The Loneliest Generation

Subject: The elder generation is easily left out of the communication cycle.

Summary:  genusConnect is helping to change the isolation periods of seniors from weeks and months to days. genusConnect’s gentle reminders about the value and power of conversations and visits help to increase interaction. With its last-in-touch contact system, caregivers can balance communication and share valued observations that help lead to better in-home living. The result is peace of mind for all involved.

Read More 

Study: Engaged Family Caregivers Drive 65% Reduction in 30-Day Readmissions

A recent study of a voluntary program from Intermountain Healthcare has shown that engaged family caregivers lead to a 65% reduction in avoidable 30-day hospital readmissions.  The program, called Partners in Healing, engaged family members during the hospitalization of a loved one, providing education on basic care tasks and checklists of what to do after discharge.

“The vast majority of families like to have something to do and they like to participate in patient care. They’re often the most motivated member of the care team,” says Van De Graaff. “We’ve found that families not only want to promote healing, but patients benefit from someone who knows their preferences, and the result is, the rate of readmissions is reduced after patients are discharged from the hospital.”

The methods and outcomes of this study underscore the importance of a platform such as genusConnect in scaling methods for increasing education, training, and engagement beyond high-touch pilots.

https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news/2018/02/engaging-family-members-in-care-of-hospitalized-loved-ones-enhances-healing/

Congress passes and Trump signs national caregiver support act

Last week, Congress passed and President Trump signed the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Support Act.  The bipartisan act, which was supported by the AARP, elevates caregiving to a national priority and will create an advisory committee dedicated to creating a national strategy for supporting caregivers and organizing resources.  This is important on two fronts.  First, it underscores the importance of coordinating care resources and working across industries and health sectors to solve a snowballing threat to our nation and economy. Second, it bolsters the state-level CARE Act, passed into law in 36 states so far, requiring hospitals to identify and educate caregivers for patients in need.

The challenge facing the success of both the RAISE and CARE Acts is that there is no system in place for easily managing caregiver resources or coordinating health records, communications, and care plans in one place as patients move across the system.  That is what genusConnect is committed to solving, and from our collaborations with hospitals, home care companies, community groups, and foundations, it looks like we are on the right path!

 

Read more here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2018/01/24/congress-passes-trump-signs-raise-family-caregivers-act-elevating-caregiving-to-a-priority

Remote Monitoring Is Not Enough

genusConnect was designed on the belief that care is more than medical, and that only by engaging the four core needs of care, mental, physical, emotional, financial, can you have a positive impact on a patient (and caregiver’s) quality of life, health, and well being.  That belief is being backed up by a recently published study in Nature titled “Impact of remote patient monitoring on clinical outcomes: an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials” that lays out an important finding: remote patient monitoring alone does not have a statistically significant impact on health outcomes.  The study, which examined 27 high quality randomized studies on patient monitoring outcomes over the past decade, concludes that a successful approach “might combine the most successful elements of the effective interventions in this review, including personalized coaching and feedback, in a more cost-effective manner.” 

We could not agree more.  With genusConnect, each point of contact, each emotional and physical observation, becomes an opportunity to collect meaningful behavioral and health data which can be used to spot trends before they start, and make meaningful interventions. Furthermore, by engaging the entire care network, as research suggests, genusConnect can have a positive impact on both unnecessary readmissions and extend a patient’s ability to stay healthy in their own home.

Read more at:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-017-0002-4

Study: Engaged caregivers lower readmissions by 25%

Recent research from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has shown that engaged family caregivers lower patient readmission rates by up to 25%.  This is big news for hospitals, who are under pressure to lower readmission rates through recently enacted readmission penalties from the Center For Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  With the average cost of a readmission for seniors nearing $14,000 for hospitals, reducing these costs will be critical as healthcare economics change.  Further driving this trend is the CARE Act, enacted in 2017 requiring hospitals to identify and educated caregivers for patients in need.

