This very large group of caregivers and care recipients need local community support in the form of a Web Server, located in each community, providing  Web based collaborative services and applications

The major applications are...

...tele-medicine and tele-watch

the caregiver can become the one who takes and reports the vital signs of

the care recipient, thus lower the cost of medicine

   Keywords: Electronic Patient Records, Electronic Health Records, Integrated Care, E-Health, tele-consultation, users’ mediated use, information and communication technology (ICT) Telemedicine is the application of telecommunications to medicine, so allowing consultations and medical intervention to be carried out with the patient and doctor in different places. Experiments are being tried in many countries with remote consultations, sometimes called televisits or teleconsultations, and with remote control of surgical operations, telesurgery. It seems from the neologistic lexicon that most branches of medicine can now have a telecoms component, from teleradiology and telepathology to telenursing and telepsychiatry.

The caregiver can also monitor via the web the general condition and

vitals of the care recipient even when the caregiver is not on location this can be accomplished by

the ConnectR product of irobot.com fallowing tele-conferencing so the care recipient would not feel alone

   Keywords: tele-monitor, teleconference, tele-presence

...tele-work

allowing the caregiver can work and give care at the same time,

also some care recipient can do tele-work as well with the financial support of the government

   Keywords: A particularly significant group of such words covers the various aspects of using computers and telecommunications to work at home instead of at the office. Originally a futuristic idea in which teleworkers would be able to telecommute (connect to their offices electronically instead of physically moving themselves there), it has become a reality for many people. Workers may “meet” and discuss issues through teleconferences. It was quickly recognised that there were economies of scale and other advantages in having communal facilities which could be shared by a number of teleworkers, especially in rural places where assistance and services were not easy to come by; these locations have usually been called telecottages (though a scheme in Scotland, perhaps inevitably, came to be known as a telecroft). Sometimes they are are called telecentres, though this word is also used more generally for any location in which business is conducted by telephone. A residential and business area designed and built to enable people to telecommute is sometimes called a televillage.

...tele-training

so the caregiver can train for additional services and bring green and assisted living technologies

as well as tele-medicine technologies to the communities from many small  companies and from the members of AmericanTelemed.org. These smaller companies are not directly represented in that community thus the caregiver be the representative, some of the care recipients can also receive training in preparation for doing tele-work

   Keywords:The possibilities of telecommunications to help learning at a distance have long been recognised. As the technology has advanced, new terms have arisen: televersity (a university run by distance learning methods over high-capacity data lines — one is proposed for the Scottish Highlands); telecourse (one so taught); telelearning, teleteaching and teleschooling (all with the idea of telecommunications helping distance learning); and teleseminar. The concept has been called tele-education.

...tele-shopping

from Amazon.com, to lower the cost of basic needs for the care recipients and their

caregivers, also to save time

...virtual group interaction

for bot the care recipient and the caregiver thus improving the quality of their lives

in social Web 2.0 style using the Huddle.net collaborative system allowing all participants to collaborate: caregiver, care recipient, doctors, nurses, social workers etc, this Internet session can be made easier for the care recipient if we equip the care recipient with an Epoc Wireless Headset by emotiv.com which could also help with Mind Gym type Alzheimer oriented interactive games

...infotainment

a combination of WebTV and the Web

These applications can be offered via a Web server software we have developed which we call Ablery server. This server is a slice of a large server farm like the one Amazon.com owns. 

The Web then of course the Ablery server then can be connected to the end-user via a Whispernet offered by the wireless carriers (evdoinfo.com),  a meshed network using Wi-Fi or Wi-Max wireless network technologies.

Also, the FCC provides financial support for community broadband networks under the Rural Health Care Program. 

One of the best ways to connect would be to use the HughesNet satellite connections then have this link connect to a micro cell of Wi-Fi type. 

It is imperative that to enable the caregivers to do tele-work from the homes of the people in need of care. These are the so called informal caregivers, family and friends, who work without pay and provide unbelievably valuable service. Then the caregivers and care recipients would tele-campaign for legislation which would provide tax credits to the businesses who allow their employees to perform tele-work style.

There could also be major Federal and State support for this project since it would lower the cost of medicine. It would also allow businesses to receive carbon credits for each day they allow each of their employees to perform tele-work style. Of course then the business could sell these carbon credits which is becoming a very large market.

In addition to allowing the caregivers to earn a living tele-work style from the  homes of  the care recipients they could also participate in tele-training to improve their abilities. Then they can become field representatives for the assistive technology industry, for alternative energy industry, for independent living home improvement industry and tele-work part time to very efficiently serve these industries and allowing the companies of these industry segments to penetrate markets which would not be available to them otherwise.

The employers of these caregivers  would install an open source  strong tele-work oriented tele-presence system on their web server or they could use the Ablery server. A team-work oriented collaborative system like the one offered by ubuntu.com called Croquet would be installed on the Ablery server..

Recently in a Fortune article Dr. Andy Grove made some very important and eloquent statement regarding the healthcare costs in the USA. His comments relate especially to the cost of care for the people who are in need of home based care: the frail elderly, the chronically ill and the disabled. About a 100 million in the USA alone. Medical spending in the USA is at 16% of the GDP and it is the fastest growing segment.  The average American spends 440,000 dollars in his/her lifetime on healthcare. 280,000 of which will be spent after age 65 and approximately 50% of this will be spent on assisted-living facilities and nursing homes.  So it stands to reason that if there were a way to keep the people in need of care in there own homes longer we would have a better and lower cost system: we could save $ 300 billion per year.

This community-wide broadband Web connection connected via the Ablery server portal, serving the caregivers,  can also  help the care recipients, the people in need of care. For this user group  a simple voice recognition capable community based Internet server  is needed. We have developed such a simple voice capability for the Ablery server. 

The Ablery server acts in Web 2.0 style, the social Web similar to MySpace, Facebook, Wikia, etc.  The care recipient end user is  connected to the Ablery server through a simple laptop such as the reliable, low cost machine from Zonbu.com, or a Web enabled TV, or the OLPC by Negroponte, or the Intel 200 dollar laptop, or the ASUS laptop. This allows the care recipients to participate in virtual group sessions, visit people virtually and in general get involved. This virtual group participation's can also be achieved with the Huddle.net system.

The caregivers also need political representation as well as non-profit support. They would be a loyal supporter of the Presidential candidate who represents them.

Janine M. Lodato
P.O.Box 838
SAN ANDREAS,  CA.
95249-838