The Wizard Behind the Curtain

In this episode of The Quest for the GoodLife, Dr. Mike Strouse is joined by Beth McCoach and David MacDonald—GoodLife’s leaders in operations and tech innovation—for a compelling conversation on how smart technology is reshaping the way we support independence, safety, and connection.

Together, they explore:

• How iLink is evolving into a national platform for care that’s simple, responsive, and privacy-forward
• The role of neighborhood networks in creating belonging and interdependence
• Why technology must be both powerful and invisible to truly serve people well

Plus, hear insights from a thriving off-the-grid community, the philosophy behind “one button, one finger” design, and why duct tape might still be the ultimate survival tool.

🎧 Please note: This episode includes a few sections with reduced audio quality due to technical difficulties. We have the transcript available if you need it! Thanks for your patience—and your curiosity.

Link from Episode:

EastWind Community

Transcript

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Ivo Ivanov (00:00:00):

<silence> Hello and welcome to the Quest for the GoodLife with Dr. Mike Strouse. This podcast is a production of GoodLife University. Today, listeners, we have guests. We have Beth McCoach, our Chief Operations Officer. Welcome to the show/party. And we have the one and only David MacDonald, Chief Technology and Innovations officer, tech guru. People say he's amazing. Welcome to the show. Welcome.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:00:36):

You know, everybody knows that I aspire to be Harrison Ford <laugh> of the <laugh>.

Beth McCoach (00:00:42):

That explains that. Well, that's the whole point.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:00:46):

He, uh, it was in these crazy quests mm-hmm. That nobody else will do. And he is unconventional. But, you know, and I, I told everybody, I used to collect these darn hats, but I wouldn't wear them. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I don't know if it's, you know, the, the show or, or age or what, some combination of that that I decided, you know, I'm gonna get rid of that inhibition of wearing them. 'cause if I don't, my wife won't let me buy anymore. But now, you know, I, I've gotta convince that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm good to go. So, with that though, we always start these shows with some discussion of like, what would you be, who are you in, in the world of movies, Dave? You know, I mean, but look, you's got to be something that we could actually say on screen. So you might have to go down to your third or your fourth choice

Dave MacDonald (00:01:38):

<laugh>. I would, I would say mine would be, uh, probably the Wizard of Oz. <laugh> would be, would be the one

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:01:44):

Man. Is that one close to my heart, though?

Dave MacDonald (00:01:46):

 That would be a, that would be mine, I think.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:01:48):

Well, it's, I is, uh, was your unsaid first choice? The Flying Monkey? Or, or

Dave MacDonald (00:01:54):

No, no. The Wizard. The Wizard of Oz. Because I, I, I feel like he does a lot of stuff behind the curtain, so to speak, and makes a lot of things happen without being in the public eye. So that, and

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:03):

Sometimes smoke and Mirrors just to Make it look like that.

(00:02:07):

Exactly. And that's half of R&D might say. You gotta have enough smoke and mirrors to think there's a little bit of marvel in that, you know,

Dave MacDonald (00:02:14):

<laugh>. See. Yeah. I think that would be mine wizard. Alright. I love it. I love it.

Ivo Ivanov (00:02:17):

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Uh, Beth, I wanna warn you that, uh, Lieutenant Ripley is taken. That's mine. I was Lieutenant Ripley from Aliens <laugh>. So, uh, you gotta go with something else.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:27):

I can't remember what Lauren said She was

Ivo Ivanov (00:02:29):

Lauren was Steve Martin <laugh> <laugh>. Right. Which was shocking to us.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:34):

Yeah. I'm gonna have her do that funky dance when she gets back here though. We're gonna have to go live video on that one.

Ivo Ivanov (00:02:41):

Yeah. She said any any role that Steve Martin ever played is her. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:44):

That's Good. That's good. Alright, Beth, what, this

Beth McCoach (00:02:47):

Is a very hard question for me. I could have taken weeks to figure this one out, but I'm, I'm still, I'm gonna choose, um, from a TV show I really love called Homestead Rescue and Misty Rainey. I don't know. I love her. She just is. She is like, they on the show people, um, they go, her and her family go in and help people who are trying to homestead and, and just are having a really difficult time. And they go in and completely transform their homes for them. And I just love her. She's got really good energy and she's just really fun. And she makes a huge difference.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:03:22):

And, and, and I gotta say, Beth and I are like brother and sisters 'cause we both like the same shows. We're all into this reality shows. You know, she loves to watch alone. I, I wanna be on alone. You know, I, I mean, I, I, I think I can last, you know, a few days at least.

Beth McCoach (00:03:39):

I would last five minutes I wouldn't even probably get on the plane

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:03:43):

<laugh>, you know, and, you know, they go to the places, well, usually it's the most bear infect grizzly or brown bear infested place on the earth.

Ivo Ivanov (00:03:52):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:03:53):

And they are alone. And they can take how many things with them. 10 take 10 things, 10 things, you know. But the innovation goes into what in the world are those 10 things and how can you, you know, how can you have the Ginsu knife 10 times over

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:06):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:07):

You know?

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:08):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:08):

Or the Ronco Reel that also is, you know, I don't know,

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:13):

Maybe that would be

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:14):

A wireless, wireless device.

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:16):

That should be maybe one of our questions in the future. What are your 10 things?

Beth McCoach (00:04:20):

Oh, that's,

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:20):

You know, that would be good. Or

Beth McCoach (00:04:22):

Three things. But they also only, there's also a certain list you could pick from. You can't just take anything. Oh, they have a, they have a list. Mm-hmm

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:28):

<affirmative>. It's so those guys, remember when you say 10 things that you can pick from, they give you a list. Remember that whole conversation I had about rules and what I thought about rules?

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:37):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:38):

So that's, that's not okay. Yeah. Rules are not okay.

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:41):

Yeah. You know, that duct tape will always be one of those things.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:44):

Duct tape is always one. You can

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:46):

Make, you know,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:46):

A hammock, you can do whatever you need to do. Yeah. That's a good one.

Beth McCoach (00:04:50):

I thought one of the most creative things that somebody did one time was they took their 10 things, but then they dyed their hair like different colors and they cut their hair off so that they could make fishing. Fishing flies.

Ivo Ivanov (00:05:00):

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's genius.

Beth McCoach (00:05:02):

So that was pretty smart to do that. They probably out

Ivo Ivanov (00:05:05):

Lotted that I always felt, Mike, that you would be fantastic on Survivor. Um,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:05:10):

Yeah. You know, I love that. But, but some of the, the, the things that they do really skew towards the, the young, you know?

Ivo Ivanov (00:05:21):

Yes. But remember Richard Hatch, the very first winner

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:05:24):

Who my favorite,

Ivo Ivanov (00:05:25):

He was, he built alliances strategically. And he played game theory during the show, uh, brilliantly. And he was not young. He was 47 years old. And everybody else was like, mostly everybody else was in their twenties. And he obliterated the competition. So, yeah, strategy is important. And I think you, you build alliances. You're good at building alliances, strategically,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:05:49):

Positioning yourself. I'm alone. I could build an incredible alliance. I'm thinking with myself, with yourself. <laugh>. I rarely disagree. You know, we give along great. Really, I all, we'd be perfect in so many ways. You know, I could just continuously say, good point, you know, <laugh>,

(00:06:09):

Make your own friend like Tom, Hank volleyball, would you be my friend? Sure. <laugh>.

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:16):

So, uh, that's the first hat, uh, the first present, uh, was related to Indiana Jones. The second one, though, is a hat, a baseball hat that says, be a good human. And we talked about this yesterday, that it's actually part of our mission. And it's, it's in a way a backbone of our mission. And not just being a good human in terms of, uh, providing necessary supports for the people we serve, but also for the people that serve. Yes. The people we serve.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:06:47):

Uh, again, you can't do one without the other.

