The Future of Aging in Place: Smart Home Automation Meets Assisted Living Technologies

The Future of Aging in Place: Smart Home Automation Meets Assisted Living Technologies

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Carolina: Welcome to CareSmartz360 On Air, a Home Care Podcast. Today, I’m going to be hosting. My name is Carolina Gonzaga, one of the Sales Executives here at Caresmartz. I’m introducing somebody that I know well, and that I really appreciate.

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Carolina: I’m so excited to welcome Phil Vlach. Now, if Phil Vlach doesn’t sound familiar to you, you really need to listen to this podcast for sure. Phil is one of the biggest influencers here in Canada when it comes to all things age tech, especially senior living operations. Now, Phil Vlach wears many hats. So I want to really shed light on all of those hats, as they’re all really important, not only to introduce who he is, but also the conversation.

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Carolina: So Phil Vlach oversees innovation at Schlegel villages, which is one of Canada’s premier senior living operators. This is a family started, Canadian owned and managed company that really runs some of the most wonderful and full spectrum of care communities in the country, and really takes the lead in piloting and adopting the best of technology.

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Carolina: . He also is the founder of AgeTech labs, which is an organization tasked to bridge the gap between senior living operators and the innovators and founders that look to partner with them. It’s all about helping operators make the right decisions and leading technology leaders into developing all of the things that we really really need in this space, and finally, he is the founding member of the Toronto chapter of AgeTech.

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Carolina: AgeTech is an organization with chapters all over North America, and they are also on a mission to really push AgeTech and see where we can come together as a group as we push into the future. So today I’m going to be talking to Phil about all of the above and all sorts of other things. So hold onto your hats.

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Carolina: I’m so excited to welcome my good friend Phil Vlach.

Session Starts Here:

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Carolina: Welcome to the podcast, Phil.

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Carolina: Hi, Carolina, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

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Carolina: Yeah, I’m excited. You’re like the 1st person that I’ve brought into a podcast and so this is an exciting day for me. As a newer member of caresmartz and being able to talk to you in a different setting, I usually see you in person, and here we are, virtually working backwards.

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Carolina: But nonetheless. So when I thought about how I would introduce you, I got kind of confused. Because you really are a man that does a lot of things, you know, in space as well as outside of space.

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Carolina: But I think like a lot of our listeners are going to be not familiar with who you are and your expertise, nor your role at Schlegel village or age tech lab. So without overwhelming you with this big question, we’d love to just hear a little bit about who you are, and you know where you’ve come from in the space

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Carolina: and AgeTech labs, and also your role at Segel village. If you don’t mind.

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Phil Vlach: Sure, absolutely, I’d love to give you a little background. So I’ve been in technology all my life. So I am a technology based person. That is my background and I came into senior living about 8 years ago, and I’ve always been on the operator side. So

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Phil Vlach: you know, my day to day is really working at the operator level in the operator environment

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Phil Vlach: doing technology on behalf of the operator. Initially, I started with Amica a few years ago, or at the beginning of that career. And then I’ve been with Schlegel villages now for 3 and a half years leading their technology team.

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Phil Vlach: And we try to re, we try to think of it as really technology, because, you know, it is only kind of a slice of that right? And when I say it, it’s what people think of as the traditional cyber security Wi-fi phone systems and so on.

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Carolina: Forgotten passwords.

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Phil Vlach: Yes, and applications, too. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. That’s kind of traditional, it ‘s very important. But we also you know, as legal villages we have

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Phil Vlach: we like to say? We have innovation in our DNA as co-founders of the Research Institute of Aging and working closely with universities. And it’s part of what our founders have brought to the company as well. And so in that, you know in that vein we are very innovation oriented, and that kind of branches into what we would maybe refer to as Htag

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Phil Vlach: And when I talk about AgeTech, it’s very. It’s kind of a really broad category of of

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Phil Vlach: technologies. But it’s really technologies that help

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Phil Vlach: older adults age in the way they want to age. And there could be. And you know, there’s still some great work being done around how to parse or break down those categories into being more meaningful, you know, in the sense of like, it’s an iphone

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Phil Vlach: that is set up for an older adult’s tactile and visual preferences, you know, is that considered? AgeTech. Well, maybe it’s more like universal tech right.

