How to be a Hero to your Elders
As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age, more and more families are going through untold troubles trying to find, hire and manage in-home care for their seniors.
To battle the problem HomeHero, a new startup backed by Science Inc., has unveiled a new smartphone app designed to help people find, hire and manage in-home care for seniors.
The app, dubbed HomeHero Connect, supports phone timesheet tracking, daily activity summaries, emergency alerts and automated payments between a user and an independent home caregiver.
It also gives families access to a marketplace of hundreds of experienced caregivers in Southern California, with access to high-definition (HD) video profiles, rigorous background checks, social references and reviews.
LinkedIn for Caregivers
Like LinkedIn, HomeHero Connect aligns families with new or existing caregivers across the country over its reliable network. Then, using a mobile phone, one can monitor how long the caregivers are spending with the elderly member of their family through time sheets and daily activity summaries with recorded audio. The app also features emergency phone alerts and automated payments.
Founded by Kyle Hill and Mike Townsend, HomeHero was inspired by their own struggles to find care for their grandparents. Their goal: a safer, easier and more affordable application for families to find care for their aging loved ones, while allowing the elders to stay in their homes.
“When my grandfather passed away, we saw my grandmother’s health deteriorate faster than anticipated, and finding vetted and experienced caregivers was difficult. Once we found one we liked, we learned that managing them from far away was even harder. We wanted to consolidate a suite of in-home care services into a simple and affordable offering that families could use right away,” said Kyle Hill, co-founder and CEO of HomeHero.
More than just care
HomeHero is not just about care. It’s an opportunity, too. Its “do-it-yourself” tools give families an alternative to agencies and to help them find, hire and manage a caregiver for their loved ones.
At its recent launch, HomeHero had hundreds of caregivers, each pre-screened and subject to a rigorous certification process that includes an in-person interview, entrance exam and background check.
Careseekers can view caregivers by location on an inbuilt map, HD videos, social references and reviews. The app also has online filters to allow users to sort caregivers by gender, number of reviews, years of experience and language.
The founders add that HomeHero caregivers clock-in and clock-out from a landline phone and give daily summaries and voice recordings to ensure families have the confidence and peace of mind their loved one is happy and safe, whether they live down the street or in another state.
The platform will also give jobs to thousands of caregivers seeking work from basic chores and housekeeping to the most sensitive of personal needs. Users can also choose around-the-clock care, daily assistance or weekly drop-ins.
Senior care market is not heavily impacted by technology
According to Investor Michael Jones, CEO of Science Inc., “The senior care market is not heavily impacted by technology, and with HomeHero, families can now have peace of mind and transparency with their family’s caregiver. Finding the right person to provide at-home care for seniors is a growing financial and emotional burden for millions of Americans, and HomeHero ensures they are paying the right rate for the right level of service. Mike and Kyle have dealt with the challenges of finding caregivers for their own families, and developed HomeHero to drastically decrease the time, cost and risk involved with finding in-home care for seniors.”
HomeHero also have a $1,000,000 insurance policy that covers bodily injury and property damage in the event of an accident. Caregivers are currently available in Southern California and the company expects to launch in a new city each month.
