What's New with Connect...

Connect for Healthcare links long-term care providers, families

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:18:37 -0400

Connect for Healthcare links long-term care providers, families:

MedCity News

8.18.10 | Brandon Glenn | Columbus, Ohio

Neil Moore found himself repeatedly frustrated when he tried to call for updates on how his father-in-law was doing while in a nursing home.

Either calls would go unreturned, or staffers didn’t have enough time to talk, leaving Moore and his family in the dark about his father-in-law, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. “It didn’t make sense that we weren’t being proactively updated on his status,” Moore said.

Unlike many others who’ve faced the same annoyance, Moore — a 20-year veteran in the field of health information technology, including a stint with Becton, Dickinson and Co. — was in the position to do something about it.

About two years ago, Moore started Connect for Healthcare, a company aimed at solving the communication problems he experienced with the nursing home. The company’s subscription-based service allows for status updates via e-mail, text message or the Web to an unlimited number of family members or friends. The updates feature “wellness metrics” (Is Mom eating? Sleeping? Walking?) that can be customized to reflect specific questions or concerns of family members.

The company sells its service to a range of health providers, including nursing homes, home health companies, rehabilitation centers and hospices.

Connect for Healthcare, which has three full-time employees, has enjoyed some early success, but its biggest break could be just around the corner. Moore won’t say how many providers are customers, though he did specify that the company has clients in six states. But two recent deals could pave the way for bigger things.

First, the company recently completed an integration of its service with Resource Systems, an Ohio-based firm that develops clinical documentation software called CareTracker for long-term care providers. Not only does the integration give Connect for Healthcare access to 2,500 potential new customers that use CareTracker, it automates status updates based on the values of CareTracker’s clinical data. “That’s a huge deal for us and a great opportunity for CareTracker clients,” Moore said.

Larry Triplett, president of Resource Systems, said he’s been approached a couple of times in the past decade by companies that developed software similar to Connect for Healthcare but whose offerings were “too clinical and too quantitative.” Ease-of-use for both providers and families is what sets Moore’s software apart, Triplett said.

“The simplicity of it is what’s helping him get some traction,” Triplett said.

Second, Connect for Healthcare about a month ago began a pilot program with “one of the largest assisted-living providers in the U.S.,” which Moore declined to identify. If the provider likes what it sees, it could begin rolling out Connect for Healthcare’s service to its “hundreds” of facilities across the country.

Moore hopes to land $500,000 in investment funding that the company would use to build its sales and marketing team. The company recently qualified for a state tax credit aimed at making technology start-ups in Ohio more attractive to investors, so that, also, should lift its prospects.

But if the pilot program with the major provider is a success, that may be all the help Connect for Healthcare needs to get investment dollars flowing its way.

Updates to Connect service adds flexability to scheduled updates.

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:30:00 -0400

We wanted to let you know that in keeping with our commitment to deliver the best service possible and responding to your recommendations for improving Connect for Healthcare™, we are releasing two new features today that deliver even more value.

Today’s release allows you to do 2 new things that several of you have asked for:

1) You can now choose “Monthly” as a scheduled update frequency. You are no longer limited to offering only weekly or twice weekly updates.

2) You can now schedule update frequency by resident/client. That’s right – no more global-only setting for update frequency – now you can configure your update frequency to the specific needs of your resident’s/client’s family.

Other features your suggestions have helped us create this year:

Quick Connect messaging:

The ability for you to:

1) define your own, completely custom set of update metrics

2) add additional family members as update recipients (to address those difficult family circumstances)

3) add health care-professionals as update recipients to keep the entire care-team up-to-date with the status of your resident/client

4) send Quick Connect messages exclusively to health care professionals

5) create “Special Residents/Clients” that can help address your Marketing Communication, Staff Communication and Disaster Communication needs (to name just a few)

(P.S. - we’re still listening and already working on our next release… if you have any suggestions please let us know).

Connect for Healthcare announced as a Finalists in the 2010 Boomer Business Plan Competition!

