Since the SAC was formed in 2009, the group has served in an advisory role to the City Council on senior issues and the operation of the Mountain View Senior Center. The SAC’s seven-member group knows the issues and needs of Mountain View’s older residents, making their endorsement of a new successful aging pilot program all the more significant.

About Linkages

Recently, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s (PAMF) Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation launched a novel platform to support successful aging in place: linkAges™. PAMF’s Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief innovation and technology officer, and his team selected Mountain View as the ideal place to introduce and pilot linkAges because this city is a model of diversity in ages, cultures and incomes and it has demonstrated its priority of supporting healthy aging. Mountain View also has engaged, collaborative senior services where technology is a familiar tool in daily life.

“We created linkAges to address a very real problem,” Dr. Tang said. “Quality of life and social health are key determinants of health. The next-generation health system must reinvent itself as a community health partner, not just a sick-care delivery system. linkAges is PAMF’s iteration of that vital reinvention.”

linkAges is an inter-generational network to engage and activate communities to improve the health and wellbeing of seniors and support aging in place.  linkAges disrupts the traditional business model of fee-for-service sick care delivery and address social determinants of health external to today’s health care delivery systems.

“It takes a village to successfully nurture healthy aging in place. linkAges is designed as a deployable, replicable and scalable network. We anticipate that its impact in supporting aging in place will begin inMountain Viewand will eventually expand to many more diverse communities,” said Dr. Tang.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s linkAges program addresses key health impacts for seniors by reducing social isolation. linkAges is a technology platform that is made available to community members through partnerships with nonprofits, neighborhood associations, faith-based communities and local businesses. linkAges members will get access to vital supports and resources that exist both with residents and organizations within the community. They will also benefit from opportunities to contribute back and increase their own community engagement through increased community connections.

The linkAges TimeBank is a key component of the linkAges platform. Its goal is to establish an intergenerational safety net of connections where all members of a community – caregivers, seniors, students and others – can exchange know-how and skills to fill their everyday needs and explore new possibilities for activities, learning or pursuing interests.

As Chair of the Mountain View Senior Advisory Committee, Pamela Conlon-Sandhu, RN, is one of the advocates for Mountain View’s role in this pilot program.

“The linkAges program strives to support seniors in our community by utilizing creative new technology approaches. I am looking forward to utilizing this new program to help our senior community,” said Conlon-Sandhu.

“The vision and platform of linkAges fits perfectly with our City’s desire to support and enhance senior outreach and engagement,” said Elna Tymes, the SAC representative on the linkAges Advisory Council. “This pilot program is endorsed by Mountain View’s Senior Advisory Committee because it is an exciting opportunity to explore and create programs that help seniors stay healthy and active.”

Attend a linkAges “Preview” Session

The PAMF Innovation Center linkAges program is offering a series of “sneak peeks” and community orientations to introduce Mountain View residents to the linkAges platform and offer people an opportunity to register. Upcoming dates are March 14, March 28 and April 3.

To learn more, and to schedule a local TimeBank orientation session for your neighborhood, community group or business email:  linkagestimebank@gmail.com or call 650-691‐6267.

News on event dates for the community orientations will also be shared via the Mountain View Voice and Mountain View Patch, as well as Senior Center newsletters and promotions.

The Mountain View Senior Center is at 266 Escuela Avenue, Mountain View.

The one-day event is geared toward seniors, their families and caregivers, and baby-boomers, and is sponsored by the City of Mountain View’s Senior Advisory Committee and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s (PAMF) Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation.   

At this event, PAMF’s Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief innovation and technology officer, will introduce linkAges™, the Innovation Center’s successful aging program. PAMF’s Innovation Center team has selected the city of Mountain View as the place to launch the pilot program for linkAges™.

“We created linkAges to address a very real problem,” Dr. Tang explains. “America faces an unprecedented demographic shift that forces the health care industry to rethink how we address the needs of older adults. Quality of life and social health are key determinants of health. The next-generation health system must reinvent itself as a community health partner, not just a sick-care delivery system. linkAges is PAMF’s iteration of that vital reinvention.”

linkAges is creating an inter-generational network to engage and activate communities to improve the health and wellbeing of seniors and support aging in place. linkAges disrupts the traditional business model of fee-for-service sick care delivery and addresses social determinants of health external to today’s health care delivery systems.

“Mountain View is an ideal city in which to develop this program because it already has engaged, collaborative senior services, residents are diverse in age and culture, and it is in the heart of the Silicon Valley where technology is a familiar tool in daily life,” Dr. Tang said.

