Advisory Team Reading List - 28 July 2011

Bringing Caregiving into the 21st Century

This report describes the results of a study conducted to examine family caregivers’ receptivity to technology. The study assessed how helpful 12 technologies would be in supporting caregivers or helping them provide care. The study also delved into barriers to the use of technology, factors influencing use of technology, and trusted sources of information about technology.
 
The 1,000 technology‑using family caregivers surveyed in this study understand that they can benefit in various ways from using additional technologies to support their caregiving. The top expected benefits are saving time, making caregiving easier logistically, making the care recipient feel safer, increasing feelings of being effective, and reducing stress.
 

Bringing a Decade of Themes into Focus and into the Future

The vision and models described are closely aligned with the future that LeadingAge has been trying to create for 10 years through research, education, policy development and advocacy. That vision calls for consumer empowerment, sustainable financing, and a holistic approach that addresses the entire person through a coordinated and integrated service delivery system.
 
Senior centers and other community-based providers will offer lifelong learning and skills development opportunities that allow older people to seek either employment or volunteer opportunities that increase their financial stability, enrich the quality of their lives and/or allow them to continue contributing their expertise to society.

Establishing Innovative Communities

While action on the national level is certainly integral to health care reform, LTQA is convinced that the most important health reform victories will take place at the local level, in cities and towns around the country. A broad range of community stakeholders is needed to help older people and people with disabilities remain healthy and independent.
 
Health care reform will not succeed unless all of these local stakeholders pool their collective energy, break down the silos in which they operate, and work together to devise and implement strategies and interventions that advance and improve care. Those strategies and interventions must be aligned with the needs, preferences, and values of consumers and their family caregivers.
 
Healthy@Home 2.0 –This report presents the results of a recent survey of seniors and caregivers to gauge their awareness of new technologies that could keep them independent and healthy at home, their willingness to use such technologies, as well as their current use of technology, their willingness to pay for these technologies and the budget they may have for them. This report is an update of the first Healthy@Home conducted in 2007.
 
FutureAge-NovDec2010-OlderAmericansEmbraceTechnology-excerpts.pdf, November 21, 2010
 
LOTSM+LOVE.pdf - presentation to the Lake Oswego Transitional Shelter Ministry, May 20, 2010