Connected Living...

PRIME – May 2014

Sarah Hoit believes it can change aging in America

By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com For Marilyn Coates, it's a bridge to her former life in the banking world, where computers were an integral part of the workday. "I use it to get my email, and coupons," the three year resident of The Atrium at Cardinal Drive in Agawam, said. "I also look through the library [and] I've shown employees things they didn't know were there." For Bob Watson, another Atrium resident, it's a way to keep connected with his family through emails and pictures, and with his church through videos of the service every Sunday. The Atrium may be a facility dedicated to memory care, but that hasn't stopped many of its residents – like Bob and Marilyn – and their families from embracing the power of Sarah Hoit's vision of a digital aging experience called ConnectedLiving. The 47-year old Hingham, Mass., resident and company CEO, who co-founded ConnectedLiving with Chrisopher McWade in 2006, is being recognized in May for her innovative work to bring America's elders into the digital conversation. The Boston-based organization, Mass High Tech, named Hoit one of its 2014 Women to Watch in technology. McWade, her partner, passed away from cancer in 2013. "Our nation has an issue, which we have completely isolated a generation," Hoit said during a March 13, 2013 YouTube interview (www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXnAK_lksV8) about ConnectedLiving's work at Heritage of Des Plaines, a Brookdale comunity in Des Plaines, Ill. "As we sat down to look at it, we though, there just had to be something we can do about this." PRIME had an opportunity to talk with Hoit about the issues that spawned ConnectedLiving, and how she sees her company's service revolutionizing the experience of aging. "Almost every good idea comes from personal experience; every family has a story," Hoit explained. In Hoit's case, she had two grandparents – one with Alzheimer's – whom she rarely saw. McWade had seven aging elders that he was trying to help care for, which Hoit said was nearly as taxing as a full-time job. "We woke up and said the same thing, 'if only we could connect with them . it would enhance their lives so very much'," Hoit said. The both clearly recognized, she added, that "sadly, for [their elders'] generation, isolation, depression and feelings of a loss of control" were big factors in physiological and physical health. Their dream of connecting older family members through technology wasn't a new idea, however. From the outset Hoit said she and McWade were aware there would be challenges in trying to bridge the digital divide with a population often uncomfortable with much of today's technology. "When we stated our company, we knew there were a series of failures [getting seniors on computers], but we decided there had to be a way to do this. We know seniors want to be part of the community," she said. Hoit had experience building ambitious programs from the ground up. As Director of Business Planning in the White House Office of National Service, she worked with the Clinton administration to develop AmeriCorps, the Corporation for National & Community Service. Later she became founder, chairman and CEO of Explore, Inc., a program developed in response to the growing need for quality after-school and summer programs. Explore, Inc. implemented programs in 75 schools across nine states before Hoit sold the company in 2001. "The only thing I want to do with my career is make a social impact," she said. "[ConnectedLiving] falls along those lines." The goal in creating ConnectedLiving, Hoit said, was to help elders lose their fear of computers and become more comfortable with communicating through today's technology. The company's ultimate answer to this problem was to develop a closed-loop, Facebook-like experience that gives elders – and their families – a way to participate in as little, or as much, of the digital world as they feel comfortable with. ConnectedLiving combines this safe Internet experience with trained personnel, called ambassadors, who help elders learn to navigate the parts of the system that interest them, as well as corporate support to the facilities that use the service. A senior's experience on ConnectedLiving can range from using the touch-screen enabled home page to check a facilities daily menu or events to sending and receiving emails. Searching the web, Skyping with family members or taking a course on ConnectedLiving University are other options available to individuals interested in a broader tech experience. "We have combined high-tech with high touch," Hoit explained. "We are committed to service, people and training." In six years ConnectedLiving has been able to give 35,000 elders living in more than 300 public and private senior living facilities across 30 states a way to reach out to family, friends and the world. At The Atrium, the two-way communication available though ConnectedLiving's home page also "allows families to get a peek inside our building, not just with words, but with our photo gallery" so they can see what their loved one is participating in, Director of Communications Elena Leon said. It also lets them check the facility's daily activities schedule so "no one plans a visit while we are off on an outing," she added. When The Atrium introduced ConnectedLiving, Leon said the facility expected about a 10 percent resident participation rate. That was, she noted, a gross underestimation. "If you start thinking about all the different ways we are utilizing this program, it's almost invaluable. It's not just email and entertainment," she said. Leon said the staff has used ConnectedLiving's email blast function to communicate with families during emergency situations, sending out "all safe" messages following the June 1 tornado and Oct. 29 snowstorm in 2011. The Atrium's ConnectedLiving Ambassador Amelia O'Hare uses the service to not only connect residents with family members on a one-on-one basis, but also as a multi-media resource when conducting weekly discussion groups or virtual travel features. Leone said the facility has used the Skype feature for happy reasons – to connect a couple originally from Argentina with family members they hadn't seen in decades, and bittersweet ones – such as when the facility used it to let distant family members to say a last goodbye to a resident on hospice care. As Hoit emphasized in the YouTube video about the Des Plaines project, "Aging can be completely different in this country. People don't have to be isolated; families don't have to be split apart. [ConnectedLiving] gives them the opportunity to have the purpose and engagement and life that they deserve." The 2014 Women to Watch award, she said, is something she is proud of, but considers a corporate honor, not just her own. "I think that [it's] about innovation and pushing the envelope as it relates to solving social problems," Hoit said. "It's not really about me at all. It's about this amazing company and the people here. There's a team that has a shared vision." It's a vision that she hopes will shortly expand access to ConnectedLiving in other ways, such as increasing the use for private individuals living within five miles of senior communities who "want to take part in the book club or other activity, but aren't ready to move in." Mobile apps for ConnectedLiving are on the horizon, too, she added. It's a company that understands, Hoit said, "that wherever somebody is aging, the need to be connected to others and their family, and the need to have purpose is one of the highest orders of things, and that is what we focus on."