Remote monitoring companies for Seniors growing in popularity

Dec 04, 2006--Massachusetts-based Dovetail Health, which "aims to provide a safety net for senior citizens living on their own by tracking vital signs over a phone line," is the "newest entry in the small but growing area of health care called 'remote monitoring,'" the Boston Globe reports.
 

Under Dovetail's pilot program, seniors who live alone will receive initial visits from nurses and pharmacists. After those visits, enrolled seniors will weigh themselves and take their own blood pressure, and computer monitors connected through patients' phone lines will be observed remotely by company personnel, who can respond if they note any unusual readings.

Though this type of technology has grown in recent years, Medicare and private insurers typically do not pay for it. The company plans to address "the knotty issue of who should pay for the monitoring" by allowing seniors and their families to pay for the service themselves, according to the Globe.

Dovetail will offer seniors a medication consultation, occasional nurse visits and 24-hour phone help for a $750 monthly fee. Joseph Coughlin, who researches aging and technology at MIT, said remote monitoring systems face financial obstacles and called Dovetail's billing concept "an interesting idea for the higher end."

He added that the system also presents psychological obstacles because, for "every bit of security it provides you, it takes away that much more independence." He said, "The company and technology that strikes that balance first and best, that will be the winning business model" (Heuser, Boston Globe, 12/1).