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:25:08 -0400

Connect for Healthcare announced as a Finalists in the 2010 Boomer Business Plan Competition! :

The culmination of the Boomer Venture Summit will be the seventh annual Boomer Business Plan Competition. Since 2004, this competition has fostered a cutting-edge forum to explore, share and design the products and services that will dominate the growing boomer marketplace. Contestants will meet investors and partners, secure resources and get media exposure that can help turn dreams into realities.

Connect for Healthcare™ improves Provider-To-Family Communications with new release of Professional Care Provider software.

Wed, 05 May 2010 15:23:00 -0400

Columbus, OH and Scottsdale, AZ – May 6, 2010 – Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC announced the latest release of their Connect for Healthcare™ service today. According to the Company the new features were designed to improve how care providers communicate with families and are a direct result of customer feedback.

One new feature in the release gives care providers the ability to quickly and easily create their own, entirely custom set of resident/client update metrics. “Although the standard update metrics in our service were based on the input of both families and professional care providers, they weren’t meeting everyone’s needs” said Neil Moore, CEO of Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC. “With this release, our customers can create a custom set of update metrics that are completely unique to the services they provide and the information they would like to share with their families.”

Another gives care providers the ability to add professional care team members (physicians, geriatric care managers, etc.) to the service as recipients of Connect status updates and messages. “Caring for Seniors is a team effort that goes beyond the family” said Moore. “Giving our customers the ability to communicate with the extended professional care team (as well as the family) through our service only makes sense. It will result in a more informed care team and better outcomes for the Seniors they care for”.

Introducing a feature called Quick Connect will allow the care provider to send and document simple messages through the service without needing to send a complete status update. According to Moore, “Quick Connect is hands down the simplest and fastest way for our customers to get a message to the family whether it’s a bit of good news or an urgent call request. It’s also the simplest and fastest way to send an important observation exclusively to the extended professional care team.”

The Company has also added an “Activities and Education” page to the service. The marketing-focused page gives Connect providers a venue for highlighting the services and activities they offer their residents/clients along with educational content that can benefit their families. The page can be viewed by families on their loved-ones secure web page.

Finally, the “What’s New” Tab has been added to the website which adds a link to a company blog. Visitors can view current articles and past press releases plus view instructional videos about the Connect service.

“Feedback on our service from customers and families has been great with exceptionally high marks for simplicity and ease of use. Creating the best service however is about listening, learning and responding to the needs of your users” said Moore, “and I’m pleased to say that we are already working on our next release.”

About Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC

Founded in 2007 with offices in Columbus, Ohio and Scottsdale, Arizona, Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC creates solutions designed to use now-common Internet and cellular network-based communication technologies to regularly and proactively address the family’s need to stay informed about the well-being of their loved one(s) in long-term care, regardless of their available time or location, throughout what is often a very difficult and lengthy period of care. To learn more about the Connect for Healthcare™ service visit: http://www.connect4healthcare.com or email info@connect4healthcare.com.

Contact:

Neil Moore
Founder and CEO
Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC
Connect for Healthcare™
Columbus, Ohio
Phone: 614-256-4454
neil@connect4healthcare.com
http://www.connect4healthcare.com

Care Provider-to-Family introduction to the Connect for...

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:09:00 -0400

Care Provider-to-Family introduction to the Connect for Healthcare™ service. This video was produced for Care Providers to introduce the Connect for Healthcare™ service to their families receiving updates on their loved ones.

Connect feature in NYTimes.com - The New Old Age Blog - "Old Age, New Gizmos"

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:03:00 -0500

Connect feature in NYTimes.com - The New Old Age Blog - "Old Age, New Gizmos":

When the vast Consumer Electronics Show, underway this week in Las Vegas, adds an exhibition called Silvers Summit, devoted to new products for the aging and their caregivers, brace yourselves. American tech companies, taking notice of the unmistakable demographic trends, have launched a surge.

