» The virtual 2020 Collaborative Care & HIT Summit will take place Sept. 15–17 with a focus on highlighting the need for technologies in aging services, including telehealth and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. The summit will include a keynote on the future of technology and its implications for collaborative care post-COVID-19 by Fahad Aziz, co-founder of CareMerge.

» More frequent internet use has been linked to greater well-being in older adults, particularly those who are wealthy and more educated, finds a University College London study of more than 9,000 older adults. Published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, researchers found that daily internet users had larger increases in their life satisfaction scores than those who used the internet weekly or never.

» University of South Florida researchers teamed up with Ireland-based Shimmer to develop a wearable technology that aims to detect the progression of coronavirus in people most at risk. Researchers will place the devices on up to 100 participants to monitor physiological conditions such as skin temperature and oxygen saturation. Once the data is collected, scientists will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to review potential patterns that could lead to a better understanding of patient outcomes.

» With all of the now-required cleaning and sanitization amid the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for robots to aid with service and cleaning tasks is up in a variety of industries, including senior living and care. Firms are also making a push to reduce operating expenses and minimize overtime that might be needed from staff or third-party contractors, an article on bisnow.com said.

» Researchers estimate that 38% of U.S. seniors may not be ready for virtual care after looking at factors such as hearing difficulties, speech challenges, possible dementia, visual difficulties and poor access to internet-connected devices. That number dropped to 32% if they were provided social support for how to set up the call, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

From the September 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News