The budget squeeze is on. Here's your roadmap to turn healthcare's biggest challenge into your biggest opportunity.
If you’ve been following healthcare industry news lately, you know there’s a storm brewing: budgets are getting tighter, government resources are being slashed. But guess what? Funding challenges like these are about to accelerate one of the biggest opportunities of our lifetimes - technology innovation at home. If there’s a time for visionary thinking (and investing), it’s right now.
Why the Home Is the Future
Traditionally, healthcare solutions have revolved around big systems with big budgets. But in an era of cost-cutting, the focus is shifting to smaller, more personal environments - like people’s own living rooms. And this is good news for senior living communities, home health providers, EHR platforms, and disabilities support services.
Why? Because delivering care at home (or in a small community setting) is personal, and more cost-effective. Real-time data creates earlier interventions, which prevents costly ER visits.
For healthcare companies, this is the chance to rethink the standard model of fee-for-service, reduce our reliance on reaction-based care, and lean into a new era of value-based solutions. Companies who follow the glide path will thrive, while others will struggle.
Maslow’s HealthTech Hierarchy
We can borrow a page from our old psychology textbooks - remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? It’s a pyramid that starts with basic physiological needs and rises all the way up to self-actualization. If you’re developing or investing in health tech, here’s how you can align solutions with these tiers to really understand - and meet - people’s needs.
1. Physiological: Extending from the Basics
Think of this as the foundation. Healthcare companies are already familiar with Remote Patient Monitoring - blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, glucometers, and so on. These devices ensure that essential clinical data doesn’t get missed.
But if you’re a CIO or a senior living executive, ask yourself:
Are we doing anything useful with the data, modeling it, and combining it to extract new insights - beyond displaying the most recent data points on a screen to a clinician?
Are we leveraging these insights to calculate daily fall risk assessments or discharge risks, proactively lowering risk?
Fee-for-service models tend to be myopically focused on the patient. Are we activating the multi-generational family around this person to increase engagement and adherence, maximizing revenue?
Can we go beyond the limitations of biometrics to more advanced monitoring tools, like ambient health and lifestyle sensing to detect unusual behavior, or digital therapeutics that coach people on daily habits?
Traditional RPM is a fine start, and limited. It’s the jumping-off point for bigger, more holistic solutions.
2. Safety: Early Detection and Prevention
Once physiological needs are monitored, people start worrying about safety and security. For healthcare companies, this is where value-based care starts coming in strong. Examples include:
Unite data from people, places, and things: When you get all the data in one spot and combine it with a powerful AI engine, cool things happen. Your existing EHR data alone predicts falls. RPM data combines in new ways to trend out a prediction for hypertension. You can identify people who are at risk of loneliness and isolation. Get ahead of the problems before they turn critical.
Precision Interventions through Ambient Lifestyle Pattern Tracking: Using ambient sensors around the home to detect if someone hasn’t gotten out of bed at their usual time, or if they’ve left the house at odd hours, or had a sudden decrease in mobility.
This tier is where technology truly begins to shine, because the data here goes beyond vitals. It’s about daily living patterns and subtle changes in behavior. It’s one of the biggest opportunities for saving costs, decreasing hospital admissions, and showing real ROI.
3. Love & Belonging is More Than Just “Check-Ins”
Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter - literally.
Human beings need connection. For healthcare, that connection often comes from personal caregivers, family members, or community staff.
But technology is increasingly stepping into companionship territory. Virtual assistants, social engagement platforms, and telepresence devices can combat loneliness. Even chatbots and AI companions - once a futuristic idea - are showing up, providing conversation, answering questions, and sometimes even playing games or reading stories with older adults or those with cognitive impairments.
Some people are actually “falling in love” with these AI chatbots. We’ve seen stories of individuals forming emotional bonds with large language model–powered assistants. They feel heard, validated, and less lonely.
To the executives and CIOs out there, this can be both exciting and nerve-racking. Where do we draw the line between healthy technology-based support and something that starts to replace actual human interaction?
