In a little over a decade there will be more people age 65 years and older than those under the age of 18 years – an inflection point that highlights healthcare-related paradigm shifts on the horizon. Medical vulnerabilities of diverse older adult communities – as magnified by COVID-19 – have accelerated health inequities impacting the quality of life of millions of families and family caregivers nationwide.

These challenges, however, provide opportunities for healthcare providers, payers and innovators to develop solutions for a high growth, yet traditionally underinvested segment of the patient population.

Making the Business Case: Population Shifts Shed Light on Market Gaps and Opportunities

Recent trends in new business development suggest that the older adult population is an increasingly attractive market for novel, technology-enabled solutions to address health and wellbeing. A 2020 AARP survey found that among adults age 50 and older, adoption of all forms of modern technology devices has increased.

While older adults tend to be late technology adopters, over half of survey respondents purchased a technology product in the past year, suggesting never-before seen levels of connectivity and access. These trends parallel greater volumes of venture capital dollars and deals in the “age-tech” space.

This investment occurs amid an increasingly underserved patient population and underscores both the breadth of market opportunities and the importance of addressing disparities through technology-enabled solutions as means of promoting healthy equity via access and care.

Inequities in technology access and literacy for older adults impact the health and the downstream stability of the American workforce. Older adult communities provide over $600 billion in unpaid childcare and over $140 billion in unpaid volunteer services every year in the United States alone.

Women have been especially impacted, with 2.1 million fewer women in the workforce in February 2020 than in the preceding year. Moreover, women with children – particularly women of color – have reduced their working hours, left the workforce and reported at least mild symptoms of psychological distress, all of which have been linked with an increased need for family care (both child and elderly).

While the federal government has provided $3.5 billion in child care relief and a number of companies are facilitating re-entry into the job market, supporting the health and functional status of older adults, especially those who are underserved, is critical to improving their wellbeing and safeguarding the strength (and diversity) of our workforce.

Areas Where Innovation Can Lead to Better Health Outcomes for Older Adults

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health issued a request for information for approaches leveraging technology-driven solutions across the spectrum of chronic disease care management for aging populations in underserved settings. Analysis of responses revealed three applications of technology-enabled innovations that could improve patient outcomes for underserved older adult populations.

Expanding digital and health literacy. Low health literacy costs the U.S. economy in the range of $106 billion to $238 billion annually. Older adults, racial and ethnic minorities, and people with chronic diseases are disproportionately affected. Additionally, even with increased digital adoption, nearly 30% of older adults are still not digitally literate.

Social technology use, including email, networking platforms and instant messaging, have been linked with lower levels of loneliness, better self-rated health, and fewer chronic illnesses and depressive symptoms. Efforts to expand digital and health literacy offer tremendous potential for economic value creation, as well as improved health outcomes and patient experience across vulnerable populations.

Improving remote healthcare monitoring and delivery. As patients and providers become more comfortable using telehealth, the integration of assistive technologies such as heart rate sensors on phones can further improve outcomes of remote healthcare delivery. For older adults living with chronic health conditions, remote monitoring tools offer a more complete picture – as opposed to snapshots during in-person visits – of health data such as weight, blood pressure, pulse oximetry and blood glucose level.

Technology-enabled solutions including combining biometric monitoring with unbiased AI-driven real-time feedback, for example, can facilitate proactive delivery of telemedicine services. Survey data from 2019 reveals that 64% of caregivers utilized a digital tool for managing caregiving responsibilities, with approximately 40% desiring further use of digital health solutions for care management.

Associated health outcomes resulting from improvements in remote healthcare delivery can include earlier diagnoses and better accuracy of diagnoses, thereby leading to lower health costs, dramatically reduced hospital readmission rates and increased patient satisfaction rates.

Over 20% of all medical visits – or $29 billion of all healthcare services – in the U.S. were conducted via telehealth in the year 2020. While there is bipartisan agreement that telehealth benefits should extend past the public health emergency, this market is in a dynamic state as multiple dimensions of telehealth sustainability continue to shape and mature viable business models.

Optimizing care plans and models. More than 90% of older adults desire to “age in place.” As noted by others, evolving consumer expectations, demographics, employment models, and health and technology ecosystems prompt a need for innovative, person-centered care-delivery plans and models.

For example, improving the transition from acute to post-acute care can help reduce re-hospitalizations. Combining technology for real-time data capture, analysis and monitoring with care tailored to the individual offers the potential of informing the development of customized care plans and models to support better outcomes for patients and their caregivers versus one-size-fits-all approaches.

Carrying These Insights Forward

The impact of COVID-19 along with pre-pandemic demographic trends have underscored that the older adult population is primed for the development of innovative, health-related solutions. For providers, payers and innovators, technology can pave the way for additional opportunities for consumer-driven, more effective clinical care management, potential growth of member volume, additional meaningful member engagement pathways and market differentiation.

In the public sector, new flexibilities for Medicare Advantage plans (e.g., the Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) Model) have created new vehicles to leverage technology and improve the care and experience for older adults living with multiple chronic conditions.

These flexibilities and additional investments in technology will increasingly lead to improvements in quality of life, reductions in costs of care, a strengthened workforce, and potentially sizable immediate and sustained business returns, given technology consumption trends and evolving healthcare and social needs.

Editor's note: The viewpoints expressed in this article are those solely of the authors and not necessarily of the authors' organizations or affiliations.

About the authors 

 Bishen Singh currently serves as a Senior Advisor on Technology, Healthy Aging, and Social Determinants of Health, to the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Bishen focuses on advancing strategies related to promoting health equity and wellness through the development of innovative digital solutions and strategic deployment of federal resources. Throughout his career, Bishen has overseen the development of transformative data strategies and systems, machine learning tools and interdisciplinary product teams leading to the translation of new discoveries and advancements into results that contribute toward improving lives. Bishen’s background is in biomedical science and data analytics, and he’s now working on completing an MBA at Georgetown University by the end of 2021.

 Dr. Vijeth Iyengar currently serves as the Brain Health Lead and Technical Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Most recently, he completed a nearly year-long secondment as a Policy Advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where his portfolio focused on the role of emerging technologies in the areas of brain health, dementia and neuroscience. Dr. Iyengar serves as a co-lead coordinator of the older adult working group for the Healthy People 2020/2030 initiative and is an ex officio member of the National Advisory Council on Aging at the National Institute on Aging. He has contributed articles appearing in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, JAMA Health Forum, the National Academy of Medicine and Scientific American, among other outlets. A native of Louisiana, Dr. Iyengar was a visiting undergraduate student at Cornell University and received his bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and his masters and doctoral degrees from Duke University. He has been recognized as a U.S. Presidential Management Fellow, been a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and was selected as a 2020 Aspen Ideas Festival Health Fellow.

 Dr. Leith States currently serves as the Acting Director of the Office of Science and Medicine and Chief Medical Officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In that role, he leads the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at the Center for Health Policy Innovation and InnovationX. Recently he has also taken a lead role in establishing the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. He also advises and supports the Assistant Secretary for Health and other senior OASH leadership regarding issues of national public health importance through collaboration with OASH program offices, HHS enterprise, the federal family and external stakeholders. Prior to his arrival at HHS, Dr. States served for nine years on active duty in the U.S. Navy as a Medical Corps Officer, where his roles varied, including those of clinician, battalion surgeon and public health emergency officer. Dr. States is board certified in Preventive Medicine and is a current member of the American College of Preventive Medicine. His personal awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, and multiple unit and campaign awards.