Connect for Healthcare: A New Service Lets Professional Caregivers Keep Family Members In The Loop By Jill Gilbert in The Gilbert Guide-Daily Wrinkle (Video) - September 23, 2009
Connect for Healthcare is a web-based company that allows professional caregivers to send out weekly or twice weekly notifications via text, email or post updates on a website to family members of a person that is receiving care either at home or in a senior care community. This service is great for adult children, who either due to distance or circumstance, are unable to visit or check in with a parent who lives in a nursing home, assisted living, rehab facility or is receiving care in the home.
Watch our step-by-step video tour of how this service is easy for both caregivers and family members to use—while also eliminating the need for one family member to be the point-person that has to call all other relatives to provide updates. You can learn exactly how to set up your account and establish which parameters you want updates on. You can get updates on 10 variables of your choosing from the available 40, which cover everything from health to wellness, such as eating, sleeping, taking medication, physical therapy, energy, weight and cancer treatment. The families of Alzheimer’s patients can also benefit from the service as it allows them to know how their relative is doing, both health and mood wise, without having to ask questions that could be difficult or impossible to answer due to memory loss. Instead caregivers can provide updates on how well a person is eating, sleeping, coping with a slight cold or a host of other issues.
Messages can be received either once or twice a week. Accounts can service one person ($15-30/month) or Family Plans ($22-37/month) can accommodate up to 10 people. If your parent’s caregiver or community is not enrolled in Connect for Healthcare but you would like to use their service, all you need to do is simply contact Connect for Healthcare for information and they will talk to your relative’s caregiver or community about setting up the program. Everyone on Family Plans must have legal documentation that they have a right to know the patient’s personal medical information via a power of attorney document. Read Laurie Orlov’s, our Aging in Place Technology Expert, opinion on Connect for Healthcare.