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:49):

Yes. We

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:06:49):

Need to stop the the thought. We also have a huge discussion. And just to bring everybody in, because this is really a follow up discussion to that last time we talked about, you know, we talked about Blue Zones, we talked about Safety Net. We talked about, um, we talked about neighborhood networks and how all of that's evolving. Um, but we really talked about like, some of the characteristics of those sort of Norman Rockwell neighborhoods that exist that you wanna be a part of that, that kind of make you feel like you belong. And, and, and I think that the key thing was that, you know, there's a whole bunch of strategies really, um, and selection that, that you go to a place that, that you feel like you belong. And, and one of the things we're really trying to accomplish is we want, we don't want people to be anonymous.

(00:07:42):

You know, we want them to, to belong and to count and to be seen a community and, and to contribute. And, and that, and, and, you know, we don't even talked about like the, the planning system for care is so person centric that they don't really give enough credit to sort of the environmental context of being in a community where they really belong. Creating a community where they really belong. Giving back to it, getting from it. You know, it's just all those things. And, you know, uh, you brought up, uh, homestead Rescue. Well, I love that program too. It's like, but that's part of it. You know, those guys are all out there. You know, I, I love it because you guys, somebody on Homestead Rescue, and they, and they asked the Rainey to come in and, and help them. It's a cool concept and stuff. But these guys are all sort of like off the grid people, right? Yeah. But the, the funny thing is they're, half of them are really aren't off the grid people. They're like off the grid. People wanna be.

Ivo Ivanov (00:08:42):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:08:42):

And, and you know, they, the, they go out a place and, and, and they talk about being off the grid and being a homesteader. And it's like, but they really don't go outside too much. But it's comical though. 'cause they're always asking those people for help. It's like,

Beth McCoach (00:08:56):

Well, and the neighbors always show up to help them, right? Yeah, they do.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:08:59):

The neighbors always show up. We were talking about all these communities that I would belong to. It's like, that's the whole point. You, you're interdependent. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, and part of a neighborhood is being interdependent. And, and we morph from that to a discussion is, okay, how do you hold this neighborhood together and make it, and bring some of those qualities to it? And we talked about, you know, some of the, the ways you do that digitally and other things. And that kinda led into, okay, what, where's the technology fit in, you know, all of that. And so we thought it'd be a really good follow up to that show to talk about among 10 or 15 tangents that we will absolutely intersect in there. But, but we wanted to talk a little bit about like, you know, iLink and, and what we're trying to accomplish with iLink, not nationally, but really in the context of, you know, a, a safety net program and neighborhood network trying to create that blue zone.

(00:09:56):

What, what's the role of that? I also wanna talk about some of the innovations that we're working on because, you know, people don't get a chance, you know, when they go to our website, they see what we have, they don't really see what will be. And I would have to tell you one of those really interesting, it's my most interesting thing in my mind that I, I work with. And it's like, it's the future. How do you deliver? You deliver things today, but you've gotta have, half your life is spent, you know, on the next thing. And half of those next things end up in a pile somewhere that maybe don't even work. And then half of 'em change everything that we're doing, you know, or, or, or at least a few of them do. You know? And that's what's happened to Island at the time. I mean, it started off and where it started and where it is, it's just like, it's crazy. But it isn't near as crazy as what's in the works and all that stuff. But I just wanna kind of talk about that in the context of, you know, the work that we're doing now with Safety Net and I mentioned our, our listeners, we, we are even getting a million dollar grant now to, to take it to that next level. And which is cool, you know, to do that. So

Dave MacDonald (00:11:16):

Well, to your, to your question earlier about what our favorite movie actors would be, or you know, who we'd, you'd want to be. Um, we have so many features in, in iLink. What are some of the features that, that are your favorite features? Like, there, it's, it's feature full. So

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:11:30):

It is my feature. My favorite features, though, always from the history of iLink isn't, is what it's going to be. And I know that that isn't like celebrating what we've accomplished because we've accomplished so much. But every time you like, walk up a hill and you accomplish something, you now can see farther out of what you can, you know, accomplish next. Like where I'm really focusing right now is, as you know, most, most people may know smart home technology, the current, you know, maybe the current practice of it. If you look at all the consumer workout, there is all about home technology, you know, at home technology. And then there's a whole nother line of personal technology, you know, like watches and wearables. Wearables and things like that. But really, those two things have kind of been separate lines of stuff that's happened to home, you know, smart home technology and wearable technology. But we've been playing in that space where they can intersect. And that has, that has totally changed the game. We gotta talk about, you know, some of that stuff eventually. But yeah, that's, that's my favorite thing.

Ivo Ivanov (00:12:52):

Yeah. Um, so I wanted to tell you a, a quick story. I actually discovered that there is a kind of a mysterious community that lives on the border of Missouri and Arkansas. And it's the last hippie community.

(00:13:13):

It's

(00:13:13):

What? The last hippie community in the United States. Hippies and

Dave MacDonald (00:13:18):

Oh wow. Yeah. Is it like a commune?

Ivo Ivanov (00:13:21):

Yeah, it's a commune, but it's extremely successful. And it's started in the 1960s and now it has 120 members. It's always had about 120 members and a long list of people who want to join. But they're kind of very protective of this community. It's hard to gain access to it. And to even visit, um, they have this beautiful property, uh, rolling hills, meadows, caves, lakes, rivers. They bought it at bottom price in the 1960s. Now it's priceless. And they're not giving it up. So seven years ago, I spent about nine months trying to get in, uh, trying to visit them and spend, um, five, six days there and live with them. And it took a long, long time. It took a lot of filtering of information. They checked my background, um, and later I found out that they got together and voted whether they want me to visit or not.

(00:14:24):

And finally they let me in. I went with my camera and I spent five days there. And, uh, it was an incredibly interesting experience, um, because I wanted to know why this community, this neighborhood, is so successful. Um, and I've discovered that East Wind, that's the name of the community, they're called East Wind. Um, the collaboration between, um, is off the charts. They, they coexist so harmoniously. And there's reasons for this. They want complete democracy. They want full democracy. They vote on everything. Um, there's no really leadership structure. Everybody's the leader. Everybody has equal rights, but they require that everybody contributes something. Whatever they can. Whether you are 80-year-old or 22-year-old, you have some kind of skill. They believe that you have a skill and you can contribute, whether it's gardening, whether it's, um, farming. They have their own animals. They have chicken coups. They grow their own food.

(00:15:35):

It's all organic. But they've realized long time ago that communism is not sus, um, sustainable. And so they incorporated capitalism in this community in the most amazing way. They built a factory on the premises that manufactures the best peanut butter and almond butter in the country. The best why They have suppliers in Brazil, in a pristine, um, area of the country where they grow the best omond, best peanuts. And that supplier delivers only to them. And then they make it without any additives. And I gotta tell you, clothing is optional there. Uh, they party all the time. They do whatever in the world they want. But in the factory, it's a laboratory. Strict rules. You are wearing protective gear. Everything is super clean and no additives to the, uh, peanut butter and almond butter. Everything's just perfect. And they generate millions of dollars because they sell this all over the country.

(00:16:45):

If you walk into a Hy-Vee grocery store here and go to the organic section, you'll find the east wind peanut and almond butter. And it's one of the best of the best of the best. So they make a lot of money, then they divide it equally. They provide, um, safety net, uh, like health insurance. The kids go to school, the school bus goes there, picks up the kids, takes them to school and all that stuff. But I asked, um, uh, I asked one of the elders, why do you think you were so successful? And all the other hippie communities had fallen apart? And she said, Hmm, there's only one reason we avoided having a charismatic leader <laugh>.