genusConnect is an important tool in addressing this challenge, allowing hospitals to efficiently engage and educate caregivers, helping them navigate the long journey of caregiving, driving better patient outcomes, making caregiving easier, and increasing quality of life.

https://patientengagementhit.com/news/family-caregiver-engagement-cuts-hospital-readmissions-by-25

Caregiver workforce has doubled, but it’s still not enough

The nation’s aging population means that more and more people will require a full time caregiver.  While the caregiver workforce has doubled in recent years, new research shows that it still is not enough to meet growing demand.  That means caregivers, both family and professional, will have to do more with less.  That is why we created genus.  Our easy to use care tools help you get organized and put all of your important information at your fingertips.  That means less time tracking down information and managing tasks and more time getting back to your life.

Out with the old, in with the new!

We founded genus to help people organize the complex journey that is family caregiving.  But just as it is important to organize medical documents, communication, and calendars, physical organization can lead to great mental benefits as well.  This is especially true when caring for someone with dementia that can become easily confused.  Click the link below to read about one caregiver’s tips for getting organized in the new year.

Report: Caregiving linked to sleep deprivation

If you are currently or have ever been a caregiver for someone you love, you know the strains it puts on you, both emotionally and physically.  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a new study shows that informal caregiving is linked to sleep deprivation in adults.  Just like you lose sleep over things like your job, bills, taxes, or managing your busy life, the stresses and tasks of being a caregiver can overwhelm your thoughts.  That is why we created genusConnect.  Keeping organized, communicating with your care network, and having the peace of mind that your loved on is okay can significantly reduce stress and lead to better health and happiness.  Click the link below to learn more about the study

Relying on God’s Strength in Caregiving

We often hear people talk about relying on God’s strength through the difficult times.  But what does that look like?  How do we find strength for the long haul, especially when we are so tired?

 

We can learn from the ways Jesus handled His own caregiving responsibilities while on Earth.

  • He frequently spent time alone in prayer
  • He often prayed with His closest friends
  • He publicly thanked God the Father for what God had provided.
  • He faced each crisis with calm assurance because He had placed His confidence in God
  • He delegated work to other people
  • He grieved the losses of those He loved with a sense of hope, because He had an eternal perspective

 

I am sure if you think and pray upon it, you will find many examples from Jesus’ life that model for us the attributes that can make our caregiving more rewarding and fulfilling. But even if we just focus on the above points, we can grow closer to our Lord as we do the work of being His hands and feet for our loved ones.

 

Look to Jesus as your ultimate model of a healthy caregiver (emotionally and spiritually), and follow His example in your own caregiving work.  Obviously prayer is an important part of this, as many of his techniques involved prayer.  If you are at a loss for prayer, don’t worry.  God already gave us one;  The Lord’s Prayer.  Don’t forget to ask others to pray for you and your family as you navigate this difficult time of life.  I know when I have had my greatest pain and hardships, I could actually feel the prayers of others when I felt too lost to pray myself.

 

Jesus faced each crisis with calm assurance because He had placed His confidence in God.  We need to ask ourselves if we are keeping God’s promises forefront in our mind; which can be difficult to do when overwhelmed with your own life, plus taking care of someone.  How can I switch over to this calm assurance?  For myself, I leave post it notes on the mirror in my bathroom.  Little inspirational sayings or bible verses.  Goodness knows that my mind is so busy thinking of what I have to do next, that these positive thoughts might never enter my brain if I don’t have some sort of reminder.  The same goes for the eternal perspective.  Reminders and prayers definitely help.

 

Yes, Jesus delegated.  You can too!  Using the Genus™ app, you can create a care circle of friends and family to provide respite care or perhaps a meal.  If your church is involved with using Genus™, then maybe you can enlist help there as well.  Don’t feel you shouldn’t ask for help.  Jesus asked for help.   Remember that you are providing an opportunity for others to be blessed by being His hands and feet for your loved one.  Being a martyr and trying to do it all yourself doesn’t honor God or your loved one.

 

Jesus did all these things and more.  We can use him as our Givers of Care Role Model.  He wants to help.  All we have to do is ask!