“It takes a village to successfully nurture healthy aging in place. PAMF’s linkAges platform can be that village. Mountain View’s Aging in Place event is completely aligned with linkAges’ goals to connect today’s and tomorrow’s seniors in a supportive network. linkAges is designed as a deployable, replicable and scalable network, and we anticipate its impact in supporting aging in place in diverse communities, will be significant.”

As many as 200 attendees are expected at the February 9 event. Nearly 20 vendors are slated to attend and share free information on a variety of services relevant to seniors’ lives, including recreation, health and exercise, nutrition, genealogy and more.

“We are reaching out to seniors to offer free information on how to successfully stay in your own home and community for as long as possible,” said Nanci Cooper, eldercare expert and member of the Mountain View Senior Advisory Board. “We’ll provide attendees with high-quality, 40-minute seminars on an array of topics focused on aging in place.”

A partial list of the workshop topics includes:

• ObamaCare and the new Medicare options
• Senior-proofing your home
• Stroke prevention
• Senior nutrition
• Help for family caregivers

There is day-of registration beginning at 8:30 a.m. For more event information, contact Senior Advisory Committee Member Elna Tymes at 650-969-6650 or elna.tymes@gmail.com.

Danish and American physicians, executives and directors from large health systems, government, universities, senior centers, hospitals and hospices joined for the four-hour exchange at the Innovation Center. The goal of the visit was to share knowledge of and opinions about the diverse challenges of aging populations in Denmark and the United States. From the many dynamic conversations underway at any given time, it appeared that that goal was met or exceeded.

Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief innovation and technology officer, Palo Alto Medical Foundation

Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief innovation and technology officer for PAMF’s Innovation Center presented on the health care system in the United States, including the changes required to adapt for the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and accommodate the needs of the enormous and growing aging population.

“Already about 13 percent of the U.S. population are seniors, the vast majority of whom are covered by Medicare,” Dr. Tang said. “The U.S. faces several challenges somewhat unique in the world: a fee-for-service care delivery model, the lack of universal health care, and health information systems that are not connected or, in some places, nonexistent.”

“In Denmark, 16 percent of our people are 65 or older,” explained Mikkel Bülow Skovborg, Research Attaché, Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education, outlined the health care system and focus on care for the elderly in Denmark. “We have a highly structured and well-funded system to provide long-term care at home for our elders. We haven’t built a nursing home in our country since 1987.”

Comparing Senior Support in the United States and Denmark

In Denmark, a high percentage of the gross domestic product is spent on social services and a lower percentage on health care. All health care policies are set on a national level but are implementing regionally via hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers and other health service centers. The municipal level tends to home care and preventive care services. Because of this comprehensive system, people rarely if ever “fall through the cracks.” There is a continuum of care with coordinated services.

Danish seniors have access to a wide range of services provided at the local, regional and national level, by people whose specific job it is to care for the elderly and support their ability to live in the community. A number of meeting attendees, however, observed that the high-level benefits, free at the point of delivery, may create a level of dependence on the system that enables families to “check-out” of their important caregiver roles. This relates particularly to their role in providing emotional support, the absence of which may contribute to isolation.

By contrast, the United States spends a low percentage of its gross domestic product on social services and a high percentage is spent on health care. The burden of care is on the family, not the government – basically, a private sector approach in which every person or family must research available options. The system is more fragmented, with some communities and cultures more adapted to solutions for elder care than others.

The attendees were divided into several groups, each of which discussed a different query and then reported out to the entire group at the end of the afternoon. Lively, engaging discussions covered these questions:

• What are the drivers of isolation?
• How does isolation impact aging?
• Who has the responsibility for tackling social isolation of seniors?
• What solutions to social isolation are being implemented?
• What are your “dream” solutions?

The discussions yielded a variety of perspectives and suggestions for the need to:

• Reduce health care and senior care costs. For example, in the United Stages, five percent of the people use 50 percent of the care.
• Reduce hospitalizations through overall improved health
• Become more community-centered, with more multigenerational composition, and nurture the spirit of volunteerism
• Improve transportation systems that effectively alleviate isolation, and use IT systems that support natural human interfaces
• Focus on seniors as people, not patients
• Embrace and support advanced care planning, beginning at an earlier age

“Seniors seek to maintain their independence and to live out their lives in the community,” Dr. Tang said. “We are committed to keep the dialog about successful aging going.”

Learn more about the Innovation Center at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012, from noon to 5 p.m., the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation is hosting a delegation of 15 leaders from Denmark who work in diverse capacities to address current challenges in health care, particularly with issues relevant to aging. Attendees include C-level executives and directors from large health systems, universities and private corporations in Denmark.