(00:17:27):

We, every time we felt that there's a charismatic leader emerging, we told him, Hey, step back a little bit. And it's, it's a democracy here. So, um, they were able to incorporate, um, market economy within their understanding of the world as a complete democracy. But the one thing that I found out, they built all their structures, all their, there they have music studios, they have exercise, uh, area. They have, uh, a little fitness center. They, the buildings where they live, they build them themselves. Everything is done by them. But they have great technology. They have a technology officer. They have a Wizard of Oz. And he has done an incredible job at building their own network. And they recognize that the ways of they can, they can live with Earth and eat organic food and enjoy nature. But technology is an essential part of a successful community. So, um, this is something that, um, we've done better than other agencies as well. You know, we've built our, uh, communities, our neighborhood networks with the understanding that technology has to be an essential part of it. And, uh, Mike, you, for you were able to foresee this long before anybody else?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:18:48):

Well, actually I, yeah. I mean, we started Evo, you remember 'cause you videoed it. So we have video documentation. We started in 1999,

Ivo Ivanov (00:18:57):

Which was unthinkable back then with

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:18:58):

Technology. I, um, it was military technology that, that actually was able to capture a fairly decent video with analog technology, which I thought was, even today's standards was amazing.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:10):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:19:11):

And we only used it for one purpose. At that time, we only used it to deploy sleeping staff to help people who were awake. That's the first only thing we ever did with that.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:21):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:19:21):

But I also remember, even in those days, we saved $800,000 in operating budget.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:26):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:19:27):

By that one thing, by just letting people sleep.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:30):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:19:30):

You know, we, we used what we call family teachers. They lived on one side of the duplex and supported three people with one another side.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:36):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:19:37):

But they didn't know when to be up. So we had, we centralized how that worked. And, and then from there just evolved and involved. Involved, I must say, you know, when you think of, uh, our system, um, it's, it's, it's kind of smart home technology. It is kind of assisted living technology and is kind of remote support technology all rolled into one platform. And, and, and I'll tell you just like we do everything else, you know, I, I, I think the whole company does, but I approach new things like a behavioral analyst does not like a, like, not necessarily, um, which is not a lot different than an engineer. You know, what, what I really focused on was what are the barriers of, of technology, why, you know, 'cause I saw the, the beauty of it. But there are, were a lot of barriers. And by the way, the barriers are worse today than they, than they were then in many cases. Because the more complicated smart home technology gets, the more sophisticated most people have to be to use it. Which is the antithesis. What we're trying to do, you know, Dave, I mean, uh, if you look at all the consumer products, smart watches in particular, you have to be, you know, an engineer and figure out how to run the app. And if you wanna string 10 or 15 apps in your iPhone together, good luck. You know, good luck trying to figure all that out. Unless you have 'em run in harmony too. It's

Dave MacDonald (00:21:09):

Be impossible.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:21:10):

<laugh>. Well, that doesn't happen. Right? And, and none of that happens. And so therein is the barrier, is that you gotta be really smart in order to use smart home technology. And that's like where we put full stop at day one, you know, of the technology. We had sort of a guiding principle that if you couldn't, you, if, if the person that needed help couldn't do it with one finger and one button, we didn't want to even talk about it. You know, that was like the cardinal rule is, is is that we wanted, we did not want the person to even feel like they were engaged in smart technology. We just want them to be able to interact with somebody to help them. That was like the Wizard of Oz. It did all the, the, the lever polling and, and the, the, the stuff behind the scenes mm-hmm <affirmative>. They, they were the ones that were, you know, the, that were the masterminds of how you supported somebody. But the person themselves, you know, all they had to do was, you know, either nothing meaning the sensor world and logic world would just, you know, take care of things for them because they just were tailored around them or, um, or they were able to, you know, press a button and ask for help.

Dave MacDonald (00:22:35):

And that one touch rule though, that still guides us now with our r and d and everything, that's really

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:22:39):

Everything we do.

Dave MacDonald (00:22:39):

Yeah. When we look at things, that's the number

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:22:42):

One, a red button. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You know, I mean, we, we have a button that, that absolutely is what is the focus of what we do. And, and I think that that still is the guiding. And, and, and it goes to one other thing, you know, as a, that I feel very strong about that is, uh, you know, the most, and, and I hope this resonates with everybody, but the most important skill that you could ever teach somebody to improve their independence is to know when and how to ask for help and make it easy for 'em to do it.

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:11):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:23:11):

If you, if you can teach your grandfather to know when and how to ask for help and make them comfortable and easy to make that happen, make it super comfortable and easy for them to do that, and they know when to do it, then they can live with greater independence. Now, I'll tell you, my father-in-law who's 91 now, you know, he constantly is getting himself into trouble thinking that he doesn't want to, you know, impose on anybody. And then he's the most trouble of anybody you can possibly imagine. 'cause he did that. I mean, it could be mowing the lawn or it could be like, he just isn't, he's having trouble getting up and, or he has a little cold that's kind in his chest, you know, and it's like, oh, you know, I don't need to ask anybody for help kind of a thing. And then pretty soon within a nanosecond, he's in the hospital and the entire world around him has collapsed. He's almost lost his full independence. 'cause he just wouldn't ask for help. I

Beth McCoach (00:24:24):

Think that's the problem is people are afraid if they ask for help, people are gonna take away their

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:24:27):

Independence. Yeah.

Beth McCoach (00:24:28):

And that's the

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:24:29):

Opposite of what we're trying to do. It's, and, and the thing about the technology, like, uh, we, we got into purs, remember? I don't, what what does it, what does it stand for Dave? You know,

Dave MacDonald (00:24:37):

A personal emergency response system?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:24:38):

Okay. Well it, it's a, um, for all those, you know, people out there, all that really is, is a, um, it's a, it's a device that you wear. It's usually a pendant. Sometimes it's a bracelet, but it is a pendant or bracelet. And again, it has a button on it. And if it's like pressing the OnStar button, it goes to somebody that you don't know. And they can only do one thing and they can call the, you know, the number that you give them, or 9 1 1. The reality is that's incredibly ineffective. Unless it's generally too late for people because they wait, they don't wanna do it. They know. I mean, people who are or seniors are, are, are wary of things. But they're also smart about this in that they know that if they hit that button, people they don't know are gonna come and they're going to have to do things that they don't even agree to.

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:49):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:25:50):

And they're, they could be whisked off to the hospital. The consequences of pressing that button are horrific.

Dave MacDonald (00:25:58):

I think people over the years automatically think that you're calling the cavalry at that point. If you hit that button, it's every si you know, there's, there's no middle ground. It's either an all or none situation.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:26:08):

It is all or none and it's life or death. And they, they wanna make sure it's life or death, you know? And, and so, and, and you can't practice that. Like, it is a technology that you can't like, use every day just to get comfortable with Nobody on the other end knows you. So they can't even make any judgment about you. And, and you've lost all control. And I can tell you seniors don't like losing control, you know? So we liked the simplicity of the button, but we didn't like this consequences and we wanted to dial it back. So we wanted it more like, you know, I, I remember my father-in-law, the one of their favorite people is in a hotel. They love the concierge 'cause it's like a friendly person that they go to and they can ask anything

Ivo Ivanov (00:26:58):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:26:59):

About. And they, I swear they go there and ask them just random things that they didn't even care about. You know, just to talk a talk, give a small talk mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they were friendly, cool people and hey, what, you know, what's the weather? You know, whatever, whatever it is. And you know, our vision was make it easy. Give it to make it to somebody that they know well, if they could, and that they're comfortable calling. And then, and then make it not about an emergencies, make it about common everyday life. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Make, make that person a part of their life that they interact with virtually as if it's a, a concierge, a a friend, you know, a a colleague without the consequences of all the stuff, other things they press buttons for. You know?

Beth McCoach (00:27:50):

Right.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:27:50):

Yeah. And

Beth McCoach (00:27:50):

We use, the way we use ours is it's both ways. It's not just the person who lives in this pushing the button, but the other side is reaching out to them too, to make them feel comfortable. To know that this two way communication is often that we're gonna build a, a relationship so that you feel comfortable pressing the button anytime you want and just having a casual conversation. We have people who sometimes just call because they're lonely and they just wanna interact with someone for a few minutes. And we can do that.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:28:15):

Yeah. And you gotta make them feel like it's, there's nothing that's not okay.