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Phil Vlach: Other things would be more sort of consistent with what we would refer to as h set. So that’s kind of my life at Schlegel villages on a day to day basis. And then about

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Phil Vlach: 2, 3 years ago, I I came to the recognition that

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Phil Vlach: operators were a bit under, represented in the marketplace around their needs and interests.

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Phil Vlach: Related to technologies. And what I mean by that is, I saw a lot of activity in the startup space and in the funding space. And you know, through Agewell and Caby and others. That’s really great and important work. And then a lot of funding comes from the government levels, various government levels. And all these startups popping up and wanting to, you know, build great products in this space.

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Phil Vlach: But sometimes, you know, sometimes not being able to connect to operators. So a lot of activity on the innovator side. But then on the operator side you know the difficulty for those innovators to connect into those operators and create those relationships. And then the operators being overwhelmed by technology in general. And then, in addition to that, this new technology and all this innovation and and really having trouble, I think.

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Phil Vlach: having trouble having the capacity even to think about and and how to think about that. And and then the the skills in many cases to think about how how those technologies might work for them, or how they might fit into their portfolio, so

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Phil Vlach: all that to say that I thought operators should be better represented in terms of their interests, and that they could even use a hand. And so AgeTech labs was born out of that. And really, what I try to do with that is,

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Phil Vlach: is to provide operators guidance around technology selection.

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Phil Vlach: And so I, I work with a couple of other operators as well doing that.

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Phil Vlach: and it could be choosing. You know what we would

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Phil Vlach: like Ehrs or finance systems, but it could be also choosing AgeTech related products. So guiding them through that process of selection. Figuring out really what’s important is what is the right fit for them? Because you have the point. Click cares. You already have the already, for example for electronic health records. You have new companies like Fin. You have August health. You know.

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Phil Vlach: One is not the best. I think it’s what is the best one for you as an operator. And so it’s a process. And so helping operators go through that selection process I find really fulfilling, because I feel like I’m helping them make good decisions and generally I think it’s helpful for them as well.

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Carolina: Yeah, absolutely. And just you know where we have in common is coming from the senior living space. And you know, I come from a time where

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Carolina: there’s almost no adoption of technology. I mean communities that I worked in. We’re scared of things like Instagram, let alone adopting, you know, a really sophisticated Crm, for example. So like, what would you say is the overall kind of beginning of the change of, you know, operators starting to look at technology, because now you’re looking to bring them to the table to talk to vendors. Kind of what? How do you see this one looking past? Is this something that was within the past 5 years, 10 years.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah, I still think we’re sort of at the early stages of this right? And I think.

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Phil Vlach: you know, a lot of operators don’t have Wi-fi throughout their communities yet. They just have it in certain locations.

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Phil Vlach: And you know, on an everyday basis, you and I think about Wi-fi like water like it’s a utility these days, right? And

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Carolina: Wow!

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Phil Vlach: Kids. I mean kids. When I say, kids, people coming out into the workforce now, that are younger, are anticipating and expecting that kind of technology to be prevalent and available. So so I think you’re seeing

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Phil Vlach: you’re seeing market pressure from the inside, really and and

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Phil Vlach: and and yet, you know, and I think that has to be balanced with on the innovator side, the the operate. You know, the the residents that are living in those communities

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Phil Vlach: typically are

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Phil Vlach: some, you know, north of 70 or 80 sometimes. And they’re not really dependent on technology very much. And they still are most. And I’m generalizing a lot here. But

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Phil Vlach: You know, people still use landline telephones. They like televisions. They will have iPads and lots of other technologies. But it’s certainly not the same kind of dependency as the younger generation coming in that are the team members working at those villages right?

