CareZone Logo via CareZone.com
Continued from CareZone: Eldercare Harbinger of Hope (Part 1)
World’s Oldest Social Network
Jonathan Schwartz, the former chief executive of Sun Microsystems and co-founder of CareZone, says, ”The world’s oldest social network is the one you were born into – your family.” The New York Times calls Care-Zone the “Anti-Facebook”. How refreshing–a social network that doesn’t blab your private business to the world!
CareZone is a service that enables families to organize care of their loved ones. CareZone provides secure storage of patient information like medical records and prescriptions, plus critical phone numbers and digitized documents associated with care, such as insurance information. There is also a journal feature, for keeping notes on a patient’s condition and a calendar for future appointments and coordinating schedules.
Talent and funding is finally surfacing in private enterprise to solve the overwhelming issues we face as 78 million Baby Boomers age. Entrepreneurs finally understand the potential profit in solving eldercare problems.
Crossing the Caregiving Chasm
Crossing the Chasm was a 1990′s marketing book by Goeffrey A. Moore. This book identified the chasm between early adopters of new technologies (the visionaries) and the early majority (the pragmatists). If a successful firm can create a bandwagon effect in which enough momentum builds, then the product becomes a de facto standard. However, Moore’s theories are only applicable for innovations that force a significant change of behavior by the customer.
Every family caregiver experiences similar challenges such as coordinating schedules, maintaining records, keeping contacts up to date, finding notes when you need them, preserving privacy, gathering resources, and, most challenging of all, finding and coordinating help. The beginning caregiver is stunned and confused. The experienced caregiver simply wears out.
We all need a map for caregiving that helps us create a plan. Once we have a plan, any plan, we heave a sigh of relief and begin doing, doing doing. Others offer to help, but the weight usually falls on the primary caregiver in every family.
CareZone may be the catalyst that projects the caregiver over the chasm from individual doing to true family caregiving.
Process Change
When a family caregiving crisis strikes, such as Mom breaking her hip and not being able to live alone any more, the response of adult children can range from complete denial to one sibling taking on guardianship and control that alienates the rest of the family and deprives the parent of independence. Most family caregivers mean well but in the end fall back on the mantra, “I just do the best I can in an imperfect situation”. Small comfort.
There is a desperate need for tools that can help caregivers centralize and share information while guaranteeing privacy. CareZone stand out because it uses familiar technology and tools to build accountability into the process.
Technology Drives Accountability
Caregiving is lonely, expensive, and time consuming. Some caregivers quit their jobs; others refocus their entire lives. One reason we have not solved this problem is because we have not had ubiquitous, affordable, secure technology platform on which to build in a structure for sharing the load of caregiving.
Enter Smart Phones, The Cloud, Health Records Systems, and CareZone. For the price of a smart phone you can use CareZone’s very private social network to share information within families.
Professional caregivers charge $12 to $30 per hour. Most of us simply can’t afford that. While the main CareZone application is free for up to five individuals under care, it will costs $5 a month or $49 a year to use CareZone for five to 10 people. From 10 to 100 individuals, CareZone charges $25 a month. Hmm, let me see…$25 per hour or $25 per month?
With CareZone, the family actually can take care of its own without turning any family member into a victim. Perhaps the tech savvy 19-year-old grandchild installs the app, inputs key information such as prescription dosages, and sets up family member on their smart phones. Then, the primary family caregiver identifies everyone who might be able to help AND ASKS FOR THE HELP. Primary caregivers become project managers rather than road kill.
Even the greatest Luddites use smart phones. Helpers can volunteer for appropriate tasks as well as look up records, calendars, and assignments. If the assigned person cannot make it to the doctor with Mom, someone else can jump in. The data is all there. All you have to do is listen carefully during the appointment and make notes that the rest of the team can access.
Slackers, and we know who they are, have a much more difficult time avoiding responsibility. Everyone can contribute in some way. If you live far away, you can send money. If you have a full time job, you can volunteer to do the bills at night or on the weekend. If you are unemployed you can be the driver for doctors visits and the family can pay you a fee for each service. Every situation is different. Every family has to figure it out. Every family can become closer by collaborating with usable tools.
CareZone is a teeny, private start-up, piloted by some very savvy technology leaders who have experienced the problem they are trying to solve. I am betting they will succeed. It is available for the iPhone and Android (as of this week), in English and Spanish.
This is a video of CareZone BroadCast which demonstrates how easy it is to use this product.
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