Beth McCoach (00:28:18):

Right.

Dave MacDonald (00:28:19):

Well, the difference, I mean, if you're pressing a purs and you tell somebody the traditional purs and say, I don't feel good, you know, you just not having a great day. You wanna talk to somebody that's not really an option with a purs. You can't just have a casual conversation.

Beth McCoach (00:28:31):

Yeah. Have an ambulance show up at your

Dave MacDonald (00:28:32):

House. That's all that's gonna happen every time.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:28:34):

Right. So look, that's a simple bit of technology, but it isn't about the simplicity of the technology only. It's about how it's used in everyday life and how do you, how do you cultivate a environment where it's a back and forth, uh, where they engage in the, the other person engages, like normal people would engage mm-hmm <affirmative>. How did it make them sort of virtually present so that they feel like they're a part of someone's life and make sure that it's somebody that they knows. And, and so I take that and then where do we go from there? We sort looking at like the technology. Okay, well, you know, that person that they are most comfortable with may not always be available. Right? Right. So they press the button now and we have calling sort of pre technology where, where it's individualized and it can be individualized by topic or time or any other way that you wanna, you know, customize it. But, but it's like, it can go to their, it can go to their daughter and if their daughter doesn't answer it, what happens with it

Beth McCoach (00:29:45):

Rolls up to the next person that they have on their list.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:29:46):

Yeah.

Beth McCoach (00:29:47):

And if no one answers, it eventually goes to the support center. So someone picks up the

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:29:52):

Call. Yeah. I mean, never is it a case for somebody who doesn't

Beth McCoach (00:29:55):

Respond.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:29:55):

Right. Right. But the goal is having their preferences, uh, uh, for comfort perspective. So that's on the response side. The other side of it is, is somebody checking in, you know, with them periodically, they don't have to be, you know, like there virtually, but they could be. They could be. But it's equally important to have somebody, you know, check in. They need to know it's coming both ways. Um, and, and sometimes the way we do it, you know, they know that somebody's gonna check with them unless they do it first. And the motivation behind that is, well, if I do it, I can con I can control a little bit of the time on that and I can be in control of it. You know, and, and if I don't do anything, somebody's gonna check in on me. So I can, I can circumvent that.

(00:30:45):

You know, and we want people, I mean, even though we wanted to go both ways, we definitely want the customer to actively be able to do that. We want 'em to feel so comfortable of pressing that button because we don't want them to have to like, worry, am I gonna, am I going to bother somebody that should never be a thought, you know, in their head in this way it's an antithesis of a purse. Now can a pers level activity happen from it if you go and say, you know, I'm having trouble breathing. But of course it's emergency support, but at the same time, there's a recognition in the neighborhood network that nobody wants to go through that alone. We would never, for example, have an emergency deployment where we call 9 1 1 without somebody immediately being deployed that was somebody that they knew and trusted and that could help them.

(00:31:39):

Right. Right. So we take all of the, we try to take the discomfort out of anything that's dis that it would be, you know, discomfort team, I guess. But, but that's about, I guess a part of this discussion is like, it's not just about the technology, but it's also about how it's used. Now the technology though, has this principle approach of it's gotta be simple. Our goal is to connect it to people that they know, and then if that doesn't work, you know, go up the ladder. So that took a lot of technology to do all of that. I mean, you guys even have reminders that that can be personalized and, and stuff, but you know, not like, like you can have the person remind themselves

Beth McCoach (00:32:28):

And a scheduled time even. So if the person needs to do something the same time every day, then they, um, can set a reminder so that they automatically get that on their intercom. Yeah.

Dave MacDonald (00:32:39):

Yeah. And I think, I think some of the other technology we have in the, the home as well is completely transparent to people, which is, is just wonderful. And, you know, there's a lot of other things happening. But that interaction that we have, you know, by that, by, you know, using our, our, um, our intercoms, being able to speak with people, it's, it's based off of so many other things that nobody has to deal with. It's that back to that one touch, you know,

Beth McCoach (00:33:04):

Concept. Right. And the sensors that are in the home, they don't even, right. I mean, they go up and then the, the end user doesn't have to do anything with them. Well, they just send us data.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:33:11):

Yeah. And I think the, some of the, some of the misunderstandings about technology is, you know, sensors are hardware, right? That's all they are. And really best, I know most sensors, they have two states that are on or off, you know, whatever they are, they either detect something or they don't. In all truth, it's like popcorn. I mean, if you, if sensors by themselves would just be like popcorn going off. If you think of motion sensors, you're walking around on, walked a little farther, another one goes on, go a little farther, it goes on. And if you're receiving those alerts, and I've seen, you know, smart home technology and platforms out there, all you see is alert, alert, alert, alert. Mm-hmm. And it is just that, that like movement was detected or whatever. And it's like, that's completely useless help because from the, the support side of that, all you see is, oh, there was motion.

(00:34:07):

Oh, a door opened. Oh, this, or 99% of that can't be interpreted. Right. What's really functional, I keep going this from a behavioral point. If somebody gets outta bed at night and they go to the bathroom and then they go back to their bedroom within five minutes, who cares? Nobody cares. That's not something that should cause an alert. But the, the, the hardware of that would be like popcorn things going off. You know? And so what makes that smart isn't isn't the sensors, it's the, it's the programming and the log. It's the combination of the sensors and the programming and logic. And I think that's why

Dave MacDonald (00:34:50):

Our system gives the, the, the proper care at the right time. You know, it's not intrusive, but it, it just, it gives people exactly what they need at the right, you know, at the right time when they need it.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:35:00):

I mean, when I told the developer, uh, Doug Price, I said, yeah, well we have technology that lets us know if the stove is on, but nobody's in the kitchen or that they left, or it's unattended or it's too hot or these kind of things. It's like, do you realize that that's probably the number one concern for fire in an apartment complex is somebody leaving the stove on unattended? And it's not just those, you know, those people that you're supporting is everybody, uh, and everybody does it. And, and it's like, it's a big concern and it's a big insurance concern and those sorts of things. Like, well, yeah, I mean, the smart part of technology is this, the sensors combined with the logic, like, you know, the, nobody's in the kitchen, but the stoves on it is too hot. But I'm gonna use this as kind of a, a, a jumping point for like giving people a bit of a sneak peek at sort of the next level of performance.

(00:35:58):

And that is all that I just talked about was about knowing at a home level. And that's what most people need to understand is most smart technology sensors and even logic. Like, I got got up and I go to the bathroom and I didn't come out of the bathroom or, or somebody came in the after 10 30 at night. And you know, it, it, it, that information up to this point has been about home activities, not individual activities. There's a huge difference there. Like, I would know that somebody went in the bathroom and they didn't come out in time. I wouldn't exactly know who, I might know that somebody's up at night, but not necessarily know who. And I, I might even know that somebody came in or, or, or they may have come in or they may have gone out, but I don't know who.

(00:36:47):

Right. I, I might know those kinds of things. And then we were leaning on cameras to check in to find out what that is and, and, you know, people would raise privacy concerns about the use of cameras. But the reality is well, okay, yeah, but you could have staff just sitting there. There's no difference between, well, there's a lot of differences. It's less intrusive. If, if you only are in there for prescriptive reasons, then if you're just constantly just in there and the staff is, you know, aren't any, they're a lot less comfortable being a staff present than there is, you know, technology being present. But, but that being said, and that's kind of another discussion for maybe another day. But, but we only know things up to that point. We only know things at the home level. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

(00:37:30):

You know, all of what we're working on now is going down to the personal level. And what I'm saying is I don't wanna know that somebody's up. I wanna know that Fred's up. You know, I wanna know that if Fred's in the kitchen or Barney's in the kitchen, we gotta have different rules because, you know, Barney has Fred Willie syndrome and, and he has challenges with eating too much food or, or, or some other kinds of issues. Or he has a, you know, a, a concern about, you know, cooking and using the stove. So we need to have more help for Barney than we do, Fred. I mean, and right now we don't treat anybody you know, differently because of that, unless you're able to see them. But we know that we can, we, we have technology, we're on the cusp of this technology that, that allows us to know everybody on an individual level through wearables.

