someone to take his prescribed medications. Independa says nearly one in four people who are 65 or older forget or skip regular doses of their prescribed meds. Calls to the care receiver are scheduled by the system, which requires the care receiver to respond to a recorded prompt (“Press 1 to confirm that you’ve taken your meds.”) Independa’s system can send caregivers alerts (by text message, e-mail, or phone call) if the loved one fails to respond to the prompts, and can generate reports to help families assess how well mom is keeping her medication schedule.
In a similar way, Independa’s “life stories” app uses a telephone prompt to help care receivers share stories from their past. “We’re recording, so we memorialize that and turn it into a wave file that we send to you,” Saneii says. The underlying idea of the Smart Reminders service is to help families minimize the badgering and prodding aspects of care giving, i.e. calling to remind someone to take their meds, and to engage families in ways that help them stay connected.
“In this market, it’s always about health and safety,” Saneii says. “And that’s very important, but it’s not everything. It’s also about social connections.”
Independa’s team will be demonstrating the Smart Reminders service in the Qualcomm booth at CES, along with a prototype of an Android-based wireless tablet with a touch-screen interface, dubbed “Angela,” designed to connect with wireless sensors in the care receiver’s home. The tablet will communicate with sensors so, for example, it can send an alert to caregivers if the elderly care receiver forgets to turn off the water or doesn’t get out of bed.
“We’re looking to standardize our technology on an Android tablet with [Qualcomm’s] Snapdragon chip,” Saneii says. Qualcomm is hosting Independa in its booth, he adds, because, “We very much share and are implementing the vision that Qualcomm has with regard to mHealth.”
Independa is releasing its Smart Reminders service as a way of generating some revenue now, “and then after CES going into design and production for the Angela product,” Saneii says. The company recently moved into EvoNexus, the free incubator established by CommNexus, San Diego’s non-profit wireless industry group, and has raised $1 million in what the CEO calls “venture seed financing” (a combination of individual investors and a loan).
Independa plans to offer its Smart Reminders service free for a six-week trial, with ongoing subscriptions starting at $19.95 a month. The company also says it is launching a monthly awards program for subscribers who demonstrate “the most impressive uses” of its Smart Reminders service. The company plans to issue a $500 award each month, and monthly award recipients will be eligible for a $5,000 “caregiver of the year” award at the end of this year.