“When you have a growing market segment, everybody wants a piece of the action,” said Majd Alwan, director of the Center for Aging Services Technologies, itself just six years old.

What’s coming?

An Ohio firm called Connect 4 Healthcare was born when its C.E.O. Neil Moore wanted to stay in touch with his father-in-law’s nursing home. Staffers would tell him “‘nobody’s available right now; we’ll call you back.’ And they’d call back when I was on a plane or in a meeting,” Mr. Moore recalled. “It was just frustrating.”

The Connect for Healthcare system gives family members access to a site where paid caregivers enter regular status updates about how a resident is faring. Families choose the specific matters they want to track, from appetite to socialization, and can also use the service to ask questions and raise concerns; most choose to receive the information by e-mail or text message. A small but growing number of home care agencies, nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Ohio, Texas and California have thus far signed on to provide such updates.

Your Communication Solution From:...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:00:00 -0500

Your Communication Solution From: Connect4Healthcare | December 02, 2009

Just a few of the features in Connect for Healthcare that help professional care providers save time and improve their relationships with families, responsible parties and physicians.

“I couldn’t live without…” By Brett Bakshis in McKnight's Long Term Care News / Technology - December 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:49:04 -0500

“I couldn’t live without…” By Brett Bakshis in McKnight's Long Term Care News / Technology - December 2009:

“Problems stemming from poor communications with a resident or family member can be a huge driver of lawsuits or other potential avoidable issues. But keeping in constant contact with the family isn’t always practical or easy.”

“That’s why Lori Storey, general manager of Columbus, OH-based Right At Home, uses the Internet-based communication service ‘Connect for Healthcare’ to keep in touch with her resident’s families. ‘We can type a message to the family into the Web site and send it out at once,’ she explains. ‘It saves so much time.”’

Connect for Healthcare Provider Introduction ...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:44:00 -0500

Connect for Healthcare Provider Introduction From: Connect4Healthcare | December 02, 2009

A 1 minute description of how Connect for Healthcare can help professional care providers improve their communication reduce their risk and improve the family experience.

Web-based Networking Keeps Families In Touch - By ‘The Voice’ - Quarterly Magazine from the National Private Duty Association - Fall 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:39:43 -0500

Web-based Networking Keeps Families In Touch - By ‘The Voice’ - Quarterly Magazine from the National Private Duty Association - Fall 2009:

“A survey of 200 family members revealed that they want information about how their loved ones are doing in a number of wellness categories (metrics) of the family’s own choosing like feeling, eating, taking medication, etc.”

“Our system allows family members to log in and select up to 10 of the 46 wellness metrics our families have recommended,’ said Craig Gordon, director of business development and strategic alliances at Connect for Healthcare.”

See complete story in “The Voice” - ‘Networking Tools Keep Families In Touch’ - starting on page 12

New Service Helps Bridge the Communication Gap between Care Providers and Families By Anthony Cirillo in Who Moved My Dentures? Essential Information for Boomers on Healthcare, Aging and Caregiving - November 6, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:33:54 -0500

New Service Helps Bridge the Communication Gap between Care Providers and Families By Anthony Cirillo in Who Moved My Dentures? Essential Information for Boomers on Healthcare, Aging and Caregiving - November 6, 2009:

One of the reasons experiences break down in healthcare is lack of communication. And that lack of communication leads to misinformation, lack of trust and other issues. A new service helps bridge the communication gap between care providers and the families and caregivers of those receiving care.

Connect for Healthcare helps providers communicate with family members via email and text messaging. It is a great customer experience differentiator and a great comfort to families. Not only is it a way to improve communication and experience but you then have a documented communication trail. It has proven to actually reduce family phone calls and the time spent handling those calls for families. And of course increased communication usually means less litigation. That is something we all can agree is a good thing.

Providers can communicate with one or many family members around issues that they specifically choose. The software enables providers to quickly fill out electronic forms tracking patients’ eating, sleeping, temperament and other indicators and send updates to families.

