When developing products, don't forget this one generation. The number of elderly population is increasing each year, people are living longer, healthcare costs are increasing, yet Medicare spending is down. Learn why its important to develop products for this generation.

1. When developing products, don’t forget that one generation.
In my career span of about 20 years mainly working for fortune 200 companies, I spent my time
designing, developing, and rolling out new networks and related products. Many products became
major hits and few were duds as well and even then I learned from them and rolled out better ones next
time. I developed products for both businesses and consumers. In consumers, mostly for younger
generation mainly because that’s where the research said to build. I always put emphasis on user
experience and the friendliness and usability of a product. I knew the value of defining “What” and
“Why” instead of jumping to “How” in developing networks and/or products.
After I joined a health care technology startup that provides services mostly to seniors and disabled, I
am no longer working for high tech fortune 500 company. I don’t have multi-million dollar budget to
spend to develop things to satisfy the market need. In my product development efforts for seniors, I
started investigating the market and what I came up with was astonishing.
Very few companies are involved in developing new products for seniors. The ones that are involved, are
the big major corporations that provide services to hospitals and their products for seniors living at
home are reminders of their products for big hospitals, i.e. same look and feel. Big, bulky products for
home use. These products are not user friendly and certainly not mobile. You may have to read volumes
of their user manuals just to figure out how to take blood pressure for example. If a senior citizen is
going on vacation, forget about taking that monster medicine reminder system.
This is quite amazing considering by 2030, one out of every 5 US citizen will be 65 and older. Like the
rest of the world, the US is fast becoming an aging society. Some of the facts are;
1) Between 2000 and 2030, the number of older people 65 and over is projected to increase by
135%.
2) Moreover, the population aged 85 and over, which is the group most likely to need health and
long-term care services, is projected to increase by 350% in the same timeframe.
3) Because of medical miracles, people are living longer, healthcare costs are on rise but the
government spending is down.

2. 4) 133 Million Americans with Chronic Illness in 2012
5) By 2020 that number will rise to 157 Million
6) 171 Million by 2030
7) 90% of seniors have at least one chronic disease
8) 77% have two or more
9) 38.9% are obese
10) Depression is 15 – 20% higher among chronic illness patients
Source: CMS

3. 11) Roughly 18% of patients discharged from hospitals are readmitted within 30 days; one-third
within 90 days.
12) Medicare alone spends $15 billion annually on these round trips.
13) Private insurers spend uncounted more dollars
Source: Blue Cross Blue Shield
This is where the technology can play a big role. Many senior citizens need help but either don’t need a
1:1 caregiver or can’t afford one and a technological product can fill that void. There are companies that
provide sensors for everything such as sensors for chairs, fridge, microwave, and even the medicine
bottle caps to know when the bottle was open but all that data goes someplace and nothing ever comes
out of it. There are sensors for bed ridden patients to make sure they don’t get up from bed. There are
big bulky medicine management systems to remind them to take medicines. There are big bulky vital
signs monitoring systems as well. So it seems that we have covered the highly sick patients but what
about the independent senior citizens? These are the people who are in relatively good shape and yet
need help. Even when these people may have one or more chronic diseases, they are not bed ridden
and are living independently. These people may have kids either living in the same city or in a different
city. These kids have their own family and even grandkids in many cases. This generation known as the
sandwich generation, is constantly worrying about their parents and looking after their grandkids. They
want to provide help to their parents and if there is a technology product that can help, they are willing
to purchase it.
Even though the technology use in senior citizens is going up, yet because of lack of user experience and
product availability, they are still not using it to the full capacity.
So when I look at these stats and then I read articles or industry research from so called experts as to
why everyone should develop products for millennial generation, I am dumbfounded. Now I am not
saying that we shouldn’t develop products for millennials. There are many reasons to develop for them
but we all have aging parents or loved ones and yet we are worrying about developing products for

4. millennial generation only. Even if we don’t believe the stats, all we have to do is open our eyes and look
around. What generation do you see more of every day? Don’t you think that it’s just about time for us
to develop product for that generation? And I don’t mean providing big button telephones but
something they can use on a daily basis to fulfill their need. Their need isn’t much different from that of
ours. We need to develop product(s) to satisfy their health and wellness need, provide security and
peace of mind, and provide a very easy one touch way for them to communicate and engage their loved
ones. In my thirst to develop useful products, I met an IoT company and a Smart Home company CEOs
and when I shared the stats with them, it was like a light bulb came on. They hadn’t thought about it. It
wasn’t on their radar.
We are developing products for millennial generation anyways, so why not make some changes and
create user friendly product(s) for seniors as well. Not only you will help them and contribute to the
society but make money as well in the process. In essence we all win.