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: And so I think.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: You know, some introduction of technology through the team members coming in that way and that expectation. And I think operators are realizing. And particularly, I think, Covid, you know, accelerated. Some of this realization operators are realizing that

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Phil Vlach: technology is a necessity to some degree right. And it helps with both outcomes for residents and team members, and also for just the smooth working or efficiency of a community.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Carolina: So knowing, like technology, and we’ve known each other through, you know, iterations of my career as well. So like, currently I represent Care Smart 360, which is, of course, a home care app. And so when I think about age tech, we fit into that category. But then, of course, we also service agencies that care for all sorts of public. So it’s not just an age tech so just thinking about age tech and thinking about health tech, and how that intersects with just general age, tech health tech.

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Carolina: I’m wondering what I’m thinking about.

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Carolina: You know, certain platforms that are going to streamline operations in a senior living community, to a home care community, to your smart home, to AI helping you. Streamline. You know, nurses’ roles typically take a little bit less, giving them less time to work on paperwork and more time doing that. That high value, or to robot companions.

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Carolina: So you’ve got a lot of options when you’re looking to assess and help operators assess and meet with new founders and new projects? Is there one area right now, currently, that you feel is really driving innovation right now? And that might be the focus as we move through this kind of period of time.

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Phil Vlach: So

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Phil Vlach: obviously, there’s lots of discussion around AI, and what I would say to operate, and I’ll just clear that off the table 1st is

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Phil Vlach: What I would say to operators is really it’s evolving really quickly. I mean, we’re moving from large language models. So that ability to interact using voice with computers and other devices. To really those devices now being able to take action either on our behalf or or to do things right. And so we’re moving what we call Llms to Lams, and that’s going to be the next 12 to 18 months. So

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Phil Vlach: for operators. And I think people in the industry, what’s important is just, you know, get familiar with the tools that are available and how they work and and really play around with it. I don’t think there’s any rush to implement anything.

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Phil Vlach: and additionally, I think a lot of what will be implemented

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Phil Vlach: will come through the tools that you already have. So so I’ll take an example with point click care, you know, in a discussion I had with them last year on a panel at

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Phil Vlach: at the Oil Tca Conference. They, you know, their focus for the for the next period of time, is really to

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Phil Vlach: use AI to gather and surface insights from the data that’s already in their system.

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Phil Vlach: right? So basically using AI to mine the data better.

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Carolina: Right? So the data is being built and already there. And it’s really used now, using it to say something else.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah, yeah, that’s not really like, that’s Nope, you know, it’s not really a

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Phil Vlach: or really what I would call a sexy kind of application. But it’s super important.

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Carolina: Yes.

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Phil Vlach: Not really very exciting, I guess when someone tells you that. And we tend to like to think of some of these things as more exciting. But, for example, you know, I I think

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Phil Vlach: one of the great areas in using AI would be to like you said, alleviate

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Phil Vlach: that caregiver burden, whether it’s home care or senior living, it doesn’t really matter. It’s that interaction between the caregiver and the resident or the older adult.

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Phil Vlach: if that was automatically documented, summarized, and then integrated into a record of some sort with the necessary quality and accuracy

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Phil Vlach: That would do 2 things. One is, you wouldn’t have to try to do that yourself as the caregiver, either after your shift or at the end of the visit. You know by typing, and so on. So you’d save time. And the other thing is, you would have a much better quality of data coming in because you’re losing, you know, 70% of that data through transcription as we’re doing it now. So I and I think that helps us

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Phil Vlach: understand. You know that that gives us a better view of the older adult and there you know their situation as well.

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Phil Vlach: Which you know I’m hopeful would lead to better outcomes as well for them, so.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: That’s kind of my view on AI, so. But where I do think it’s really cool is what we’re doing. We’ve been doing some work with sensors and sensor systems over the last couple of years. And

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Phil Vlach: I would say, last year in the year before, there seemed to be a lot of companies coming up with new types of sensors.

