior communities to manage the flow of resident data to and from families, healthcare professionals and within the senior community.

I have written frequently about technology and senior living, including an article I published just a few weeks ago by Alan Pitt titled “Wanted: A managed personal health record for assisted living – An Entrepreneurial Opportunity” pleading for someone to develop an electronic personal healthcare record system for assisted living residents.  Caremerge may very well be there.

I first met the Caremerge team maybe a year ago in Pasadena at the AgeTech California (Now AgeTech West) Conference. Since that time I have been watching them grow their company and win one technology innovation award after another.  Along the way we have had various conversations about Caremerge becoming a Senior Housing Partner to senior living housing organizations nationwide.  That day has come.

The Problem Caremerge Solves

Every single resident living in an assisted living community has several dozen people who care about what is going on in their lives:

This list contains 20 categories, and you might fairly argue that for a number of those categories, the level of contact and corresponding need to know is minimal.  On the other hand, many of those categories represent several individuals who have a real stake in the resident’s care and have some level of influence over care decisions. Now multiply the number of stakeholders by the number of residents and we are well into the thousands, for a single hundred-unit assisted living community. The first of the two most obvious problems that flow from this complex web of connections is that confusion abounds:

• Too much information gets passed to the wrong people.
• Incomplete information is passed to the right people.
• People who should be in the loop are left out of the loop.
• Finding the right information when you need it is tough.  It can be done, but takes time and effort often when you don’t have the luxury of either one.

The second obvious problem is that it consumes massive amounts of staff time and energy.  How many times a day does some staff member tell the same story over and over again to different stakeholders only to discover, just as they are finishing their conversation, that there is someone else who needs to hear exactly the same story? Finally, if we were to sit back and look at some of the recent high profile senior living scandals and lawsuits it seems very likely that communication breakdowns played a significant role.

The Nuts and Bolts

Caremerge provides mobile and web based solutions that are HIPAA compliant, including a unique real-time chat application that protects individual rights and at the same time provides instant communication.  It is flexible enough to work on Windows and Apple platforms, most browsers and mobile devices (iPods, iPads, iPhones, Android, and Windows 8 based devices), which means it does not require an expensive investment in hardware.

One of the big legitimate concerns senior communities have with the implementation of any new technology is that implementation takes a huge amount of time and staff resources.  Caremerge is finding that most communities can be up and running in no more than one day..

The cost to the senior community is affordable and based on the number of beds and the different Caremerge features selected. Finally, having a tool that simplifies and streamlines communication among many stakeholders, especially families of the residents, giving them real-time peace of mind, could be the deciding factor in choosing a senior living facility. If you have ever struggled with these complex communication challenges it might be worthwhile to take a look at Caremerge.