The focus of the visit is to exchange information and knowledge around challenges related to aging, from the diverse perspectives and approaches of Denmark and the United States.

The population of Denmark is 5.5 million, comparable to the San Francisco Bay Area’s more than six million residents (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties). Life expectancy for women is 81 years and men 77 years. According to the United States Census Bureau, American life expectancy is only slightly lower: women averaging 80 years and men 75 years.

“We feel that advancing cross-cultural leadership engagement in exchanges of shared knowledge will allow us to broaden the scope of our thinking as we work to address the needs of our fast growing and increasingly vulnerable, older adult population,” said Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief innovation and technology officer for PAMF’s Innovation Center.

The event has the endorsement of Liz Kniss, Chair of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. Scott Strickland, Kniss’ Senior Policy Analyst, will kick off the event with a welcome on her behalf.

After a meet-and-greet lunch, there will be a presentation by Mikkel Bülow Skovborg, Research Attaché, Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education, who will outline the health care system and focus on care for the elderly in Denmark.

Addressing elder care and aging in the United States will be PAMF’s Paul Tang, M.D, and Albert Chan, M.D., PAMF chief medical information officer, and medical director for the Innovation Center.

The speakers will introduce issues and potential solutions to social isolation among seniors, and then the group will break into teams for a series of workshops, culminating in a panel discussion to share the different perspectives.

Guests for this special gathering also include leaders from the public sector, other hospital systems, senior centers, foundations and nonprofits. 

Local Attendees

• Scott Strickland, senior policy analyst, Office of Supervisor Liz Kniss, Chair, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
• Cecile Currier, vice president of Community Health Services,  El Camino Hospital
• Marsha Fong, health services manager,San Mateo County
• Todd Hansen, chief operating officer,  The Health Trust, and member of the Executive Committee Aging Services Collaborative of Santa Clara County
• Lisa Hendrickson, chief executive officer, Avenidas Resources and Programs for Positive Aging
• Peter Cheng, M.D., geriatrician, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Palo Alto
• Sharon Katz, vice president of Medical Management and Quality, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Burlingame
• Sangeeta Kopardekar, M.D., geriatrician, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Mountain View
• Brad Stuart, M.D., chief medical officer, Sutter Care at Home

Danish Contingent

• Ivan Kjær Lauridsen, head of Health and Assisted Living Technologies, City of Aarhus, Department of Health and Care
• Allan Christiansen, manager of the Elderly Care Division, Municipality of Faaborg-Midtfyn
• Michael Bech Petersen, Healthcare Development consultant, Municipality of Faaborg-Midtfyn
• Sten Dokkedahl, manager of the Health and Disability Division, Municipality of Faaborg-Midtfyn
• Søren Bæk, Director, new’ish
• Yves Demazeau, Ph.D.,University of Southern Denmark
• Kasper Hallenborg, Ph.D., University of Southern Denmark, Maersk Institute
• Peter Maindal, director, Vendlet
• Dr. Ulrik Møll, Welfare Denmark
• Kim Baarsøe, chairman of the board, Welfare Denmark
• Allan Frikke Hansen, chief operating officer, Welfare Denmark
• Hope Arezou Azarani, Innovation Center Denmark
• Susanne Kolle, Innovation Center Denmark

eHealth in Denmark

The Danish health care system offers equal and universal access for all residents. (Denmark has one of the highest taxation levels in the world.) Danes have eagerly embraced mobile health technology. Nearly all – 95 percent – have internet access and 90 percent use the internet in search of health information. Almost half of all citizens that have contacted their physician within the past year have done so digitally. (Source: sundhed.dk)

All Danish doctors have an electronic patient record system and use electronic communication and transactions extensively. All health care institutions and physicians have access to both the open and the secured Danish Health Data Network.

About PAMF’s Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation

The Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation was launched in August 2010 and inspired by David Druker, M.D., the late CEO of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. As a leader in health systems innovation, the Druker Center acts to catalyze, invent and deploy breakthrough innovations in health and well-being that enables the  Palo Alto Medical Foundation to fulfill its vision as a health partner for the people and communities it serves. The Innovation Center is currently building linkAges, a scalable network to support aging in place with a high quality of life. linkAges is a disruptive innovation that complements traditional systems of healthcare with population-based solutions to well-being.

Learn more on the Innovation Center website and follow PAMF’s Innovation Center on Twitter at @pamfinnovation.

