After purchasing GreatCall last August, BestBuy is wasting no time making its new PERS system an even more viable platform for people who are aging in place by teaming up with Senior Whole Health. GreatCall, one of the biggest players in the PERS industry, has signed a five-year deal with the Massachusetts-based healthcare company in order to provide its passive remote monitoring solution to eligible members.
Monitoring for High-Risk Seniors
Lively Home, GreatCall’s passive remote monitoring solution, is a great way for elderly members trying to manage chronic conditions and live safely in their own house. It incorporates multiple sensors throughout the home (attached to doors, refrigerators, cabinets, toilets, etc.) that monitor the patient’s daily activities and gather data in order to notice changes in patterns that could indicate potential health problems. This provides predictive analytics and actionable insights to GreatCall’s case managers so that they can recommend proactive interventions.
“We use the data with some sophisticated analytics to determine when a person’s activities show enough evidence of changing that it warrants some sort of intervention,” says Bryan Adams, GreatCall’s Chief Commercial Officer. “By using this system and intervening early, we can create significant reductions in the total cost of care, drastically reducing inpatient skilled nursing and long-term care usage through just very small increases in primary care, pharmacy and outpatient [services].”
Health Insurance Partnership
Senior Whole Health manages both Medicare and Medicaid plans; and, with them officially on board, Lively Home can be installed at no cost to their members. Because GreatCall is a subsidiary of BestBuy, the installation will be done by their Geek Squad team.
As a result of this partnership, GeatCall predicts its system will be installed in around 1,000 homes. In addition to the Lively Home solution, Senior Whole Health subscribers will also receive Jitterbug and GreatCalls’s Lively Mobile emergency response solution.
The Changing Home Healthcare Landscape
This monitoring application stands to make a huge impact on the aging community, and the fact that the cost can be covered by an insurance provider makes it all the more practicable. Fallon Health found that the Lively Home solution has the potential to reduce total medical expenses by $687 per member per month. Add that to the savings and convenience of being able to enjoy the comfort of one’s own home instead of having to move to a costly and unfamiliar assisted living facility, and the benefit is immense to say the least.
Between monitoring solutions like Lively Home and fall detection technology like Kytera, the home healthcare landscape is evolving rapidly. And, as it does, we hope to see more partnerships with health insurance providers like this one in the future so that everyone can have access to the tools that will help them live their best. This partnership also helps one of the most health-care needy age groups be more preventative and less reactive to get the treatment they need, helping reduce the overall healthcare costs of US Citizens.
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