(00:38:27):

So what that means is, you know, wearable technology, but specific kind that we'll all find out about pretty soon, um, uh, allows us to know who, and if that interacts with the sensors and the logic, we're now in a position of go, oh, we we're not knowing that somebody's up at night. We know Fred's up at night. Now we can have different logic associated with that so that we can have different rules. Like, like, you know, Beth can be in the bathroom and in, in a shower, uh, and have that all running by herself. But if it's Mike, I can be in the bathroom, but I he shouldn't be showering by himself. 'cause he is a fall risk. Those are different rules. Yeah. The technology can tell you like the shower is on, it can tell you that you're in the bathroom, all these kind of things with without a camera. The the wearables though, and there's things beyond wearables that we know of too, but there's wearables that can tell us that a person is in that bathroom in interacting with the sensors, changes the whole game. And by the way, it improves privacy much to everybody's chagrin because we don't require any ability to have to look and see what they're doing to analyze it. It can all be automated to know, oh, Mary's, you know, in the kitchen and it's okay.

Beth McCoach (00:39:51):

And the technology for those wearables has come a really long way. Now the battery life is 30 days, takes 20 minutes to charge it.

Dave MacDonald (00:39:58):

Yeah.

Beth McCoach (00:39:58):

20 minutes. Yeah. And they're waterproof.

Dave MacDonald (00:40:01):

Yeah. You can shower with them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 30 days.

Beth McCoach (00:40:04):

30 days.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:04):

Wow. That's unbelievable. Battery weigh 76 pounds. <laugh>. No, I'm kidding you. It's, it's really cool technology and, and uh, and it, it's game changing, right? Yeah. Right. It's game changing.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:19):

Well, I remember, do you remember Mike, how it started? One office, one monitor, one person at night at Delaware Street? I remember it well, <laugh> and uh, it's, but even back then, when we were building the architecture using analog technology, privacy was a concern.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:38):

Sure. It was.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:39):

And you had privacy in mind and you knew back then that this technology will not decrease privacy opposite it will

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:48):

Increase, you know, just like there was a principle. One finger, one button.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:52):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:52):

There is a principle that everything we do is designed to advance self-direction, safety and privacy.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:58):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:59):

And, and, and it does. The problem is we have law ethic as a country. And I mean this, this is worth another, you know, show sometime. But as a country, we have lost the ability of knowing how to pick the least intrusive, potentially appropriate intervention for care. It used to be really simple. It is. In medical world, I'll give you an example. You know, in the medical ward you could, you, you had open heart surgery and you had angioplasty, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Angioplasty was a camera on the stick. Remote control, the smart home, smart technology can't, you know, angioplasty

Ivo Ivanov (00:41:37):

Much less intrusive

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:41:37):

Technology, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:41:38):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:41:39):

Well, we started comparing the benefits of angioplasty to open heart surgery. And we found that when 90% of the procedures angioplasty was less intrusive and and more effective, had a higher survival rate, it had a, a, a better outcomes on all these dimensions. So therefore, on the hierarchy of intrusiveness, angioplasty went up and open, heart surgery went down. And there's no way you can physically pick, for example, open heart surgery over angioplasty. Well, you would think that's pretty clear logic, right? Well, you now you go into smart home technology and, and you know, traditional care is a person going in somebody's room and going in, going in, uh, somebody's apartment and staying there when they're not welcome and staying there because that's just the only way care could delivered. Just like open heart surgery used to be the only way, you know, care could be delivered.

(00:42:36):

Now, you know, the current practice now is in-home care is by a human. They usually, if you know the turnover rate and the stability rate that they often don't know, right? And that person is in the home at times that they're needed and times that they're not needed. That person is surveilling all the time. You can't control what they see. You can't control what they do. You can't control that they're sitting on the couch and they sit there and they say, well, what do you wanna watch tonight? It's like, I don't want you to decide what we watch tonight. But, you know, that's not what happens. You could be in the ivory tower all you want, but the reality is you spend a a a minute with a senior and ask them if they like that life. It's like a perennial guest in your home, a perennial bad guest half the time in your home.

Ivo Ivanov (00:43:25):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:43:26):

Right. Well, one would think that the, that the logical comparison would be, you know, a remote support and smart technology to that. But they don't do that. They're basically saying, well, we're not gonna compare it to the alternative for God's sakes. We're gonna compare it to itself. I think, I think the percept we're gonna say, oh, well yes, that, that's really cool. But it'd be a less, it would be like less intrusive if we didn't have cameras. Yes, it would. But then the reality is, all the care that you could do now remotely with, with somebody remotely present, you can't do because there's no camera to interact with. And now the choice is in home services. And well, yeah. That's like saying, well, yeah, I'm gonna take the camera out of angioplasty and see how that works.

Dave MacDonald (00:44:14):

But, but there's such a perception problem with, with the, the technology with some people where you could have a camera on, on one side of the table and you could have an Alexa on the other side of the table. Both of them are cameras. But people would look at it and go, well, that's just an Alexa.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:28):

And, and that is so interesting 'cause you see how this world is a lot evolving and these things get really challenging. In fact, when the, the cool, uh, we'll probably do this episode, but I'm doing it, uh, this year in conferences. I'm doing the, the intrusion game. And it is kind of a, it's kind of a game where we play with the audience where, where you basically present two alternatives and ask them to pick which one they prefer.

(00:44:52):

And so I'm doing these scenarios so that they can see and create almost a scale of intrusion by these forced pairs. And at the end show them, okay, you just buy, buy vote. You just created this continuum and they gotta look at it and say, well, yeah, we did. And it's like, that means that this is less intrusive than this and this is more intrusive than that. And on that. And they have to admit at that point that, you know, the traditional approach was the way we did it, but we need to swipe it left and, and recognize that it's no longer the right way to do

Beth McCoach (00:45:33):

It. And the cameras don't always equal surveillance. And that's something

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:45:37):

You say no, because that's not the same. Because you can turn them on and you can turn them off. The cameras can, cameras can do so much and, and, and advanced cameras like when they are self-directed, for example, if you like, yeah. The hypocrisy around this is just mind boggling. It's like, you know, I can look at a, a, a, a remote employer, an employee and say, well, would you rather be remote today with a and join us by Zoom? Or would you rather come in? And I say, well, I'd rather be remote and join you by Zoom. And then all of a sudden I find out that they're remote with us and join by Zoom. But they turn their image off and they go, Uhuh not here. We, you know, Beth, we don't allow that in good life. And I say, look, if you wanna be remote, that's cool, but we want you to give personal regard.

(00:46:26):

We want you to show the, the, the people you're working with that you're listening and attending and participating in that. So no, you, your choice is you can come in, that's cool. Or you can be remote and you can have your camera on, I don't care if you wanna make a, you know, a, a cookie background or a, or whatever background, but we wanna see your face and we wanna make sure that you're, that we're all engaged in talking and things like that. This isn't like video conferencing to, you know, people who are doing training. Although I feel the same way about that. But it's like working with people who, who are engaged in meetings, you know, and in, in talking we don't allow people to turn off. And, and when I say, look, if you'd rather come in, that's cool. And they go, oh no, no, I'm fine staying home.

