Digital Health Technologies and Aging: A Q&A with University of Florida Professor Michael Bice By Cody Smith

Digital Health Technologies and Aging:

A Q&A with University of Florida Professor Michael Bice

By Cody Smith

Michael Bice, a University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions Professor, has studied the technological advancements impacting the elder care industry. This year, Bice spoke at LeadingAge Florida’s virtual 57th Annual Convention and Exposition, discussing artificial intelligence, virtual care, and care robots. Ahead of the convention in this exclusive Q&A with Senior Living, Bice discusses the major technology areas changing the elder care industry.

What are the main digital health technologies impacting the eldercare industry today?

The basic building block of all the digital health technologies is artificial intelligence, which is an umbrella term for any computer program that does something akin to intelli gent human behavior. There are five different forms of digital health technology which are available to support the elderly population.

The first are care robots, which include ro botic pets (these tend to be very popular), robot care companions, and nurse assistant robots. These latter robots are appearing during COVID-19 as they play a major role in cleaning and disinfecting rooms. Another kind of elder technology is the Internet of Health Things (wearables and devices). These technologies help people manage medications, respond to falls, and keep track of their vital signs. An other technology is virtual reality, which is a completely immersive experience that can be used for therapeutic as well as recreational purposes. There’s the voice activated devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home. And fi -

nally, there is telehealth, which includes telemedicine and virtual care.

Can you help us better understand the concept of artificial intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence is like a Russian nesting doll, with the smallest doll being deep learning or deep neural networks, followed by machine learning, and then artificial intelligence incorporating both deep learning and machine learning. AI describes the way in which machines act as if they were an intelligent human being. In my generation, you would program a computer by rigid codes and formats. But machine learning uses examples, rather than code. You feed it examples, and then it begins to understand what you’re looking for, whether it’s facial recognitions, words, or terminologies, and then it learns on its own. That’s why it’s called machine learning. A good example of machine learning is Google Search. The subset of machine learning, the deep neural networks, also doesn’t use code. They function the way people think that our neural networks work. A lot of medical breakthroughs are occurring at the deep neural network level. For example, they have algorithms which can predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease within six years. They can predict the onset of depression. They could also be used for predicting and treating cancer.

How can nursing homes and facilities use new technology, such as telemedicine, to keep residents safe during a pandemic such as COVID-19?

In the past, telemedicine was never fully realized for a number of reasons. Every single state had a different approach to telemedicine, and often it wasn’t covered by insurance plans. A breakthrough occurred in Florida last July when Governor DeSantis signed House Bill 23, which was a broad initiative to make telemedicine more available throughout the industry and held promise for home health agencies sponsored by our nursing homes.

COVID-19 came along and people had to socially distance and stay at home, par ticularly older people who are more at risk. Now, the Federal government has basically said, “Go for it.” They pulled away from con straints about the use and the location of the service, and enhanced payment systems. There’s a point of view that we’re not going to go back to the old ways, and that telemed icine and virtual care are going to be with us for some time to come. Much of home healthcare, which is a big and growing part of aging services, could be handled virtu ally. This includes monitoring medications, managing falls, keeping connected to family members, and more. There’s a huge, bright future for virtual care in aging services. No question.

How do you think homes can incorporate, educate, and train their administration, employees, and residents about new technology?

It’s very important that there’s enterprise Wi-Fi in a facility that’s available everywhere for free. A number of nursing homes might have Wi-Fi only in the common areas, but they would not have it in an enterprise way. So, a requirement for supporting digital health technologies in a nursing home is having enterprise-wide Wi-Fi. All digital health technologies re

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