Intel’s Eric Dishman: Tech and Aging in Place Opportunities for

Innovation in Oregon

“We’re really trying to think about how are baby boomers as seniors going to be
different and what types of technologies and services might they use to manage
their own personal health and wellness in ways we can’t yet imagine.”
-Eric Dishman

This post is a transcript from Intel’s Eric Dishman, an innovator in the field of aging-
in-place technologies and part of the solution:

Last week I had the honor of speaking to the City Club of Portland, an organization
founded in 1916 to highlight the diverse opinions, issues, and talents of local leaders
and organizations. I often hear their Friday Forums on Oregon Public Broadcasting
radio while I am driving home from work, so it was a real treat to be there in person
in the grand Governor Hotel in downtown Portland. I very much appreciate the City
Club members inviting me and giving visibility to the important issues of Global
Aging and what I have frequently referred to in this blog as “gray technologies.”
The title of my talk was “Technological Innovation and the Future of Aging”–you can
click here to find a free download of the audio cast of the speech–in which I focused
on Oregon’s opportunity to lead in the development of new technologies, services,
and jobs that promote independent living for our graying population. I shared some
of the research prototypes and findings that Intel, Oregon Health and Science
University (OHSU), and the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH)
have developed from our more than ten years of exploration into home-based
technologies that can help people to age-in-place with good health, social
engagement, purposefulness, dignity, and choice.

I promised attendees (and the many radio and TV listeners who have been writing
to me ever since!) that I would post some links where you can find more
information. To that end, here are a few that I referred to in my talk…
ORACTECH, the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology at www.orcatech.org, is a
passion-driven, grass-roots center founded in Oregon Health and Science University
to help coordinate statewide collaborations around independent living technologies
amongst universities, companies large and small, non-profits, and government
agencies. The funding to get this started came from Intel’s $3 million dollar donation
to OHSU and a prestigious NIH Roybal Center Grant awarded to ORCATECH director,
Dr. Jeff Kaye and his collaborators. You can join the mailing list by
emailing orcatech@ohsu.edu or, if you are local to Portland, come join “upcoming
events” announced on the web page.

CAST, the Center for Aging Services Technologies at www.agingtech.org, is a non-

profit advocacy organization I helped to develop with the American Association of
Homes and Services for the Aging who recently changed their name to LeadingAge.
CAST is a national (or actually, now international) version of ORCATECH, designed
to bring together providers, university researchers, technology companies, and
others to help ignite a wide array of innovative technologies and services to help
seniors to age-in-place from the “home” of their choice. Be sure to view the free
CAST vision video shown to Congress and the last White House Conference on
Aging.

The TRIL Center, or Technology Research for Independent Living,

at www.trilcentre.orgbased near Dublin, Ireland, is Intel’s largest investment in
independent living technology research with a $30M joint investment with the Irish
government. TRIL includes our multidisciplinary Intel team and three universities in
collaboration with St. James Hospital in Dublin to invent and test out these home
health and independent living technologies. You can learn more about the falls work
there at the TRIL Center site, as well as go here to read more about the Shimmer
“matchbox-sized wireless computer” I described in the talk.

ETAC, the Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer’s Care initiative, a collaborative

program between Intel and the national office of the Alzheimer’s Association, has
published informationhere about the grants that we have funded since 2004. This
was one of our first programs to start funding university research on independent
living technologies and has produced a great international community of dedicated
researchers and entrepreneurs focused on Alzheimer’s care specifically.

