a16z Podcast

a16z Podcast: The Realities of Aging / When Healthcare Is Local

Kelsey Mellard and Renato Valdés Olmos

Posted December 26, 2016

As people live longer, aging is more top of mind than ever. This is especially true for the “sandwich generation” wedged between caring for aging parents as well as young children at the same time.

The fact is, the 65+ year old population (but don’t you dare homogenize a multi-decade age group!) will double over just the next 15-20 years. So how does this fit into our current healthcare system? How does it fit current retail experiences, like for buying adult diapers? What are the design challenges when you’re optimizing for screen-less interaction and data collection in a home environment? And finally, where do providers and payers come in?

Honor’s head of design Renato Valdés Olmos and head of health system integration Kelsey Mellard join this episode of the a16z Podcast to talk about all this and more. This all goes beyond discussions about fighting age with tech though — it’s about the realities of aging and caregiving, from the very mundane (going to the bathroom, for instance) to the very profound (staying in one’s home, church, and community). That’s why all “healthcare is local” … or should be.