Emerest CEO Josh Klein is poised to become the Merv Griffin of home care. His New York City-based home care firm is launching what it calls the first-of-its-kind interactive television studio for elderly clients in the New York City metropolitan area and New Jersey.
The studio will host games and discussions, which seniors can participate in through tablet computers from the comfort of their homes.
“When you watch TV it’s one-sided programming,” Klein told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. “If you watch Jeopardy, it keeps you busy for a half hour, but it doesn’t keep you engaged. That is what we are changing.”
The TV studio will launch by the end of April and is part of Emerest Connect — a 24/7 platform that connects the home care company’s patients with healthcare providers, social workers and emergency medical technicians. The platform monitors patients’ vitals and has connected them to classes during the pandemic.
Emerest is developing the studio in collaboration with Samsung. The tablets will connect the seniors to the studio where they will appear on-stage in television monitors. The platform not only lets the seniors be part of a live studio audience, but it allows them to be active participants in the programs as well.
“If Doris is playing bingo and she says 56, she is on that stage in the television studio,” Klein explained. “She is actually part of the game.”
The idea to develop the studio sprang from data Emerest culled from Emerest Connect. The company found that more engaged patients are happier and healthier.
“The happier someone is, the more engaged they are in their health,” Klein said. “What we are seeing is the social [aspects of health] are driving the clinical outcomes. So, a happy person is more in tune with their health.”
The studio will be based in Brooklyn and will offer approximately 12 hours of programming a day to about 1,000 Emerest patients. If successful, Klein expects to open more studios down the road, offering more programs to even more seniors.