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Phil Vlach: And when I mean sensors, it’s people, you know, companies that will come up with devices that could either measure sleep or activities of daily living or fall detection is, you know, obviously a big one. And this was, I would say it started originally a couple of years ago with the Nobi lamp, but then moved into more more discrete sensors. Smaller sensors. And they all are, are fairly good. But I think they’re all working on their own.

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Phil Vlach: And and the challenge with that is that

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Phil Vlach: if you’re just if it’s just one sensor trying to detect something like a fall. You could have a lot of false positives or a lot of false negatives. And so just mathematically, if you add another sensor that’s not related to the 1st sensor, and it tells you the same thing

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Phil Vlach: happens then. Now. Your probability has gone, like from the eighties to the low nineties.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: That was actually the case, and or or thereabouts. And then, if you add a 3rd sensor now, you’re in the high nineties. So

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Phil Vlach: All of a sudden you come to the realization that the sensor is important and the quality and fidelity of the sensor is important. But maybe what’s more important is how you pull all that information together to say, Oh, I’ve heard these inputs from these 3 sensors. And they’re telling me this event has happened. Okay, it’s probably happened.

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Phil Vlach: So I think.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: Some really interesting work going on there.

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Carolina: Well, you just explained that like sensors for dummies. So I really appreciate that bill. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so almost like, perhaps

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Carolina: You know, I think of as a lay person, I would say, I think of sensors as sensors, but there’s also needs to be almost like an integration between them, not even quite an integration. But just like it is a game of numbers. And the more you have, it’s not. It’s about the data being more accurate.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah, exactly.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: And I think that particularly has applications to both what we’d refer to as senior living so long. Term care senior living but also home care right? Because.

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Carolina: Yep.

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Phil Vlach: Providing, you know, providing not really diagnostic, but support services through these sensors could be a great way of providing services and support to older adults living at home as well.

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Carolina: Yeah. And I mean, I think about you know, even my experience. I was a Psw. For 9 years, and just the way that you devote your time.

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Carolina: I mean, a lot of it is, you know, going from point A to point B, maybe realizing that nothing is needed

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Carolina: or following, you know, a care plan. That was, you know, but that was really built by somebody’s has some perspective, that is, coloring, that care, and a plan.

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Carolina: Things change. How often are they being reassessed? And so I also just think about the quality of care. I’m wondering. And maybe, this is completely off topic. And you let me know just thinking about what you’ve said and the values of.

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Carolina: You know. Kind of, you know, really allowing practitioners, nurses, healthcare healthcare aides, anyone from being able to really use more time making a difference in a real way to helping the caregiver burden and maybe reducing some of the, you know, employee challenges that we have.

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Carolina: as well as being able to spend money in the right resources, knowing what people actually need specifically and also on a large scale.

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Carolina: What are we seeing in either Canada? Us both in terms of like funding to really invest in this? Because it seems like there’s a lot of aspects of what you talked about that would help, you know, just in Canada, like our healthcare system to be more efficient. And that’s a whole other can of worms. Are you seeing conversations about increases in funding and a focus on that? On, like, you know, Federal or provincial level?

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Phil Vlach: Yeah. So I think, as you said, there are different sources of funding available. I would say that one of the ones that I’ve seen recently that has been really good is a couple of programs from Cabi.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah, that have really focused on not just

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Phil Vlach: I would say, not not just the investigation or research stage of things, but actually helping operators.

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Phil Vlach: Deploy and scale up technology. So helping potentially go through that process of selection for operators as well, but then allocating or making funds available for the operators to do a trial, and then scale up through those things as well. And I think that’s a really nice shift that we’re seeing kind of in that fund in that availability of funds. I mean, I think there’s always, you know, funding available for research, and so on.

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Phil Vlach: and the other one is we are seeing, you know, through age well, and on visage. There is some pretty good traction there around getting technology into the hands of operators, to to, you know, to to work with them, and then potentially trial, you know, scale them up as well.