4. Esteem: Dignity, Independence & Confidence
Once we cover basic and safety needs, the aim is fostering dignity and self-esteem in users. For seniors or people with disabilities, this could mean:
Apps that encourage independence: Tools that help them navigate public transport or manage their finances online.
Gamification of Health Goals: Celebrating small wins, like walking 500 extra steps a day or mastering a new skill on a home exercise program.
Virtual Care Teams: Secure platforms that let patients communicate directly with a care manager or nurse, building confidence and engagement in their own healthcare journey.
When people feel capable, respected, and in control, we see better outcomes, fewer hospital visits, and higher satisfaction rates.
5. Self-Actualization: Full Potential & Beyond
At the top of the pyramid is self-actualization - living life to the fullest. If technology can handle the lower-level needs (monitoring, safety, connection), users can focus on what truly matters - spending time with family, having meaningful conversations, exploring hobbies, or simply enjoying a higher quality of life.
In practical terms, that looks like:
Care that comes to them: No more stressful commutes to specialists; remote healthcare woven into the fabric of your life will become the new norm.
Preventative Approach: Data-driven insights anticipate issues before they happen.
Peace of Mind: Families can relax, knowing that “Mom” or “Dad” has a digital safety net.
Where Does the Industry Go From Here?
Integrated Solutions: No single tool or point solution can handle all these layers alone. We need ecosystems - partnerships between EHR systems, device makers, AI developers, and service providers - to model the interwoven data for each individual holistically and create truly seamless care experiences. This is what we’re enabling at Care Daily.
Value-Based Models: Instead of charging per device or service, consider outcome-based contracts. When our technology prevents a hospital admission, the savings should be shared among providers, insurers, and even the patient.
Ethical Considerations: AI companionship is real, and some find it beneficial. Transparency, data security, and emotional safety are paramount. New privacy-focused frameworks and CARE Protocols are emerging to ensure technologies are a welcome guest in the private homes of individuals.
For Investors: This Is the Moment
Healthcare budgets are shrinking, deregulation is happening, while the demand for in-home solutions is skyrocketing. Families, clinicians, and payers are all craving cost-effective ways to keep people healthy and independent. This is exactly where forward-thinking companies can thrive.
This is about creating comprehensive solutions and ecosystems that meet real human needs, starting with physiological basics and rising all the way to self-actualization. According to Andreessen Horowitz, the biggest company in the world will be HealthTech.
Yes, the money is there to be made. But importantly, the impact is there. Our system can’t survive without major changes. The old, broken healthcare system is getting abolished while we’re already at crisis levels on providing support. Those who innovate now will transform how healthcare is delivered.
Break the Model
Healthcare has always been about treating people after they’re in crisis. That’s expensive, wasteful, and often not patient-centric. The future is about proactive care - catching issues before they become serious, and empowering people to stay healthier, safer, and more fulfilled in their own homes.
If you’re a CIO or executive in senior living, home health, or disability support, this is your time to step up and push for meaningful tech adoption. If you’re an EHR platform vendor or a venture capitalist, this is your moment to fund and build next-gen systems that don’t just record data but translate it into action.
The Hierarchy as Our Guide Maslow’s Pyramid reminds us that people have multi-layered needs. Let’s serve those needs holistically. Let’s not just tack on technology but integrate it thoughtfully so that we can:
1. Cover the physiological basics (remote patient monitoring).
2. Enhance safety (ambient sensors, holistic data driving predictions, AI-driven alerts).
3. Foster connection (human-centered AI tools).
4. Build confidence (digital coaching, improved care coordination).
5. Ultimately, free people to live their best lives (self-actualization).
Budget cuts can be a blessing in disguise - driving us to come up with creative, cost-effective, person-centric solutions. If we do this right, we’ll improve care, reduce costs, and create a massive opportunity for those leading the charge.
We’re at a pivotal moment, folks. Let’s embrace it!
