Putting the Person Back in Person-Centered Care: Jay Newton-Small and Bob Kramer on the Power of Data to Transform Senior Care
Are your residents truly known, valued, and seen as people by your staff? Are they known as more than the sum of their ADL needs or underlying health conditions?
Bob Kramer, Founder & Fellow at Nexus Insights and Co-founder and Strategic Advisor for NIC, talked with Jay Newton-Small, founder and CEO of MemoryWell and Nexus Fellow, about the value of data to deliver improved care and quality of life for residents of senior living.
A TIME contributor, Newton-Small developed the concept for MemoryWell from her own experience with her father. She wrote a narrative story of his life to help his care staff understand him better, and to provide better, more personalized care.
Now her company has taken it further, working with senior living communities to foster connections between residents and other residents, and between residents and staff, based on connections, interests, lifestyle, and historical experiences revealed by their life stories. The company is able to help communities understand what services are needed, and who would most likely use or benefit from those services.
“We shine the light to help you see who are the people you’re serving.” – Jay Newton-Small
“Where we are now is a shot in the dark,” said Newton-Small. “We shine the light to help you see who are the people you’re serving. So you can market, plan, sell and care for these people in a more focused way, that takes the guesswork out of it.”
The data has other powerful uses as well, which Newton-Small describes in the interview, which aired on Foresight TV. It can be used to get to the root causes of health issues. And, when aggregated, can be used in a predictive way, to help with prevention. “Right now our health care system is a reactive system. It’s an incredibly expensive system because we react to a problem,” said Newton-Small. “But if we know that a problem is coming down the pike and we can match people with resources that are available, then we can delay, defer and even sometimes prevent those problems from happening.”
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