Care Innovations, at www.careinnovations.com, is the name of the newly

formed joint venture between Intel and GE to produce disease management,
independent living, and assistive technologies for the home. Full disclosure: I run
healthcare policy for Care Innovations (in addition to my Intel role). I didn’t feature
our products at the City Club talk because my focus was on the R and D
infrastructure that Oregon has built, not a commercial for our products. But I don’t
want to leave the impression that everything is stuck in research…Care Innovations
(and many other companies) is diligently working to get these kinds of aging-in-
place solutions to market worldwide!
And realizing now that I had to fly through my recommendations to the state of
Oregon at the end of that lecture (I warned everyone that, without PowerPoint,
there was no predicting what I might say!), I want to highlight some of the main
points I tried to make last week. My overall thesis was that Oregon has some
enormous advantages in trying to become an international leader of independent
living technologies and jobs. Just as we have with Wave Energy and Biotech, our
state needs to bluntly ask ourselves as Oregonians what future industries we could
really lead in?  I argue that Oregon is already a big fish in the small pond of
independent living R and D and that we should put forth a state plan to go after this
opportunity.

So, why Oregon?  What are our particular strengths?

1) We have a head start: We can build upon the foundational technologies, data,
and know-how of ORCATECH, OHSU, Intel and many others in our state who are
recognized leaders internationally in this emerging field. Today, we already host
numerous Minister of Health and other visitors in our labs, as other countries and
states come to see what Oregon is doing. Now we need to make sure our own state
knows the assets we have!

2) We have our own fiscal challenges: Oregon itself is already in the top ten of
states with the highest percentage of an aging population, and we likely face cuts to
our Home and Community Based services as we, like so many other states, try to
balance a budget in the midst of a recession. We need independent living and home
health technologies just to drive up quality and drive down costs of the care for
seniors–and people of all ages–in our own backyard.

 3) We have flexibility. Though many of my friends and colleagues in the long term
care industry in our state would like to see even more flexibility, we need to realize
that we have more regulatory/licensure freedom to pilot and develop new care
models for seniors than do many other states. Less red tape for us means faster
innovation cycles and learnings than many other states can produce!

 4) We know high tech. There is a large information technology presence here in
Oregon to draw upon–not just Intel but many other technology companies who have
intellectual property, innovation methodologies, and entrepreneurs to bring to the
challenge of addressing Global Aging.
 
5) We are the right size. I believe we are the right size and geography of a state to
develop independent living technologies and the care models to use them. It is hard
to imagine a state as large as California or as small as Delaware doing this. With our
four million citizens living in a mix of rural and urban environments across the state,
it is conceivable and achievable to build a state-wide strategy and infrastructure to
enable aging-in-place.
6) We can collaborate with Asia. Oregon is already seen as a “gateway to the
Pacific Rim” with a wide range of trade and research collaborations going on with
Asian countries. Having just keynoted to the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation) meeting just weeks ago in D.C., I can tell you that the need and market
for independent living solutions in Asia is significant given the longevity in many of
the countries there. If done right, our state plan for Global Aging should foster
collaboration and export of our Oregon technologies and services to some of these
countries.

 7) We have national political leaders for aging issues. It is rare as I make visits
to Congress that members know much about gerontology, but when I visit the
Oregon delegation, they often end up teaching me more than I do them! Senator
Wyden has a background in gerontology, as does Congressman Peter DeFazio, and
both have shown a commitment to aging and health reform issues in their political
careers. I believe we should be leveraging their understanding and leadership on
aging issues to make Oregon the center of the independent living technology
universe!

 8) We are committed to healthcare reform. I had the pleasure of hearing last
week’s “Think Out Loud” radio segment on OPB that was exploring healthcare
reform in the state of Oregon. Dr. Bruce Goldberg, head of the Oregon Health
Authority, was clear (and I couldn’t agree more!) that we need to transform our
culture and infrastructure to do health reform right. At the end of the day, aging-in-
place is not about technology but about transforming our culture of care for seniors,
and the technology is simply a tool to help do that. But if we are a state prepared to
be at the forefront of acute care/hospital/insurance reform, let’s make sure we do
the same for long term care!