Says co-founder Neil Moore, “Most lawsuits in long-term care are triggered by the failure of the providers to communicate with the family.” Before launching Connect for Healthcare in February, Moore spent 17 years developing information technology systems to improve patient safety in medical facilities. Moore said he was inspired to create Connect for Healthcare after witnessing numerous encounters in which family members would call for patient updates, only to be given little or no information.

With an increasingly mobile society and more people living farther away from parents, grandparents and extended family, this might be something that providers should check out and families should ask about.

At Your Side Home Care announces an exclusive service for their clients... By At Your Side Home Care - November 1, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:30:10 -0500

At Your Side Home Care announces an exclusive service for their clients... By At Your Side Home Care - November 1, 2009:

At Your Side Home Care announces an exclusive service for their clients…A HIPAA compliant web based Connect4Healthcare informational updates for seniors families anywhere in the world! Call us for details 281-335-4882 or email us at clearlaketx@atyoursidehomecare.com

This service is especially beneficial for home care clients with children want to be kept abreast of changes in their parents condition. Notifications are by email or SMS messaging. We are excited about this innovative new technology!

Connect for Healthcare - By AgingCare.com – The Community for Care Givers - October 20, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:28:23 -0500

Connect for Healthcare - By AgingCare.com – The Community for Care Givers - October 20, 2009:

Connect for Healthcare is a desirable alternative for family members who live long distances from their elderly loved ones. If an aging parent is receiving hospice care or lives in an assisted living or a skilled nursing facility in another city or even another state, family members can feel disconnected from their loved one’s life, health and well-being.

Connect for Healthcare allows for the long-distance family members to receive weekly or twice-weekly updates about their senior loved one. By sending written updates rather than oral updates, the facility is likely to pay closer attention to the care of the senior individual. By using Connect for Healthcare, family members can choose the wellness criterion that they wish to be updates on (i.e. eating, sleeping, medication, etc.) and can choose their desired medium of communication (i.e. web page, e-mail, text message, etc.).

When family members live far away, it is difficult to know whether or not their elderly relative is receiving the proper care and attention that they (or you!) are paying for and that they need. By using Connect for Healthcare, family members can be assured that their loved one is well taken care of.

For more information, visit Connect for Healthcare.

Neil Moore Eases Long Distance Caregiver Stress with Connect 4 Healthcare By Ryan Malone in Leaders in Elder Care (Podcast) - September 28, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:21:00 -0500

Neil Moore Eases Long Distance Caregiver Stress with Connect 4 Healthcare By Ryan Malone in Leaders in Elder Care (Podcast) - September 28, 2009 :

My mother lives in San Diego. I live about an hour north in Orange County. One sister lives an hour north of Los Angeles. My other sister lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

As one might imagine, long distance caregiving is an issue with which my family continuously grapples. It’s the peace of mind and communication that always seems to be the toughest to maintain. Who calls the community? Who calls the family? How do you maintain any consistency in the update you get on her care? The questions can be endless.

That’s why I was so excited when I started following Neil Moore and Connect 4 Healthcare more than 6 months ago. Neil’s brought the company from a great idea and a prototype to a service enormously valuable to families like me.

In this Leaders in Elder Care interview, I had the chance to catch up with Neil was really excited to hear that Connect 4 Healthcare was living up to its potential. I am glad to be able to call Neil a Leader in Elder Care and hope you enjoy the interview.

About Neil Moore

With over twenty years of successful health care business experience, Neil Moore has spent the last 16 years on the management teams of health information technology companies in roles that include management of application development, marketing, sales, clinical consulting and strategic partnerships. Before starting Connect 4 Healthcare, he was Executive Vice President of Evention Healthcare, Inc., a long-term-care software start-up, where he was responsible for Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Business Development. In 2007, Evention Healthcare was purchased by the largest long-term care pharmacy services provider in the US (Omnicare, Inc).

