Elder Care Innovator HomeThrive Selects LifePod to Augment Care Services for Family Caregivers and their Aging Loved Ones
September 12, 2019
BOSTON–LifePod® Solutions Inc., the first-ever, proactive-voice caregiving service, announced that elder care innovator HomeThrive has selected LifePod’s voice-first service for rollout to an initial 100 HomeThrive customers.
With over 34 million people serving as unpaid caregivers to adults over the age of 50, demand has steadily increased for solutions that both enable loved ones to live independently at home and make it easier for family caregivers to support them.
HomeThrive and LifePod are combining efforts to offer a comprehensive care service, provided as an employer or payer benefit, that integrates LifePod’s innovative, voice-first caregiving capabilities with the expert coaching and personal assistant services delivered by HomeThrive CareGuides, themselves master’s-level social workers assigned to support the entire family.
The National Caregiving Alliance estimates that 29% of American adults currently serve as caregivers to one or more family members. Caring for an aging family member requires time, energy and resources, all of which are in short supply for most working adults. As a result, the demands of caregiving ultimately impact employers of caregivers in the form of lost productivity. Indeed, caregiving costs the US economy $25.2 billion in lost productivity annually, according to Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Survey (2011).
“After testing LifePod’s innovative service, we’ve been impressed by the results, and we’re thrilled to offer it to our customers, as a complement to our range of support services,” said David Greenberg, HomeThrive’s Co-Founder and Managing Director. “LifePod’s proactive and personalized service will make it easier for family caregivers and aging adults to live independent lives, while still remaining in close, constant contact.”
“We are proud to partner with HomeThrive to provide additional peace of mind to working family caregivers and enable their aging relatives to live independently,” said Stuart R. Patterson, CEO of LifePod. “The combination of HomeThrive’s expert coach and personal assistance service with LifePod’s intuitive and proactive-voice service represents the perfect blend of professional high-touch with state-of-the-art high-tech, helping both caregivers and care recipients alike.”
To ease the caregiving strain on their employees, employers offer HomeThrive as a new elective benefit option. HomeThrive supports caregivers with a dedicated CareGuide — responsible for, among other things, the coordination of necessary third-party services such as transportation, meals, or home care — as well as a digital portal and app that tie everything together for a stress-free experience. All the while, aging loved ones get the attention and assistance they need without giving up their dignity or their home.
Using an intuitive, online portal and dialogue management platform, LifePod simultaneously monitors and supports aging family members via personalized voice prompts. LifePod also provides real-time alerts, daily reports, periodic voice check-ins and more. LifePod is a natural extension for HomeThrive, enabling an always-on connection between the HomeThrive CareGuide and the elderly care recipient. Together, the two innovators are helping aging adults live with dignity and pleasure at home, while easing the strain on their family caregivers.
This news builds on LifePod’s recent momentum, which includes two highly successful pilot programs with the Commonwealth Care Alliance® (CCA) and luxury assisted living provider Wingate Healthcare, resulting in the expansion of services to 600 clients and residents. On August 29th, LifePod also announced a groundbreaking study with the American Heart Association to explore how Lifepod can impact outcomes for heart failure patients.
HomeThrive provides non-medical care management and personal assistance services to help aging loved ones thrive at home with dignity and purpose.
LifePod® is the first proactive-voice, AI-powered caregiving service developed with a singular goal in mind: to support and improve the quality of care and life for both caregivers and care recipients throughout their journey together.