9) We have a legacy to uphold. Last but not least, innovating aging is in our
blood…is in our history…as a state. Oregon is widely credited as the state who
invented end-of-life or hospice care, which became a national standard and
movement. Similarly, we are known for pioneering the concept of “assisted living”
which is, of course, now common-place and taken-for-granted. In many ways, the
rest of the country is just waiting for Oregon to invent “what’s next?” for the care of
seniors, so let’s not disappoint them!
 
We should make no mistake as a state to think that we can rest on our laurels or that
we will just end up becoming the leader of independent living technologies without
investment or a plan. Other states are competing to create these technologies and
jobs; I have worked with officials in New York, Minnesota, California, and Florida
who are trying to get their act together on this front. I am biased as an Oregonian to
want to make sure it happens here, but at the end of the day, may the most
organized and proactive state win!
So what would my calls to action be for Oregon? What should we be doing to
capitalize upon this opportunity?
 1. I call upon Governor Kitzhaber to put together a commission to develop a state
Global Aging response plan. Let’s bring together industry, community, and academic
experts to identify how we can use independent living technologies to care for our
own elders and families and also evaluate new business and job opportunities in
this segment. I will certainly volunteer my time to participate!

2. Let’s commission an inventory of Oregon’s assets on aging-in-place…let’s show

what we’ve got and what we are missing in terms of building out an R and D and
new business incubation infrastructure for independent living technologies and
services.

 3. We need to identify, with our nursing and medical schools, what new kinds of
careworkers and curriculums are needed to enable aging-in-place care for seniors
(and people of all ages). If Oregon can develop the models for training and
credentialing community workers and volunteers who can use these new
technologies to do care delivery in the home, community, and electronically, then
we will be the likely creator of the first national call center for electronic care and
support for elders. With that asset, we would be a fierce competitor nationwide!
 
4. Let’s make sure that our current and future technology infrastructure
investments–for broadband, for Electronic Health Records, for insurance
exchanges–are being designed and built to support aging-in-place and to carry
data/transactions from hospital to home. If all we do is connect and coordinate care
in hospitals and clinics, then we will fail to achieve the kind of health reform
required to make us fiscally, morally, and medically strong.

5. We need to build upon ORCATECH to develop the nation’s first 10,000 household
cohort of seniors who can help test and prove the value of these aging-in-place
technologies and care models. Today, we have about 300 households in the Portland
metro area who are outfitted with these kinds of systems, but we need 10,000
homes across the state to deliver the statistical and economic data that proves
which systems are most valuable, usable, and useful. If we build this kind of large-
scale R and D infrastructure, it will be very difficult for any other state to supplant
our position as a leader in this sector.

 6. Like many other states are exploring, let’s develop a policy framework for seniors
in our state that makes aging-in-place a right. If we set that as an overarching policy
goal, then it will help to guide our activities and priorities for the full range of
services–meals, medication assistance, transportation, social support, mental health,
healthcare, etc.–that are needed to give people a high quality of life at an affordable
cost from a place of their choice.

 7. Let’s set an audacious goal–a 2020 vision–to move 50% of care in Oregon out of
institutions and into homes and the community in 10 years. We may not achieve
50% or it may happen faster than 10 years, but if we set a goal that everyone knows
and can aim for, then we will achieve great progress towards an aging-in-place
agenda!
 
In closing, I want to reiterate a message I have played over and over again in the
pages of these blog entries: we need to prepare for Global Aging much as we do
Global Warming. Just as our state (and our nation), are competing to try to become a
leader in Green Tech industries to address Global Warming, so too, we should be
competing to become a leader in Gray Tech industries for Global Aging. The issues
and needs are no less urgent or pervasive; the opportunities for economic growth
for the state are no less promising. And if we are truly a state committed to
healthcare reform, then let’s make sure that commitment includes long term care as
we figure out how to improve cost, quality, and access for people of all ages.
 
See
 
Eric Dishman: Take health care off the mainframe (TED Talk)
Healthcare @ Intel Blog
(photo PortlandCityClub.org)

Visit my website http://www.aginginplace.com.