Caregiving Technology and Reliability

I read last week about a technology problem with a diabetes monitor, A glitch in diabetes monitors serves as a cautionary tale for health tech. Although primarily about this particular device, the article observes that the reliability on this kind of health tech means it's too important for it to malfunction.  Some of the things my students and I always discuss in the context of using technology for aging in place is the reliability of the technology, informed consent to its use, privacy of data collected and the cyber security of those companies that store the data.  As this article illustrates, when we rely on technology to keep people safe, we need the technology to be reliable. It's early days yet as far as the use of technology to age in place and how well it will function over the long haul.

The Task Force on Research & Development for Technology to Support Aging Adults Committee on Technology  of the National Science & Technology Council issued a report, Emerging Technologies to Support an Aging Population.   Section VIII of the report, Cross-Cutting Themes. addresses these issues and others, including system dependability, privacy and security, times when the systems are unavailable, vulnerabilities, and more. 

These are issues that lead to a robust class discussion, and even a few good topics for students' scholarly papers.