How Neil Describes Connect 4 Healthcare

Founded in 2008 by Neil Moore, Connect 4 Healthcare, LLC provides an easy-to-use, inexpensive web service (Connect for Healthcare™) that enables long-term care providers to improve resident/client care, the family experience, operational efficiency and differentiate themselves in the market place by dramatically improving and documenting their communication with families using modern technologies. In just a few minutes per week, the Connect service enables care providers to deliver regular, proactive updates to the entire family through the Internet, Email and Text Messaging – no matter where they might be – in 70% less time than it takes them to answer a typical update call from just 1 family member.

Contact Information

www.connect4healthcare.com

- also featured in Basic American Comfort, published by GF Health Products, Inc.

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

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:16:00 -0500

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.

Service helps ‘Connect’ loved ones in long-term care By Chris Bournea in ThisWeek Community Newspapers-Upper Arlington - July 8, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:08:00 -0500

Service helps ‘Connect’ loved ones in long-term care By Chris Bournea in ThisWeek Community Newspapers-Upper Arlington - July 8, 2009:

Service helps ‘Connect’ loved ones in long-term care

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 12:33 PM

By CHRIS BOURNEA
ThisWeek Staff Writer

Four former school buddies from Upper Arlington have formed a service that makes it easier for families to receive regular updates about loved ones who are in long-term care facilities.

Connect for Healthcare is a subscription-based Web service that uses Internet, e-mail and text messaging to help family members track the progress of parents, grandparents and other relatives in nursing homes and other facilities, said co-founder Neil Moore of Upper Arlington.

“Most lawsuits in long-term care are triggered by the failure of the providers to communicate with the family,” said Moore.

Before launching Connect for Healthcare in February, Moore spent 17 years developing information technology systems to improve patient safety in medical facilities. Moore said he was inspired to create Connect for Healthcare after witnessing numerous encounters in which family members would call for patient updates, only to be given little or no information.

“I sat there and I watched this happen and I thought, ‘This is a problem,’” Moore said. “I’ve been the guy on the other side of the phone.”

Recognizing that many long-term care providers are often overwhelmed, Moore and his business partners set out to create a structured system to provide regular updates to concerned family members.

Moore teamed up with old friends who grew up with him in Upper Arlington — Jason Long, Jim Davis and Craig Gordon — to design and market Connect for Healthcare. Through the service, subscribers pay a monthly fee to receive weekly electronic updates about patients from long-term care providers.

The software enables providers to quickly fill out electronic forms tracking patients’ eating, sleeping, temperament and other indicators and send updates to families.

“If the family gets regular, documented updates from the provider,” said Moore. “The care for their loved one is better.”

Lori Storey, operations manager at Upper Arlington-based home health care agency Right At Home, said Connect for Healthcare makes it easier for her to keep families informed about how patients are doing.

“I think it’s a wonderful service,” Storey said. “The clients that we have on it, their families really appreciate that extra touch.”

Connect for Healthcare saves families the trouble of taking time out of busy schedules to call and check in on relatives, Storey said.

“It makes connecting with family members just a touch away instead of trying to get phone calls while they’re at work,” she said.

There are 3.2 million people in long-term care and an estimated 35 percent of Americans age 65 and older will receive some form of nursing-home care in their lifetimes, according to AARP.

With an increasingly mobile society and more people living farther away from parents, grandparents and extended family, Moore expects a growing demand for services like Connect for Healthcare.

For more information, visit Connect4healthcare.com.

Connect for Healthcare: helping care providers communicate with providers By Laurie M. Orlov in Aging In Place Technology Watch, Industry Trends, Research & Analysis - July 5, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:03:00 -0500

Connect for Healthcare: helping care providers communicate with providers By Laurie M. Orlov in Aging In Place Technology Watch, Industry Trends, Research & Analysis - July 5, 2009:

Connect for Healthcare: helping care providers communicate with families

Submitted by Laurie Orlov on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 08:16

computers and internet
healthcare
product snapshots

I can hear objections already — yet another tool for adult children to avoid talking with or visiting aging Mom or Dad. But founder Neil Moore (many years in Health IT) may be onto something with Connect for Healthcare. This is a new subscription-based service that enables care providers to use a structured and secure way to communicate status to family members about their loved ones who are receiving some sort of long-term care.

