As the New Zealand population is ageing, there is a huge need to help the older patients with eHealth and learning to make the most of the various tools and paths available to them in the digital world.
Is there anything going on in this space at the moment?
I am envisioning it might need to be a short small-group or one-on-one course on familiarising individuals with the options available and even helping them first to use tablets/smartphones or laptops/computers for health related questions…
I am not aware of any projects and or services available but would love to learn of them if there are any…
We had a service in Christchurch at one time that sent young people out to teach oldies how to use technology, I think it was run by the Student Volunteer Army. As a clinician however I found the biggest obstacle is motivating patients (and clinicians for that matter) to adapt to technology–after all, they got this far without technology, why should they adapt now right?
Thank you Sarah! good to know. yes - why adapt to tech if it worked without it for so long…??? I would have thought that not being able to drive anymore (so becoming dependent on others) would be incentive enough for older folks to learn about other ways to connect to family and services.
But is this something I should spend time thinking about? it seems that there are less and less “not connected” folks around or is that just my impression? I was thinking that solving this - the need for training/teaching could then be applied to other groups but not sure if this is even necessary?
Aged concern and Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa has a programme called Stepping up, which aims to help older generations at public libraries and other services. Some vendors have been engaged to help deliver content to help with accessibility.
From the pharmacy perspective…we still get many patients who are passed driving coming in because, seemingly, they like to. They will make a day trip of going to do a grocery shop and coming into the pharmacy to collect meds and chat to the staff. There are a LOT of pharmacies in suburban areas so there is usually an easily accessible one. Iv’e had many patients who choose to pick up meds monthly when they could get them three monthly just because they like to come check in with us.
true - it is the human contact they crave, isn’t it.
maybe there need to be slow pharmacies, similar to the slow check out for people who would like to have a chat and are not in a rush at the supermarket…
or would it help them to feel more connected if they had easy access to all the social media and options of the digital world?
I guess we already do have ‘slow’ pharmacies and ‘fast’ ones (not necessarily slow or fast at getting scripts filled though!). However the ones doing big volume (mainly discount pharmacies) are likely going to out compete the little ones soon enough-the funding is the same no matter how long you spend talking to your patient so any of these older style pharmacies are not going to be able to compete going forward, especially as you need a large scale to be able to implement efficiencies with robotics. I’m not sure that social media is the answer to that ‘human touch’ either, we all know about the negative mental health effects of too much social media time and it is a platform for scammers to find vulnerable people with little digital competency.
Hello Andrea, I’m doing research on the digital health aged care workforce. It looks like there are several initiatives and services for inclusion and equity for older people. Question is, as the healthcare workforce becomes more digital for doing their work, the aged care workforce should be included.
So true, I am unfamiliar with the training the health care work force has to do - is there any courses for them to stay up to date with the newest developments? if not, there should be some type of refresher course offered for everyone maybe every second year where relevant info / applications get introduced… is this already happening?
Kia ora tatou,
Thanks so much Andrea for initiating this discussion. I am very interested in this space too in particular eHealth tech that supports people to age well at home or community, prioritising Māori and rural communities. Connectivity and affordability seem to be barriers to adoption as well as digital literacy.
But on the flip side, it seems there is great interest by older adults in digital health, possibly busting the myth that older people aren’t interested. Start-ups like Tend and Practice Plus seem to have good rates of uptake by older adults in the 80 plus age groups, and I was interested to learn from the Office for Seniors that the Digital Seniors programmes are all over-subscribed.
But I wonder how older adults know what eHealth options are available to them in their area? Has anyone done any mapping? Thinking about digital health services that are specifically designed with older adults needs in mind.
Interested in others thoughts? ngā mihi, Sarah
@sarah.davey Tena koe Sarah and so nice time meet again. Trust you safe and well. I chair a Clinician Community of practice on NZTelehealthbForum. Your question was raised recently in our discussion as we have a number of telehealth clinicians across the continuum of care . SLT Counselling, sub speciality areas such as hospice and palliative afterhours telehealth as in EBOP. Our suggestion was a directory available on NZ Telehealth forum similar to the project and innovation page that would have a similar function to Healthpoint directory. Healthpoint seems an expensive option unfortunately for small Micro enterprises underlyingbsinglempractitioner telehealth instances. Such a presence on NZ telehealth could Inpresume be replicated whanau and elderly facing via the various elder network sites?
Hi Sarah
I have been helping older adults with digital devices in our local library, and it is amazing how switched on some of them are! but there is a huge range. and of course, some never even touched a cell phone, let alone smart phone… more of the “my life worked 60 years without it, why should I change now?” But as mentioned, others are editing their digitalised 80mm films like pros…
Anyway, the office for seniors might have data?
Morena, have you seen the work that Moana Connect are doing in Mangere upskilling older Pacific people on using digital? Amio Matenga Ikihele is a leader in this space www.moanaconnect.co.nz. Also UoA are running 'CCREATE - AGE workshops regularly www.ccreateage.auckland.ac.nz, Joanna mentioned above is in this team and Ngaire Kearse who’s been highly involved in aging research for many years.
We’re (HiNZ) looking to focus on this area in 2024 as well
Cheers
Tim