(00:47:14):

You know that. So by that choice, I know that that's less intrusive for them than than coming in. Right. So you clearly know that remote support, support with showing yourself, it isn't about showing yourself, it's about the control. I mean it's really the issue is what, what makes remote support, even with cameras less intrusive than in home support, is having the ability to have greater control over what you see, what you and, and how it works and or even over the, the initiation of it. So being able to, to be able to control, well, yeah, I'm okay with having video, but I only want it in this area.

Ivo Ivanov (00:48:01):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:48:01):

Or I want be able to turn it on and off, or I want it to be fuzz out so they can see my emotion when they're doing virtual staffing, but they don't need to see great details. Okay. You

Beth McCoach (00:48:14):

Know. Well, and on a regular basis, our software, one of the things that's so great about it is that when we set specific parameters with rules that we call rules and our software that are individualized based on the person, is that when that alert comes in, we actually can see the camera feed then. And there's really in most situations, no other need for us to look at it. Yep. So we're only looking at it during the time when we've already established that there could be an issue. And otherwise there's just no need to look at the camera at all.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:48:41):

Well, and, and there's always conditions. I mean, you know, look, if I'm having a normal conversation, I can probably do that over an intercom, you know, just press a button. Absolutely. That I don't need to have a camera on all that. But, but there's always situations where a camera would be helpful in teaching somebody how to cook or things like that. And, and it would be more, uh, less intrusive than having a staff person coming over to help them for that person. Um, you know, our goal in the neighborhood network I always said is we want every time that somebody asks for help or needs help to be an opportunity for them to decide what the best approach they want. Do they want somebody to come over and help them? Or would they like somebody to remotely coach them by voice or remotely coach them video interface.

(00:49:34):

Right. That's a level of control we wanna give our customers. We don't want them to think, you know, and that's so funny 'cause you see all these policies come out, like to have one decision say, well, would you rather have remote support? Or would you rather have in-home support? It's like, well why are we making them choose like that when we don't do it that way? I mean, every day that you get up, you decide, do I need to go to that place to meet with them in person or should I remotely work with them? And, and, and the answer is, well it depends. Is this the first time you've met this person? What level of importance of the meeting is there? Are you, are you, do you need to be physically present to demonstrate something to them in, in a way? Or is it somebody you work with commonly? Is it too far to travel? Is it, is it more convenient for them? Is it, what, what's all of those are organic decisions that you make, like in the moment of the time, right?

Beth McCoach (00:50:31):

Yeah. The answer is I choose both <laugh>. It depends on the situation.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:50:35):

And, and by the way, I may choose different methods for the same thing. 'cause I'm having a bad hair day today, <laugh>, you know, and because I having a bad hair day today, I don't want anybody in. I just do not feel like dressing up. I don't feel like that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not entertaining today. Yeah. Or I'm a little lonely. I'm, I'm cool with that. But here's the other consequences. The real world, if I, we are in the private pay world and you gotta pay $50 to have somebody come in, or you've had to pay $6 to have somebody remotely visit, that's a real choice too, right? Absolutely. The real world chooses that, you know, but, but when it's a, a sort of a free trough, then, then, you know, well I don't, you know, whatever. But, but there are all kinds of factors.

(00:51:25):

That's the point and all that. But, but the point I wanted to make is, our technology is built around creating the least intrusive, potentially appropriate way to help somebody live the life they wanna live. And that could be, you know, interactive, full duplex, high quality conference level intercoms that allows really clear conversations and speech and interactions. It can be a, a private auto dial phone where somebody has to pick it up and it dials on. It is a calling freeze. I mean all those technology things are there, but then on the, on the video side, 'cause you want to be able to help people eyes on, but, but, but maybe a singer says, yeah, there might be times where I wanna do that, but I wanna control it. Alright, that's cool. You can control it. You can turn it on. You can turn it off. You can, you can require an an, you know, a response to answer. You can, you can do all of those things. You can cover the camera, but do you really want to not have the ability to do it? Lemme give an example. I always used to give this way back in the beginning days when somebody would bring this up, I'd say, well, let me, let me, let's say that you were using OnStar, okay?

Ivo Ivanov (00:52:43):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:52:43):

And you're coming, your daughter was coming home after prom late by herself. Not usually the case, but in this case, let's take it that way this time,

Ivo Ivanov (00:52:53):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:52:55):

All of a sudden there's a, a, a, a deer that comes out and there's a crash. You know, OnStar, we should know how it works. There's a accelerometer and a sensor that if you get in an accident, it's activated immediately. Right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:53:08):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:53:09):

Well let's say that it massive, you know, crash because of this OnStar was activated and this person comes on speaking, ma'am, are you okay? Are or or are you okay? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Not knowing who it is

Ivo Ivanov (00:53:22):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:53:23):

And no response. Are you okay? No response. I'm gonna ask everybody in the room. Would you be okay under those conditions that a video that the, the A camera came on. So you know, whether you're gonna have to life flight somebody, whether what what the, what we're dealing with here or is privacy more important to you? Mm. Yeah. Which one? What would you want for your daughter? Exactly. No, it's obvious. Just there is no question. So the point is, there was always conditions in which you're gonna want to be able to do it. And they're not necessarily an emergency. It could be convenience. It's like, I don't wanna go into work there. I'm gonna do a video conference. You know? But the thing is, we can say, well, yeah, so if somebody would do that, can use Zoom. The truth is no, they can't. If it, because that violates the one button theory.

Ivo Ivanov (00:54:14):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:54:15):

You don't have the ability to use these complicated things. So a real platform of support has to have this ability to use all these features without the person being able to know how to do all the crazy things you have to do to do Zoom or Microsoft or Lord help you. If it's Microsoft teams, it takes a year to figure out how to, how to do that or, or, or you know, Google Meet or whatever. You know, you just, you can't use that as a solution

Dave MacDonald (00:54:44):

Because it's too complicated. And it's, and it's funny 'cause OnStar is so transparent to people. You don't think about OnStar when you get in a car. You just get in a car and you drive it. Right. And then at your time of need, guess what's there? You know, it's, it's one of those things that with our, with, you know, our sensors and how it looks at things when you need it.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:55:00):

Yeah. And, and you know, the other thing about, uh, about, uh, people's kind of misunderstandings about technology is, especially in the care world, they wanna control what sensors are in the home thinking it's a privacy issue. Right. Which in all reality, sensors in the home combined with, with, with, with, with, with smart logic.

Ivo Ivanov (00:55:22):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:55:23):

Are designed to advance privacy, not inhibit it.

Ivo Ivanov (00:55:27):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:55:28):

For, but, but again, they gotta compare it to the alternative. They can't keep comparing it to itself.

Ivo Ivanov (00:55:33):

Yeah. Yeah.

(00:55:34):

They

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:55:34):

Have to say, well, comparing it to staff, if I have sensors in the home combined with logic, then I would know specific conditions under which I want to have somebody check in on somebody. Like somebody gets up, they go to the bathroom, but they go back to the bedroom within 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes. There's a, there's a number there. Ethere of the bathroom too long that you're gonna say, well maybe we should check in on them. But if they don't take too long, then there's no need to. Right. So what You could look at that as intrusion or you could look at that as we just filtered out 50 times they went to the restroom that we didn't need to help them and pinpointed two times that we did, which is less intrusive. Knowing about the 50, like a staff there watching them every time they go in and outta the bathroom fills me out nothing. Or having sensors go off every time and every time we check them or having logic there where you sift out all these things, oh, well, yeah. You know, uh, they're in the kitchen, but, but you know, the stove's on, they're in the kitchen, they've been engaged. The stove's not too hot. It's, it's only, it's Mary. We're good to go, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we got, we got to stop looking at technology and comparing it to itself and doing intrusion. We have to compare it to what we would do if we didn't have it.