For further information please contact:

Cynthia Greaves, PAMF Public Affairs

650-934-8614; greavec@pamf.org

Liz Silva, Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation

650-691-6284; silvae@pamf.org

Today, the vast majority of the rapidly growing senior population in the United States express the desire to age independently, in place, in their homes and communities. However, many face an array of challenges to doing so, including increasingly complex health issues, social isolation, and difficulty accessing resources that support their ability to age in place.

PAMF’s innovative solution is to create an ecosystem, called linkAges, that interconnects seniors, caregivers, social services and professional healthcare teams, and provides tools that empower seniors and caregivers to gain access to resources specific to their personal context, goals and preferences.

The LinkAges Developer Challenge is focused on one of the linkAges ecosystem components, “signal detection.” Signal detection provides a means of unobtrusively tracking a senior’s health and well-being, with the capability of alerting caregivers or the professional healtcare team of potential health risks.

Paul Tang, M.D., chief innovation and technology officer, Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation, Palo Alto Medical Foundation

“We wanted to advance our signal detection capabilities of linkAges as quickly as possible,” said Paul Tang, M.D., chief innovation and technology officer for the Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation. “Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, we sought to harness the tremendous talents of the area’s innovative developers in the creation of these new capabilities. More than 75 developers spent an entire weekend in April 2012 working on the opportunity and presented us with 20 potential solutions. Several of these teams went on to develop prototypes during the next three months. From these applicants, we selected a winner to enter our accelerator to co-develop their prototype into a viable product to apply in a pilot linkAges community. We are delighted with the result of this partnership between a health care provider and a start-up technology innovator.”

Overall linkAges Developer Challenge Winner: Team Meter Made (Now incorporated as Vevity Inc.)

• Proposed and demonstrated a solution turning patterns of data from a variety of home monitoring devices into alerting intelligence on an individual’s status

Runner-up linkAges Developer Challenge Winner: Team Agility4Life

• Proposed and demonstrated a solution tracking walking speed, which can predict deteriorations in a senior’s well-being

PAMF’s David Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation is pleased to formally present Meter Made (Vevity Inc.) as the linkages Developer Challenge winner during the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, October 8 at 2:25 p.m. PDT.

Learn more about:

Druker Center for Health System Innovation

Health 2.0

Vevity Inc.

Media Contact:

Erin Macartney
Public Affairs
Palo Alto Medical Foundation
macarte@pamf.org
650-691-6103

The increasing complexity and escalating costs of health care in the United States threaten the nation’s economic stability and undermine progress in improving Americans’ health. Medical care lags behind many other industries in its ability to meet needs, offer choice, and become safer and more affordable to those it serves.

Paul Tang, M.D.

On September, 6, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its latest report, Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America, which details ways to bring about better quality care at lower cost by harnessing existing knowledge and technologies. The report calls for a transformation of the health care system into one that continuously improves, and it describes the specific steps that should be taken by all participants — including care providers, hospital and clinic managers, health insurers, policymakers, clinical researchers, and patients and their families — to achieve this improved system.

“This report provides a framework for creating a health care delivery system in America that continuously learns and continuously improves.  It leverages something America already does very well – innovation – and applies that to health care,” according to Paul Tang, M.D., M.S., internist and vice president, chief innovation and technology officer at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) and the PAMF Innovation Center.

Dr. Tang is an elected member of the IOM and has participated on a number of IOM studies, including a patient-safety study he chaired, which published two reports: Patient Safety: A New Standard for Care, and Key Capabilities of an Electronic Health Record System.

Further information on the report from the IOM

The three nationally recognized keynote speakers at the event were:

• Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer
• Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow and Chief Healthcare Strategist
• Paul Tang, PAMF Chief Innovation and Technology Officer

Dr. Paul Tang, PAMF’s chief innovation and technology officer, welcomed the group with an overview of the two–day event and an enthusiastic invitation for attendees to work together to “join the community in transforming senior health and well-being through disruptive innovation – be a part of it.” Next, he presented to the group on PAMF’s groundbreaking linkAges program, and he also gave an overview of the Innovation Center’s Successful Aging Developer Challenge.

Following Dr. Tang’s talk, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park took to the stage with an energetic discussion on unleashing the power of open data and innovation to improve health.

Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow and Chief Health Care Strategist, spoke on “Inventing Independence.” During his presentation, Dishman provided insight from Intel’s 20-year journey to find aging-in-place solutions. He also shared his personal health and caregiving story with the group.

View videos of the three keynote speakers here.