The service in a nutshell. A family member can select up to 10 wellness attributes from from a structured list of 40 — sleeping, eating, mobility, medication, for example — that providers like nursing homes, home care agencies, assisted living facilities, or a home care aide — update and provide in secure and recipient-selected mechanisms once a week ($15/month). Free form comments can be included and the pricing goes up if the information is updated twice weekly or the recipients include multiple family members.

Who benefits? Two aspects of this offering can be quite compelling — the first is a win for care providers — that if reliably up-to-date, this system can augment or replace the phone tag and multiple sibling calls requesting the same status update. Second, although some families do a great job of nominating a spokesperson who communicates well with all siblings, with this service, the family benefits from the structure of the information, versus a free-form telephone chat with an on duty nurse or aide, then a follow-up calls to get an answer to the needed-but-not-asked question.

Who should pay — in the long run, probably providers. Although the pricing structure is for individuals or families there is a clear benefit for providers to purchase the service, using it like a care management application, on behalf of all in their care. For some providers, this may be the only system-structured record keeping they would use in otherwise paper-based and free form note-taking setting. Recognizing this, the vendor has provided printed forms in which status can be circled and then multiple data entry forms entered as a batch.

Integrate with care management systems. In the future, the information should be integrated and loaded from existing system, for example Resource System’s CareTracker, treating Connect For Healthcare as an adjacent output system. And according to founder, Neil Moore, Connect for Healthcare offers provider pricing that would make it sensible to just give the capability to family members at no charge.

The good…When updated properly, a system like this can eliminate the cumbersome status update family phone tag with administrators, aides, and nurses. In that regard, it looks appealing as a tool for rehab facilities and hospitals, especially if the information is easily derived from another already-deployed system. It can also eliminate clumsy exhcnages among a large group of relatives.

The risk…Just as these are positives, there is a risk that providers will miss an update, or one or more family members don’t trust the information and call anyway, or the information is innacurate or out of date, and the resident is far more ill than indicated. Any of these will dilute or even eliminate the benefit.

On balance, however, there is a great opportunity with a system like this, which should really be part of an overall care management and communication solution, to improve otherwise shaky communication…and by forcing focus, actually improve care.

Communication Is Key To Better Care, Happy Families By Amie Clark in The Senior List - June 9, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:22 -0500

Communication Is Key To Better Care, Happy Families By Amie Clark in The Senior List - June 9, 2009:

Communication is Key to Better Care, Happy Families

You are traveling. Your mom is in an assisted living community. She isn’t sleeping well or taking her medications. You have three sisters, who also lead busy lives. You are constantly playing phone tag between flights and meetings to find out the most recent update about her health and in turn, call each of your sisters to keep them up to date. Sound familiar?

Communication with care providers continues to be a full time job for many family members who are the primary contact for their loved one. As a family liaison myself, I am all too familiar with the time-sucker of phone tag, waiting on hold, and talking to several caregivers before I can get to the bottom of the issue for my clients. “Medications need refills, didn’t eat lunch, won’t take a shower, wants to go out for lunch, yelled at table mate, didn’t sleep well, having a good day, needs new undershirts” were all separate phone calls I fielded during the course of a week for one client. Once I received the information from the care providers, I was then in charge of notifying the family and care team. I estimate that in one week, I spent at least an hour per issue between talking with the care providers, dealing with the issue, and reporting back to family members. So, you can imagine how thrilled I am to write about a company that will solve my communication woes.

Connect for Healthcare, in very simple terms, improves communication between care providers and families. How? Connect for Healthcare allows families to choose their preferred method of contact, email, text, or through a very well designed, easy to use, web portal. The founder, Neil Moore created the service after dealing with his own communication issues while his father resided in an assisted living facility.