Ivo Ivanov (00:57:08):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:57:08):

And when we start doing that, then they'll start using and doing, uh, uh, uh, sort of, uh, um, privacy tests and intrusion tests, the way the federal government has designed them to be done by law, which is compare it to something you pick the least intrusive, potentially effective procedure that can accomplish the goal that you need to have accomplished. And that means not just looking at one procedure. That means looking at what would you, what would you do if you didn't do this? And I get it. If, if you didn't need any help, well, yeah, okay, fine. But if the alternative was, I gotta put a staff in there, then put a side by side chart together and tell me which one's more intrusive. And then you go from the top to the bottom, you say, okay, you know, with technology, I can be there only under certain conditions, staff. No. With this one, I can turn it on and off and they go away. Staff. No. You know, on this one, I can control what they see, what they don't see staff. No. You know, you can go through all that thing and go, well, okay. And

Beth McCoach (00:58:15):

That's what you can even get staff to be there in the first place. With the staffing crisis,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:58:18):

Is it reliable? Is it, yeah. So, you know, we are all, we're making some crazy strategy decisions about how we pick it. The other thing that, that, you know, I, I love about, like, the approach is that we're, we understand the value of personal technology. I mean, like watches and, and indivi, I call it consumer technology, right? I mean, I was at a conference, Beth, uh, uh, a few months ago. A person was talking about the various personalized technologies that exist. They went through 30 examples in that, in that conference, here's 30 individual technologies that would be useful to help people live in independently. And I sat there and, and to the, you know, that was 30 apps, by the way.

Beth McCoach (00:59:16):

I know. I was there. It was ridiculous.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:17):

It was ridiculous. Because

Beth McCoach (00:59:19):

It's impossible. It would be impossible to navigate even a few of 'em at one time.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:24):

Yes. I mean, the reality is, if you're an agency trying to support people,

Beth McCoach (00:59:28):

Right?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:29):

And you serve 200 people, and each person had a, a personalized,

Beth McCoach (00:59:34):

Even just one of those,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:35):

One of them,

Beth McCoach (00:59:36):

Right?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:36):

How would you possibly, you can't remotely support them. You know, there's no, there's a thing that we've talked about in the past. We have flow Dr. Uh, you know, DR read on, we talked about implementation science, cardinal rule of implementation. Science is you have to have replicable procedures. That's scalable. Right? There's nothing scalable about, about that approach. So one of the cool things that we're looking at is how do you take, what is we got to exploring? What do all of these personalized technologies have in common? You know, like a watch, for example. Watch it have what, uh, biometrics, right?

Ivo Ivanov (01:00:18):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:00:19):

It would tell you if you have too high of O2 or too low of O2 or, or that, that you fell or that all these things, right?

Ivo Ivanov (01:00:27):

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:00:28):

Well, I don't care if it's an iWatch or a Samsung or a, or a, a garment or whatever. The one thing that they all have in common is a notification.

Ivo Ivanov (01:00:37):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:00:39):

At the end of the day, if something like that happens, there's often a notification that can be sent to a phone number. Yeah. A text usually. Right? Well, when we got to thinking about this, okay, if that's true, why don't we just intercept those notifications and harness that in the system and let people wear whatever they want. But we can standardize how we handle that. Know.

Dave MacDonald (01:01:06):

I think that's, that's a beauty of our system. And we can, we can digest all of those various, doesn't matter who they are, where they come from, we're able to pull those in and, and get 'em where they need to

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:01:16):

Go. We turn individual consumer grade technology into a platform of support. Exactly.

(01:01:22):

Exactly. And allow them that individual, you know, and allow that individualization. But doing that, so that's one of the RD things that we're like knee deep in right now. The other part is the, is is literally looking at those, you know, I don't know that, that, uh, the world knows this, but in many care areas, the most deadly time of day is not day, it's night. Uh, I would say most of the, uh, death and IDD especially Id with who have seizure disorders is night, nighttime, night. Yeah. Night. And, you know, this happened a couple months ago. Uh, a good friend of mine, um, his son passed away. Oh, no. And, and what we believe was a night seizure.

Ivo Ivanov (01:02:08):

A seizure, grand mal seizure.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:02:10):

Right. And I know there's tech, there's technology that could connect.

Ivo Ivanov (01:02:14):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:02:14):

Night seizures. That's not very good. I'll, I'll, I'll let you know that. Not very reliable. Uh, but at the end of the day, um, you know, even if it's intermittent and or that it's, it's not, they don't have a known condition, but somebody died, you know, the response to that as well, you know, how would we, would, how would we know, you know, how, uh, you know, we did everything we could, you know, those are the words that I hear people saying. And I, I sat there and I thought, well, you know what? I don't think we did. You know, I mean, I think we could do more on that. That's where we really got into the, like the wearable, you know, biomedical stuff, high O2, low, O2, variable heart rate. All these notifications are now getting more and more precise. I don't care whether they're medical grade, to be honest with you. I don't mind getting a false one. You know, where I go and it's unnecessary. Uh, and I'm not using it to diagnose, I'm just using it for deployment. You know, that's all we're using it for. But Yeah. But the reality is to have a device that you can wear at night that could let you know that you're in stress of some sort.

Ivo Ivanov (01:03:23):

Lifesaving. Lifesaving. It's lifesaving. Sometimes even the heart rate is an indicator of a grand mal seizure.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:03:30):

Yeah.

Ivo Ivanov (01:03:30):

And the solution saving a life could be as simple as clearing the air pathways or a person that's having the grand mal seizure. And I

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:03:37):

Think, and go ahead. Aspirating. It could be

Dave MacDonald (01:03:39):

A thousand things. I was just gonna say the ability of, sorry, you go <laugh>. Let's just say the, the, the smart watches have come so far that they're, they're, it's not like you're wearing a medical device anymore. They become so commonplace, you know? Yeah. That people don't look at it as some crazy thing on their wrist. It's smart watch.

Beth McCoach (01:03:56):

But I was gonna say with, with AI now too, you can get a lot of predictive health information based on your biometrics as well.

Ivo Ivanov (01:04:02):

Mm-hmm

Beth McCoach (01:04:03):

<affirmative>. That, and that's what, um, some people are utilizing those for so that they can tell like, things have not been normal with you lately. You're, you haven't been sleeping as much and whatever else they're looking at biometrics can help determine if somebody's coming down with something or if someone's, um, health status has changed.

Ivo Ivanov (01:04:19):

Yeah. Yeah. I've observed for years and years, our two guests working alongside Dr. Strouse to help our technology long before AI make intelligent decisions. And I've seen you guys improve and create this multi-layered platform that's very complex and can make decisions that remove this randomness that Dr. Strouse was talking about that's inherent with sensors and be more selective and create a level of privacy on micro level, highly individualized. And I'll give an example. Um, and maybe our, I mean, David can explain it on coding level even. Uh, but you guys are able to pixelate pictures on the walls. You are able to remove parts of the home or even make people's darken them so you can see the faces. It is amazing what you were able to create an engineer. Uh, so the privacy will be improved and the safety will be improved of everyone. And then we might have to talk also about the deployment strategy that we have. You know, we don't believe in flying monkeys, but we believe in highly intelligent, uh, quick response, um, and very, very, uh, competent deployment staff. So

Dave MacDonald (01:05:45):

Yeah, I think it comes down to being the least intrusive as possible and only giving that care when needed. I mean, there's like

Ivo Ivanov (01:05:52):

Yeah. On demand

Dave MacDonald (01:05:53):

As simplified as it could get, really. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:05:54):

Well, and, and you know, another kind of belief out there is that somebody should go through and say, okay, there's not enough justification to put the sensor in, so let's not put that sensor in

Ivo Ivanov (01:06:08):

Mm-hmm

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:06:08):

<affirmative>. Um, and there are, there, they're trying to, to create privacy at the sensor level, when in truth, everybody who is in the high tech world, I'm talking about you have an iPhone, you don't pick the sensors that you have an iPhone, you know, there, there's seven of them. You go to Alexa, there's a X number there. You go to, you know, a ring that you wear on your finger. There'll maybe, you know, nine sensors or four sensors. There's different levels of sensors. They don't, when you have a consumer buys that stuff, you don't get to say, oh, I don't really need that sensor. So don't put that in there. The truth is, all the privacy and the use of the sensors is done by software. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. On your iPhone, you either get to there's location tracking or not by app. Not overall. So if you don't want to have that feature, you don't say it, but let's say all of a sudden you have a health issue and you want that feature, or your day changes, or you're in an acute, you know, you're in a cycle of one sort or another. And it would be helpful.