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Phil Vlach: I. You know I’m I’m always an advocate of saying

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Phil Vlach: What is the problem that we’re trying to solve ? And let’s be really intentional about doing that. So

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Phil Vlach: the funding is definitely an important component, I think, for operators. But I think even before you go down that road, it’s so important to say, you know, what are we trying? What problem is it that we have? And what are we trying to solve for? And that’s 1 of the things I try to coach operators through as well. And we’ve done, you know, with my colleague Laura Bryn Martin at Chilego villages. We’ve done a lot of work in the last couple of years, you know, thinking through that and also building a program internally.

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Phil Vlach: You know, help guide us through that process of organization.

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Carolina: And and is this kind of getting into? The aspect of also H tech labs of scout.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah, so, yeah, exactly. So, thanks. That’s exactly it.

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Carolina: Intro scout intro scout to the conversation. Phil.

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Phil Vlach: Thank you for the prompt.

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Phil Vlach: Yeah. So that really. So if we look at it internally, it’s Schlegel villages. We looked at different frameworks for considering why we would, why, we would bring technology in right. So the question needs to be answered. The 1st question that needs to be answered is, why would you do something? And so let’s be intentional about it. So we

00:19:53.220 –> 00:20:07.369
Phil Vlach: we looked around for frameworks that existed, and again, many of the frameworks that we discovered, and some really good ones, including out of the Kth framework out of Sweden. They were structured from the perspective of either the Startup or the investor.

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Phil Vlach: So again, nobody really looking at it from an operator perspective, they are there. There are some others from Brier, and so on.

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Phil Vlach: In some cases we thought some of those were a little complicated and even that, you know our first, our 1st iteration of this was pretty complicated.

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Phil Vlach: and we’ve made it a lot easier as well. But ultimately what we came down to is we want to look at 4 things, and the 4 things are market readiness. So essentially, what is the problem? And who’s asking about the problem and how big is the problem?

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Phil Vlach: And ideally, you would have someone internally, you know, put up their hand and say, I have this giant problem I need solved. And then you would see if there’s a technology solution, application to it. And if so, that’s great, and so on and so forth.

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Phil Vlach: But often you know, the other problem we were trying to solve is people go away to conferences. They see stuff on TV. They see, you know, a variety of different inputs or through the stuff they read, and they come to us. And they say, wouldn’t it be great if we did this?

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Phil Vlach: How do you know? How do you respond to that

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Phil Vlach: in a structured fashion. Right? Yeah, it would be great.

00:21:18.610 –> 00:21:27.929
Phil Vlach: Does it meet some requirements that we have, or does it, you know? Does it solve the problem that we’re having? So sometimes you have to. It’s a little Cartoon horse. So okay.

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Carolina: Yeah.

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Phil Vlach: 1st question, though to answer is.

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Phil Vlach: Is there a problem? How big is it?

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Phil Vlach: The second question to answer is.

00:21:36.230 –> 00:21:44.459
Phil Vlach: if it’s if we’re looking at technology to solve it. Do we have a technology space that can address it? So are there a couple of products basically that we could choose from.

00:21:44.790 –> 00:21:51.359
Phil Vlach: The one is the strategy and business one. And this one’s really important. I think people forget about this one.

00:21:51.500 –> 00:22:05.920
Phil Vlach: Does it align with our strategy? So and with our like core values, right? And so like. For example, if I’m an operator and my core value is interaction with, with residents like maintaining that

00:22:06.090 –> 00:22:11.720
Phil Vlach: one on one. People interaction with residents, then maybe maybe equipping my

00:22:11.840 –> 00:22:18.850
Phil Vlach: care team with tablets to do notes at point of care is not a great idea right like there, or they.

00:22:18.850 –> 00:22:19.420
Carolina: Yeah.

00:22:19.420 –> 00:22:21.080
Phil Vlach: There may be some tension there.

