How Will Ageing Spark Innovations in Health Care?

Increased ageing populations may advance digital health horizons

According to the UN, from now until 2030 the number of people over age 60 will increase by 56%, and by 2050 it will more than double globally. What will this mean regarding health care policies and services for this population? We are curious about the implications and committed to addressing this growing population’s needs through changing technology. At Ada, we think ageing prompts big questions and learning opportunities:

How can technology better serve this population? How can we age well? There are now more reasons than ever to explore the science behind ageing.

Reports released by the UN and Deloitte signal that innovation is key to keeping up with ageing. The latest UN study on ageing confirms health care will require creativity to address this vastly growing population’s needs. These needs often center around themes of mobility and independence. The path forward? Governments will need to design new policies and services targeting older people’s requirements, including health care.

The international consulting firm, Deloitte, further confirms that innovative change in health care to support ageing is a must. In their study on balancing costs and improving care they found underlying inequality among services for a diverse ageing population. They suggest that, “Undoubtedly, changes will be required in the way health policies for ageing populations are formulated and services are provided to encompass the great diversity of older populations…” Health policies and the quality of health services have decidedly not kept pace with longevity.

Exploring the Science of Ageing

Delivering health care to a growing population of the ageing is in itself a challenge. But what about challenging the whole process of ageing itself – enhancing health and extending one’s years? Founders of giant tech companies like Oracle, Alphabet, and PayPal are investing heavily in biohacking, where tech plays with expanding lifespan. They are investing in research to explore ageing and age-related diseases.

Pushing the limit on lifespan is just one way tech companies are investigating the science behind ageing. Genomic data mining, blood transfusions, pill-popping for better brain and physical function, sleep and metabolism enhancement are others. Some companies mix anti-ageing science and business to craft supplements purported to address ageing at the cellular level. But even if these tech titans succeed, it will ultimately still add to the need of supporting people as they live longer.

Multifaceted Tech for the Ageing

Misconceptions about the ageing population can mistakenly lead people to think that this population is adverse to technology, when the opposite may be true. As Deloitte notes, “increasing numbers of informed, active, and affluent seniors are willing to pay for new health care services and technologies.” Understanding and addressing misconceptions could yield useful and interesting improvements to health technology for this group.

In the US, a number of new technologies by various startups are helping people age into the future by providing services such as entertainment, social and transportation services.

Our approach to serving people’s health needs over their lifespan is multifaceted:

• We aim to identify conditions through tracking symptom trends. We believe symptom tracking benefits everyone in staying on top of their health. It particularly helps people with complex medical co-morbidities (having more than one medical condition at once). Tracking symptoms helps anyone who has trouble recalling how they felt the day before, or those who are caring for someone else.
• Our app’s friendly chat provides personalized and focused advice rather than leaving people to sort possible medical answers online.
• We recognize the fact that mobility can be a critical issue affecting decisions and access to care. By providing easy access to health information and telemedicine services, we hope to empower people with decision support and reduce time spent in the waiting room.
• Older people tend to have more extensive medical histories due to interacting co-morbidities, medications, and social issues (living situations, family support, personal upkeep, etc). We hope that priming doctors with user-generated assessments allows doctors more time to assess complex medical cases in advance. This may provide an opportunity for more face time during appointments, to address any complexities of coordinating appropriate care.

At Ada, we are responding to this call for health tech change by making patient-centered health care more accessible to every generation. Part of our focus is helping people live better in every stage of their lives and actively participate in disease prevention, to whatever extent possible. By using our app, we hope to help people make informed decisions about their care from the comfort of their location, and provide options to connect with care providers.

We are excited about user feedback from our app which shapes what we do to serve people of various ages all around the world. Please join us for more on the evolving topic of ageing and health care in future posts.