Boomers Getting Wired for Independence
Posted by With the baby boom generation moving into retirement, the rapid adoption of broadband services in the United States is playing a major role in improving delivery of health care – and meeting boomers’ expectations for more independent lifestyles.
By 2020, one in three Americans will be between the ages of 52 and 70 years old. Doctors and hospitals are turning to e-health solutions to meet the rising demands of boomers who are not only living longer, but are demanding a degree of involvement in their own health care never before seen. The growth in home-based health care has been accompanied by an explosion of new technology, much of it broadband enabled. A new study by Dallas-based Parks Associates predicts that by 2012, more than 3.4 million U.S. seniors will be using networked sensor applications in their homes to help monitor and improve their health. Advances in sensor technologies will make these devices lighter, smarter, and more reliable.
The use of broadband to expand health care into rural areas was highlighted last month with the announcement of a $400 million federal plan by the FCC to expand e-health services in rural areas. But there are also urban populations — including the elderly, chronically ill, poor, or disabled — that may be as isolated as those living in rural areas. Fortunately, access to broadband doubled in 2006, from 20 percent in 2005 to 40 percent, and is expanding fast to both rural and urban populations.
A 2004 Department of Commerce study pointed out that many urban patients cannot drive to local clinics and “many require assistance getting from point A to point B.” Traveling a mile for an urban patient may be as onerous as a rural patient’s two hundred- mile drive to see a specialist.
The growth of broadband services, combined with a new generation of medical devices that can communicate critical information over the Web, promises to greatly enhance the quality of life of millions of Americans. And the confluence of these two trends couldn’t have come at a better time for boomers.
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December 10th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Using broadband for telehealth applications is transforming people’s lives. People wrote to us in the recent Broadband Changed My Life! contest to tell us about using broadband to research new techniques and treatments for their conditions as well as using high speed Internet access to connect to monitoring stations for their chronic health conditions like diabetes. One father wrote in to say that he was told he had three months to live and needed a liver transplant. After using the Internet to reseach a doctor and appropriate hospital, contacting people who went through the procedure and seeing videos of the procedure, both father and daughter felt comfortable that there was a 90% chance of success with a transplant from her. His daughter decided to give him 53% of her liver. More than a year later, he says he has not felt this good since he was in his teens.
Joy Howell
Director
Broadband Changed My Life! Campaign
December 11th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
The National Grange, the nation’s oldest general farm and rural public interest organization, believes that broadband driven, home based, health care will be critical for successful rural communities. Retiring baby boomers, attracted to rural lifestyles, are reversing long term rural population declines. Today, about 48 million people live in rural communities, 17% of whom are already over the age of 65. The percentage of the population over 65 in urban communities is just 11%. Home based healthcare is an important example of how to generate greater demand for rural broadband deployment. Telemedicine can serve as the business model for additional Internet based services for our rural communities.
Leroy Watson, Legislative Director
National Grange
December 12th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Where can I get more info on the how broadband changed my life campaign?