In a conference recently we were explaining the future of “home health care” from a technology standpoint.
One of the caregivers objected that the technology would make the “care” less caring, and I think he brought up a good point.
Technology is a tool, like a hammer or a wrench. Sometimes people like to package technology in a demonized way of killing the personal touch of health care, almost taking the care out of it. The point of a tool is to make a job easier. To make productivity more functional, a tool is an amplifier of the user.
The greatest opportunity in the home health care environment is to apply some very powerful tools to allow the “care” to be delivered more effectively. To allow the overworked and underappreciated do more of what got them into the industry in the first place. Technology is a tool that allows you to care for others in a more effective manner and to spend more doing what is really important.
The technology breakthroughs that happen every day are only as good as the people who use them. Technology can be a great “tool” for care, when it is designed that way.