00:22:21.650 –> 00:22:22.260
Carolina: Yep.

00:22:22.400 –> 00:22:28.609
Phil Vlach: And so that’s so. That’s the 1st question about that one and the other one is, do I have the money to fund the pilot

00:22:29.000 –> 00:22:30.549
Phil Vlach: like if I had to pay for it.

00:22:30.660 –> 00:22:43.169
Phil Vlach: and because often they’re free, and the other one is, do I have them? Can I allocate funds, both re both money and re and resources to scaling up

00:22:43.900 –> 00:22:47.259
Phil Vlach: after the pilot. And do I know what that looks like? So essentially.

00:22:47.260 –> 00:22:47.720
Carolina: Okay.

00:22:47.720 –> 00:22:50.130
Phil Vlach: Through some of these things ahead of time, right?

00:22:50.450 –> 00:22:51.070
Phil Vlach: And then.

00:22:51.070 –> 00:22:51.660
Carolina: Yeah.

00:22:51.840 –> 00:23:09.919
Phil Vlach: And then the final one is really, are my teams ready like? Will my team be ready to accept or or on board and integrate whatever solution I’m looking for. And I mean we. I have a great example of where that wasn’t the case. In one case, in one location where it was, it was the case in another.

00:23:10.380 –> 00:23:29.299
Phil Vlach: So so, anyway. So that’s a long, kind of a long, long way of saying it’s important to be intentional about these things. It’s great to have a framework to help you. The tools come next, and that’s really where scout comes in, and Scout is a way for operators to kind of sanity, check their idea.

00:23:29.430 –> 00:23:35.609
Phil Vlach: And and it’s an AI powered tool that understands exactly what I just told you around that framework

00:23:36.720 –> 00:23:38.919
Phil Vlach: allow you, you know.

00:23:39.210 –> 00:23:55.909
Phil Vlach: We’ll have that dialogue with you. Oh, Carolina, you asked about a new Ehr? Or or, you know, a smart toilet. Well, okay, let’s talk about that. And here’s kind of how it looks from those dimensions that we just discussed and how it might fit into your technology.

00:23:56.680 –> 00:24:14.290
Carolina: Yeah. And imagine what you were like, I actually found a technology that’s both a new Ehr and a smart toilet. It’s coming. You heard it here first.st It’s coming from Phil’s mouth himself, and I’m wondering if the framework created in Scout is something that could be applied to other models, or is it specific to operators.

00:24:15.350 –> 00:24:32.309
Phil Vlach: Well, yeah. So ironically, I’ve had a lot of innovators come and talk to me about it as well, and they’re and they’ve been using it, because for them, it’s for them. It gives them a great way of being able to talk to operators. So if it’s about things that are important for operators. Then they can see how

00:24:32.310 –> 00:24:46.850
Phil Vlach: their solution stacks up against it, and then they can either refine their solution, or they can have that, you know, have a good conversation with the operator. And oh, yes, well, you know, I see these things are important to you, so we can have a better dialogue about that.

00:24:47.390 –> 00:24:58.069
Carolina: Yeah, with one of the things you mentioned from the scout dialogue. The process, the way of thinking is, are my, are my teams ready to adopt. And as a former, you know

00:24:58.180 –> 00:25:16.999
Carolina: person on the operator side that needs to convince a lot of people that have been working somewhere for a long time that are really happy with whatever the process is, even though it’s not working on a scalable level. The 1st thought is, well, they’re gonna need to get ready. But then what I started to think about with what you said is.