“Connect for Healthcare is an inexpensive, easy-to-use, subscription-based web service that uses modern technologies - the Internet, e-mail and text messaging - to create and maintain a new and vital link between families and their loved ones in long-term care. It enables care providers to easily give regular, proactive, specific wellness updates to family members and loved ones no matter where they might be in the world. The family benefits by staying better informed and feeling more connected, their loved ones in long-term care benefit because the better informed and more engaged the family is, the better care they can receive, and the provider benefits by having a simple, one-step method of giving families what they really want.”

What I like most about Connect for Healthcare is that each family member can be notified through their preferred method of communication, without any work from the primary family communicator. The family web portal allows families to not only establish their preferred contact method, but to designate what they would like to be notified about. Each client profile is tailored specifically to the client, family, and care provider.

For care providers, using Connect for Healthcare as a tool to communicate with families will save staff time, decrease communication errors, and in many cases, will simplify documentation and charting. Many long term care providers are offering Connect for Healthcare to the families they serve as an additional feature of their community. Families may also request Connect for Healthcare to be set up for their loved one, costs range anywhere from $15-$37 per month. To find out more about pricing or to view a tutorial of the program, visit www.connect4healthcare.com.

Westmoreland families can stay close to their families- Technology allows patients, relatives to share information on condition, life By Chillicothe Gazette - March 22, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:57:28 -0500

Westmoreland families can stay close to their families- Technology allows patients, relatives to share information on condition, life By Chillicothe Gazette - March 22, 2009:

“…Communication with families has always been very important to us. Our residents need their families to know how they are doing and what they need.” said David Dixon, Westmoreland’s administrator. “Before today, the only way families could do that was to call or visit.”

“Everyone’s lives are so hectic, and there are so many family members that live out of town that we realized many of them simply couldn’t get updates as often as they would like. This service will be a big help.”

Your Eyes and Ears: Connect for Healthcare By Ryan Malone in Inside Elder Care - February 9, 2009

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:16:00 -0500

Your Eyes and Ears: Connect for Healthcare By Ryan Malone in Inside Elder Care - February 9, 2009 :

Your Eyes and Ears: Connect for Healthcare

by Ryan Malone on February 9, 2009

Here’s a problem that many of us face — obtaining wellness updates about your loved one without troubling the staff or being intrusive to your loved. And the problem is compounded if you are the primary caregiver and have friends and family living out of the area.

How do you minimize the phone calls, get more usable detail from wellness updates and enable the staff members to focus on providing quality care for your loved one? How do you gain the peace of mind in learning your loved one’s condition without sounding like a nag?

Visit Connect for Healthcare.

According to the Connect for Healthcare website:

Connect for Healthcare is an inexpensive, easy-to-use, subscription-based web service that uses modern technologies – the Internet, e-mail and text messaging – to create and maintain a new and vital link between families and their loved ones in long-term care. It enables care providers to easily give regular, proactive, specific wellness updates to family members and loved ones no matter where they might be in the world. The family benefits by staying better informed and feeling more connected, their loved ones in long-term care benefit because the better informed and more engaged the family is, the better care they can receive, and the provider benefits by having a simple, one-step method of giving families what they really want.

Founder Neil Moore was kind enough to provide a detailed tour of the service and answer many of my questions. I came away from our discussion very impressed with the ease of use and powerful ability to provide what we are all looking for: peace of mind.

Incentives for Communities

Neil has addressed one of the major weaknesses in these types of services – he pays the communities to enter the wellness updates into the system. By delivering an easy-to-use system and giving a percentage of the fee to the communities, he solves two problems. First, he ensures that the communities are incentivized to participate in the program. Second, he creates a pretty decent revenue stream for those communities who have a modest number of subscribers. These are revenues that can be used to fund better activities, renovations, additional staff and all those “nice to have” things that fell by the wayside due to budgets.

Whether you are reading this as a family member or community staff member, you should take a look at Connect for Healthcare. They’ve done some good stuff!