Testimony to Senate Aging Committee: National e-Care Plan Needed Now

Posted on | April 25, 2010 | Comments Off on Testimony to Senate Aging Committee: National e-Care Plan Needed Now

Eric Dishman

This week, almost 6 years to the day of giving similar testimony to the same Senate Special Subcommittee on Aging, I had the opportunity on behalf of theContinua Health Alliance (www.continuaalliance.org) to reflect on the persistent barriers that prevent the widespread implementation of telehealth, aging-in-place, and what Continua calls “e-care” (for “electronic care”) technologies. In this hearing chaired by Senator Wyden from Oregon, we also had participation from Senator Kohl from Wisconsin, Senator Corker from Tennessee, and Senator Collins from Maine. The online video for the hearing can be found here. Below is my intended opening testimony, but this is not a verbatim transcript by any means. I decided to just talk from notes at the last minute. I think this still captures the gist of what I said, though I was nervous about having enough time and barely remember any of it (and refuse to watch myself on video!).

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Aging committee, I thank you for this hearing on aging-in-place innovation. Senator Wyden, I want to thank you in particular for your leadership on independent living and healthcare innovation and for creating this opportunity today to cover such an important topic of bringing healthcare home through new broadband-connected technologies–a topic that has had too little focus in our national dialogue about healthcare reform.

I would like to introduce two technologies before I introduce myself, since getting to know these kinds of e-care systems is more important today than getting to know me. (CONTINUE….)