00:25:17.070 –> 00:25:33.540
Carolina: Maybe it’s a step back and figure out how we get them ready? How do we? How do we? Prepare them for this change? What will likely happen? And so there’s a lot from that framework, even just from you describing it. There’s a lot of ways that I’m already seeing how it would help. I think, about

00:25:34.375 –> 00:25:53.179
Carolina: in home care in the Us. When you know clock in clock out Evv. All of a sudden became a completely standard practice, and how overwhelming that must have been, for you know, caregivers forever, that just were doing paper and to be transparent. I talked to people that are still doing paper today. But

00:25:53.630 –> 00:26:15.859
Carolina: You know, there’s that balance of like, you know, you just gotta make the change. And everyone’s just gonna have to get in line. But then there’s also like, Well, how do you make it? A little less painful by being more strategic about it? So even from a people perspective shout out to Scout and age tech labs, because it’s a tool that can be used from all sorts of perspectives. I think. Even if it’s just one piece of it from. You know what your role is in an organization.

00:26:16.570 –> 00:26:32.750
Phil Vlach: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, this is why I love chat bots like chat Gpt, and so on. And Scout is amongst them. It is really, it’s a dialogue. So you can go down different aspects of it, as you know, as you say, different dimensions of the ideas.

00:26:32.750 –> 00:26:35.709
Carolina: Yeah. And so can anyone go on the website and check it out.

00:26:36.600 –> 00:26:41.209
Phil Vlach: Yeah, yeah, actually, we so there are 2 ways. One is, you can if you have a

00:26:41.727 –> 00:26:56.069
Phil Vlach: a chat, Gpt subscription, it’s 1 of the 1 of the Custom Chatbots in the explore Gpt area. And we do have a free online version. That is just a scout spotlight at AgeTechLabsAI

00:26:56.320 –> 00:26:56.950
Carolina: Okay.

00:26:56.950 –> 00:27:00.450
Phil Vlach: Sorry, scan spotlight. Dot h tech labs.ai.

00:27:00.450 –> 00:27:02.106
Carolina: We’ll drop the link.

00:27:02.520 –> 00:27:03.060
Phil Vlach: That’s.

00:27:03.240 –> 00:27:20.187
Carolina: Okay, great. I was just thinking, like, on a more personal level is like, should I get my mom a smartphone right? And I’m using scout in my mind. But would it cause more problems and help correct? So I’m already thinking of ways on a personal level like, yeah, scout told me. No, let’s keep it simple.

00:27:21.070 –> 00:27:22.240
Phil Vlach: Real challenge it. That’s it.

00:27:22.240 –> 00:27:36.343
Carolina: Yeah. So knowing that kind of, we’ve talked a lot about senior living operations. And now I’ve moved into the home care space with, you know, care smarts. And I’m starting to see a lot of overlap in my conversations, especially when we’re talking about technology.

00:27:37.230 –> 00:27:45.709
Carolina: You know, in the past, you know, working in senior living operations, and whatever innovations are coming, or whatever businesses are being built in the community.

00:27:45.860 –> 00:28:10.650
Carolina: I always felt a bit of tension, you know, between senior living or like, oh, this home Care company is gonna create a space where maybe they don’t. Wanna they’re not going to want to move into the community. So when we look at this AgeTech a space where we can all work together. Or do you see one part of the business, like senior operators or home care, benefiting more than the other. I’d love for you to speak to that and teach and give you some talking points.

00:28:10.650 –> 00:28:14.652
Carolina: That’s a really loaded question. Thanks.

00:28:15.320 –> 00:28:15.810
Carolina: Still.

00:28:16.300 –> 00:28:27.900
Phil Vlach: Yeah, I think you know, I think we’re at the early stages of this. I mean, we’ve maybe been in the industry like many people for quite a while. But ultimately it’s you know.

00:28:28.050 –> 00:28:38.270
Phil Vlach: I was about 25% of the Canadian population by 2030 will be over 65. And and so you’re I mean, we’re

00:28:38.500 –> 00:28:39.830
Phil Vlach: we’re seeing

00:28:40.030 –> 00:28:53.180
Phil Vlach: that large cohort moved through those years. And you know. And I think it’s important to think about that from a continuity perspective. So very, basically, to answer your question, there’s room for everybody

00:28:53.593 –> 00:29:01.510
Phil Vlach: for a long time. I think. So it’s a matter of I think it will be a matter of how do we collaborate together? In fact.