“We were extremely gratified by the public’s response,” said Dr. Tang.  “So many people talked to me about their stories and how the ideas behind our linkAges system resonate with them.  For a team that wakes up every day trying to re-invent what we do to help make our communities better, healthier places to live, this was music to our ears. We look forward to partnering with the community to bring the ideas to fruition.”

What Happened at the Developer Event?

Energized by a morning of stimulating talks, over 70 developers responded to the Innovation Center’s challenge: select an important problem to solve that is a barrier to successful aging, and demonstrate how indicative signals could be detected and acted upon to mitigate risks to a senior’s health and well-being and assist in maintaining a high quality of life.

At the end of the weekend, twenty teams pitched their creative solutions, covering the full spectrum of activity-based, physiologic and participatory (human) signals and sensors. Teams were highly multidisciplinary, running the gamut of user interaction and systems engineering developers, designers, gerontologists and businesspeople. As each team presented, a graphic facilitator rendered a real-time interpretation of their solution, providing immediate feedback on the idea and creating quite a buzz in the process.

Read about the winning teams and their solutions on the Innovation Center website.

What’s Next?

The weekend’s kickoff challenge prepared developers for the PAMF Innovation Center’s three-month linkAges Developer Challenge, sponsored in partnership with Health 2.0, and launching April 30. The winner of the three-month Developer Challenge will be invited to join the PAMF Innovation Center Accelerator, a six-month incubator designed to refine and integrate the winning solution into the linkAges ecosystem for rapid implementation within the PAMF community. To provide additional background and help developers prepare for the challenge, a briefing webinar is also planned for May 3.

The Developer Challenge will be an unprecedented opportunity for the winning team to demonstrate proof-of-concept of their solution in partnership with a nationally recognized health care provider, giving them a critical leg up on the path to potential commercialization.

For more information, please visit the Developer Challenge website, which will be updated with additional information throughout the Challenge.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s (PAMF) David Druker Center for Health Systems Innovation is inviting the Silicon Valley community to combine its unique talents in developing new ways to help seniors age successfully.

“More than anywhere else in the country, Silicon Valley is perfectly positioned to apply innovative thinking to the universal challenges of aging,” according to Paul Tang, M.D., chief innovation and technology officer for PAMF. “We live in the heart of technological innovation and have a proud history of excellent health care and supportive community organizations. We can be a national model for how the community supports aging and living well.”

“Successful aging is about much more than health care,” Dr. Tang said. “It requires a supportive ecosystem of social connections and resources to assist in a variety of daily-living activities. We call this community ecosystem linkAges – linking across generations.  We believe it takes a village – a combination of caregivers and community social services working together with professional healthcare teams to create a partnership that supports a vibrant and fulfilling senior community.”

PAMF’s Innovation Center is launching linkAges with a kickoff community education and technology developer event April 14-15. Hosted by PAMF and Health 2.0 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, the event will consist of two sessions:

• A morning community education event, Saturday, April 14, 8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
• A developer kick-off event, afternoon of April 14, and all day Sunday, April 15

Members of the general public are invited to attend the community education workshop. Developers are invited to attend both events.

About the Community Education Event (open to the public and developers)

April 14, 8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

The morning community education event will feature three nationally recognized dynamic speakers:

• Todd Park, United States Chief Technology Officer
• Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow and Director of Health Innovation at Intel
• Dr. Paul Tang, Chief Innovation and Technology Officer of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation

Both Park and Dishman will discuss the social and health challenges of aging and the tremendous opportunities to apply technology in disruptive, innovative ways to help seniors live vibrant and fulfilling lives – aging successfully.  Dr. Tang will describe PAMF’s linkAges successful aging initiative and PAMF’s role as a community health partner.

About the Developer Kick-off Event (open to developers only)

April 14, 1 – 6 p.m., and April 15, 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Following the morning keynotes, developer teams from around the country will engage in ideation sessions (the afternoon of April 14 and all day on April 15), focusing on innovative solutions to address the challenges heard in the public symposium.  Top ideas will be awarded monetary prizes.

The Developer Kick-off Event will also lead into a related 3-month developer challenge, where the top prize will include an opportunity to participate in an accelerator program with the PAMF Innovation Center. Participants in the developer kick-off event will benefit from additional education and feedback that may facilitate their successful participation in the developer challenge.

Please visit the PAMF Innovation Center and Health 2.0 for additional information and updates, and register for the event.

Media Contacts

Cynthia Greaves
Public Affairs
greavec@pamf.org
650-934-8614

Erin Macartney
Public Affairs
macarte@pamf.org
650-691-6103