Ivo Ivanov (01:07:14):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:07:15):

The reality is you shouldn't control the privacy exclusively by what you, you know, by, by the build. You should control it by the software. Most people don't do that because they don't have software that can control it. Right. So they've, they've Jerry rigged this thing by saying, well, you know, we can control it by what you put in the home. But that is really a bad idea because it doesn't allow people to choose and ebb and flow. And because needs don't just happen once and then they never happen. People's needs, you know, cycle and they change and you don't foresee things Well, and, and it's funny.

Dave MacDonald (01:07:55):

'cause not just the, the, the phones the perfect example. Car manufacturers are doing that now, where they're literally giving you crazy every single option. They're, they're manufacturing cars with everything, and you literally pay for what upgrade you want on the vehicle.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:08:07):

Yeah.

Dave MacDonald (01:08:07):

So it's, it's, it's there.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:08:09):

Yeah. Yeah. And, and even cameras, you know, we gotta, I I, if I could come up with a longer for a camera, it'd probably be a good idea because, you know, the truth is the camera, the, the current ones are, are, are sort of optical sensors.

Ivo Ivanov (01:08:25):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:08:26):

I mean, you don't, I can put, you know, again, I'm only saying this for illustration. You can take a, a thermal imaging camera and you can put it in a bedroom. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And you can tell if somebody's incontinent based on temperature change in a certain geographical region within a certain timeframe, you can tell if somebody's incontinent. Now, that doesn't mean that, that that thermal imaging device conveys a picture. All it means is, yeah, I recognize that. I am going to say it happened. I'm gonna have a text sent that you need to shelter in Barney, because he's, you know, the conditions were there that he is incontinent. And so no, no video exchanged hands. It was a sensor.

Dave MacDonald (01:09:21):

But this an optical sensor. I think the perception of people though is that they think of, you know, a security guard sitting in front of this massive pile of screams, and it's just not that way anymore. And I go back to the car concept. All the sensors that are in a car, they're looking at driving along. They're, they're making decisions based off of cars coming in my lane. That video is nowhere. Yeah. It's not

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:09:43):

Something that's being saved. So, so let's look at the, and again, if somebody had that condition of, of incontinence, and let's say, okay, well, let's, what's the alternative? Now, in all truth, there may be other alternatives that we could explore, but, but let's say, but, but the one that they're okay saying without even questioning, they don't even, they don't even ask was, let's have a staff going there with a little pen light every hour, lift up the covers and just check. Mm. So that's okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Wake you

Beth McCoach (01:10:14):

Up every single hour, so

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:10:15):

That's okay. Not sleeping, but it's not okay to allow somebody to sleep, to not do it, and to never, never look under the covers. And which one

Dave MacDonald (01:10:24):

Is less intrusive?

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:10:25):

Well, it's always, it's not

Dave MacDonald (01:10:26):

Even a question.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:10:27):

It's not even a question. But the problem is, they don't compare it to that because they give that other process. Oh, that's, that's, that's approved. That's like saying open heart surgery is always approved, but we're really concerned about angioplasty because we have heard that it uses a camera, and so we can't really use it. But if you could only consider doing Angel Place without the camera, we might give it a go. So we can't, you, you, you got to change. And, and the irony is, I'm not asking people to change how they make decisions. I'm asking them to, to make decisions the way you're supposed to make them. By law, we have changed how we're making decisions because we don't do that. We don't compare it to the alternative. We can compare it to itself. We can, we say, can this procedure be designed less intrusively?

(01:11:28):

And then there's this other part of that requirement, you have to use the least intrusive, potentially effective procedure that can accomplish the goal. They leave that last part off, they leave that last part off. So yeah, if you can have it be less intrusive, any procedure, less intrusive than an accomplished goal, you should do it. So if you can, like, if you don't need to have a, a video, you know, use video, and somebody doesn't wanna do it. If they don't wanna zoom, they just wanna use the intercom. I don't have a problem with that. But if you, but if you can't, if you can't use a Zoom light technology and you have to go into work, I at least know what the majority of the world would pick. Because 65% of everybody applying for a job today prefers remote, remote support. They want a hybrid or a remote job. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. We as an agency, ebb and flow, I have to go home today because I'm having a security system myself installed, and I wanna be there when it, it happens. So I have meetings and I had a, I went to a chief's game last year and met out in the parking lot, had a, had a, a virtual meeting, and I didn't have to change my life. I, otherwise I'd had, I couldn't have gone to the chief's game. I couldn't have done that. Right.

Ivo Ivanov (01:12:48):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:12:49):

The whole idea is for, for all this stuff to get outta your way of having an enriched life to do. Yeah. That includes having things inserted into your life that's unwelcome.

Ivo Ivanov (01:13:01):

It's amazing. We've had iLink for quarter of a century. I know guys quarter of a century. And yes, there are other, yeah, there are other companies that have a, a easy button solution, but like you said, not everything's 9 1 1, not everything's emergency. And most other comp companies, there's zero sum response. And they would, uh, you know, you don't want the ambulance, the fire department, social services coming, uh, a police car coming with a siren blasting and spinning the tires, cops making shoulder rolls over the hood, and yet actually the resident just needed, the resident just was having a little bit of a panic attack and needed to be deescalated by somebody that the resident knows mm-hmm <affirmative>. And that's what we do. You know, we are, we are highly personalized. Um, our technology support system is multilayered. It provides safety, it provides one easy button solution. It provides privacy, independence, self direction, all of this. And, um,

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:14:05):

And it's a, and it's a platform. And you gotta look at also from the person's, uh, position of, of the support person, a person, 50 people or 20 people have to have a, a platform that, that is simple from their perspective too. Even though they're, they're managing all the, the innovations from there. But it's like that plain cockpit might be more sophisticated than the home. But you don't have a different cockpit for each person. You have one login, you have one login, you have one cockpit, you have one set of dials, you have one, one process. You're looking at, you don't have a different one for every person. You, you've gotta make it work for everybody so that you can connect the people that they need to the people who need help, uh, and, and give them all the tools that they need. You want them to have as many of the same abilities remotely that they do in person.

Ivo Ivanov (01:14:59):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:15:00):

You know, when I say, see here, speak and act, those are the things you, you expect.

Ivo Ivanov (01:15:06):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:15:07):

It's like, okay, you need to be able to see when you need to see, you need to be able to talk, when you need to talk. You need to be able to hear when you need to hear, you need to be able to feel sense, and you need to be able to act home automations. All those things are necessary if you're going to be able to remotely do the things that you would otherwise do in person, but less intrusively.

Ivo Ivanov (01:15:27):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:15:27):

That's, that's what, you know, that's where you guys are. So

Ivo Ivanov (01:15:31):

We'll have to leave this discussion open because a lot of stuff still remains in the Emerald City. Uh, there's much, much more to discuss in the future, but we have to wrap it up for today. Um, this was the quest for the good life with Dr. Mike Strouse, future winner of the reality show, survivor <laugh>. Uh, we want to thank, um, our wonderful guests, Beth McCoach and David McDonald. Um, people today, day tip of the day. Um, if you can't fix it with duct tape, you're not using enough duct tape. <laugh>, today's episode was produced by Megan Olafson and recorded at The GoodLife University Studios, sound editing, sound engineering, and fun engineering were provided by me, your co-host with the co-host Ivo Ivanov. Together, we thank you for listening and promise you that the Quest for the GoodLife will continue next week.