00:29:01.740 –> 00:29:02.710
Phil Vlach: over.

00:29:02.710 –> 00:29:03.290
Carolina: Yeah.

00:29:03.964 –> 00:29:16.339
Phil Vlach: Because I think, like I said, there’s room for everybody. You know one of the things that I think is that I’ve started thinking about more is the context of the 100 year life. Right? Because

00:29:17.040 –> 00:29:25.759
Phil Vlach: When you know, we’re used to thinking of the cohort or seniors as being or older adults as being 65, and older.

00:29:26.500 –> 00:29:48.719
Phil Vlach: Well, if you’re living to near 100, that’s another 30, 35 years. And people born today, and even in the last decade, are more or less forecast in North America to live to 100. So it’s, you know, the I think we have to change our mindset a little bit around the 65 threshold and really think about

00:29:48.860 –> 00:30:06.159
Phil Vlach: It’s just the number. And really, what is it like, where are we in life, and where? What are the different things that we’re experiencing in life? And there’s a book I’m reading now, called Stage, not age, which really thinks through that, and says, if we’re having a you know, if we’re typically expecting a hundred year lifespan

00:30:08.380 –> 00:30:15.350
Phil Vlach: You know, 65 and up is a really complicated space, because you could be 65, and super healthy or 80.

00:30:15.350 –> 00:30:15.680
Carolina: Yeah.

00:30:15.680 –> 00:30:23.680
Phil Vlach: Super healthy, or you could have needs, or, you know, like everybody, will be in a different stage. So it’s more about the stage age, and I think

00:30:24.050 –> 00:30:29.496
Phil Vlach: a lot of opportunity for innovation to address that as well.

00:30:30.040 –> 00:30:33.880
Carolina: Yeah, almost like, maybe you know, in the next

00:30:34.190 –> 00:30:41.940
Carolina: 1520 years we might even just say this way of speaking about these stages will be obsolete. We’ll be speaking about in a different way, I think of

00:30:42.475 –> 00:30:56.729
Carolina: my! A friend of mine. I spent Easter with him. He’s 97 years old. He curls half the year he golfs half the year. He claims to be declining because he has to use the golf cart a little more than he’s to work all of the holes.

00:30:57.447 –> 00:31:06.539
Carolina: And I think, yeah, the possibilities are endless. So what an eye-opening conversation, Phil, as always.

00:31:06.540 –> 00:31:07.340
Phil Vlach: No thanks.

00:31:07.340 –> 00:31:32.250
Carolina: Think about yeah. And so we’re so happy to have you today. And we’re going to drop the link to each tech lab so that people can learn more about Scout as well as sharing the mission of Schlegel village as well. Everyone check it out. When I worked in the senior operating space Schlegel villages with the one to be beat. They have everything. They’re a fantastic and innovative organization. And I found out from Phil today that they have a couple of food robots. So that’s cool, too.

00:31:32.830 –> 00:31:35.061
Phil Vlach: It’s a great place to be for sure.

00:31:35.340 –> 00:31:35.770
Carolina: Absolutely and.

00:31:35.770 –> 00:31:39.030
Phil Vlach: One thing that we didn’t talk about is the whole AgeTech Toronto bit, which is really.

00:31:39.030 –> 00:31:39.710
Carolina: Oh yes!

00:31:39.710 –> 00:31:53.080
Phil Vlach: People to get involved in in the community and in the industry that maybe don’t have a place to do that. And so we host events every 2 months or so. We just had one earlier

00:31:53.280 –> 00:32:00.139
Phil Vlach: this month. And yeah, we. It’s open to everybody. So we hope people can come out and chat about AgeTech.

00:32:00.540 –> 00:32:06.750
Carolina: Yeah, absolutely. I was there, and it was a great event, and I can’t wait to see you fill up the next one. Thank you so much.

00:32:06.750 –> 00:32:07.290
Phil Vlach: Okay.