Every day, millions of people care for their sick family members at home. In China, there is a significant number of patients who require long-term recovery at home after surgery or suffer from chronic diseases but cannot be hospitalized for extended periods, opting instead for home-based treatment. Similarly, the elderly at home require long-term care. According to a longitudinal study on eldercare conducted from 2008 to 2015, 97% of older adults prefer to age in place. As population aging becomes increasingly prominent, the market gap for home-based elderly care continues to widen.

In the United States, there is a company calledSeniorlinkThe company aims to help address the challenges of home care, standing side by side with the unsung heroes who care for patients and the elderly in their homes, and continuously assisting them in providing care and support.On October 11, Seniorlink secured investment from professional investors in the healthcare sector. NewSpring H$7.5 million investment from ealth Capital.

Seniorlink was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Boston. The founder, E. Byron Hensley Jr., also serves as the company’s Chairman. When he established Seniorlink, he had two objectives: one was to provide seniors with the option of receiving care at home; the other was to offer support to those who need to care for elderly family members.

This business model actually originated from the MENTOR network, founded by Hensley in 1983 to assist troubled youth and individuals with developmental disabilities. After witnessing his grandfather lose his personal freedom upon entering a nursing home, Hensley developed the belief that everyone has the right to age with dignity, including the choice between aging at home or in a nursing facility. This conviction also drove him to adapt the MENTOR network’s model into Seniorlink.

Thomas Riley is the CEO of the company, primarily responsible for Seniorlink’s technical design. He also serves as a board member and interim chair of The Brown School (which provides information and counseling to U.S. residents and rehabilitation facilities), and acts as a mentor to the CEO and CFO of Care Advantage (a high-cost case management service provider).

Founder E. Byron Hensley Jr. (left) and CEOThomas Riley(Right)

Since its founding in 2000, the company has provided support to family caregivers for over 15 years. In 2005, Seniorlink launched the “Caregiver’s Home,” a specialized in-home care model that enables experienced care teams to guide family caregivers through every step of patient care. Nurses, social workers, and behavioral health specialists behind the company maintain close contact with family caregivers—who possess first-hand patient information—via phone and electronic communications. This collaboration forms a relatively comprehensive, specialized “medical team.”

“Caregiver Homes”—A Commitment to Supporting Family Caregivers

It is precisely due to this pioneering initiative that Caregiver Homes has become the first home- and community-based organization to receive the highest accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) in the field of case management. Having maintained this accreditation for three consecutive years, the organization applied for NCQA’s Case Management–Long-Term Services and Supports (CM-LTSS) certification this August, positioning itself to be the only organization to hold both accreditations simultaneously. To date, it has served tens of thousands of family caregivers and patients across Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

The “Caregiver’s Home” website platform features numerous highlights—first, the homepage includes an option titled “See if Caregiver’s Home is Right for You,” with questions such as“Who needs care (self/family member),” “State of residence,” “Medicaid eligibility,” “Whether the caregiver lives with the patient,” “Relationship to the caregiver,” and “Whether the patient requires assistance with activities of daily living such as dressing, walking, and bathing.”Assess whether you meet the assistance eligibility criteria of the Caregiver’s Home. Second, the platform is divided into two main sections: “Caregivers” and “Experts.” The Caregivers page guides users on how to connect with Seniorlink’s medical expert team to help tailor care plans for patients. On the Experts page, physicians can input information about themselves, their patients, and the caregivers, and refer patients requiring home care guidance and support to the “Caregiver’s Home.”

Helping Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes in Home Care

Based on data up to 2015, Seniorlink’s “Caregiver’s Home” saved each patient’s family approximately half the cost of skilled nursing care. Patients cared for under the guidance of the “Caregiver’s Home” were better off than those attended by skilled nurses, enjoying longer recovery periods at home and fewer hospital visits; compared with care provided by skilled nurses, the incidence rate of complications was reduced by 3.5 times.

Highly Rated by Both Caregivers and Care Recipients

From October 2015 to January 2016, the company conducted a survey among 1,401 family caregivers and 1,087 consumers: 94.3% of care recipients and 94.8% of caregivers expressed satisfaction with the care and support provided by the program; 84.6% of care recipients and 83.2% of caregivers stated that “Caregiver’s Home” had significantly improved their lives; 85.5% of care recipients reported that the services offered by “Caregiver’s Home” were far superior to those provided by hourly medical care workers; and 96.6% of caregivers said they would recommend “Caregiver’s Home” to others.

Today, they aim to make more comprehensive forays into the mobile health sector. Seniorlink is building a more robust system for care training and collaboration.Unified — Vela, which includes a web-based platform and the mobile Vela app, while the latestA $7.5 million financing round will be invested in this.

Vela—Guiding People to Navigate the Healthcare Landscape with Ease

Vela, meaning “sail” in Latin, symbolizes guiding caregivers to navigate smoothly through the complex and often unmanageable seas of healthcare. Similar to the previous “Caregiver’s Home,” Vela is also designed to empower caregivers with expert-level support. However, riding the new wave of technological advancement in the healthcare industry, Seniorlink has been able to deliver this empowerment on a larger, more comprehensive, and user-friendly technical platform, with anticipated healthcare outcomes far surpassing those of previous platforms. Simply by downloading the Vela app, family caregiversmembers can easily accessExtensive Medical Resources and Information, and can contact the care team and healthcare experts through the platform.

PassVelaPlatform, where users can access articles, videos, and broadcasts on patient care knowledge, understand daily factors affecting health, and connect with local healthcare resources for administrative services, patient transportation, and medical facilities.comprehensive service support, enabling users to query symptoms and medication precautions, and to conduct medical care training via Vela’s secure information transmission system. It is reported that PingVCBeat"Friendlier," "More Talkative"，More Powerful Content, the content ofHigher Safety Performance。

However, currently, the Vela platform alsoIn closed testing, we also look forward to its launch benefiting a broader population of patients and family caregivers.

Although the previous “Caregiver Home” platform has already connected Seniorlink with thousands of patient families, they believe this figure is far from sufficient. Their goal is to serve millions of families in need of caregiving assistance, which is precisely why they are eager to launch the new Vela platform.

“We firmly believe that maintaining immediate and close contact with family caregivers is a top priority in our work, as they are the members of the healthcare team closest to patients, and their every action is critically important. We also look forward to introducing more innovative initiatives in the field of care to provide ongoing medical support and resources to these patients’ families,” said Tom Riley, CEO of Seniorlink, in a statement.

Seniorlink—We Stand Side by Side with Caregivers

“Their business model aligns perfectly with our investment thesis: leveraging technology to effectively solve problems, reduce healthcare costs, and provide patients with an alternative to traditional treatment options,” said Brian G. Murphy, General Partner at NewSpring (who joined Seniorlink’s Board of Directors following the recent investment), in a statement. “Seniorlink’s innovative care delivery model and technological solutions connect professional clinicians with family caregivers, empowering families of complex-care patients to navigate the caregiving journey with confidence.”

Following this financing round, Seniorlink’s total funding reached $32.5 million, in addition to a $20 million financing round in July 2015 and a $5 million investment from Commonwealth Capital Ventures in November 2011.

Seniorlink Raises $32.5 Million in Three Funding Rounds