--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: The Future of Nursing Care image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24311f6daa1c0c66/6a4b5278a09d9f7b595e9251/C065A4C59B894E8A9D77FBD258B18EB3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # The Future of Nursing Care  We are arguably in the midst of a deteriorating global aging and healthcare crisis. Populations across the globe are aging rapidly. It is estimated, for instance, that by 2050, the proportion of the global population that is over 60 will be double that of 2015\. And, in the US, the number of elderly over 65 years of age will have risen from 54 million in 2020 to around 80 million in 2040. Japan was the first market to experience rapid aging and now holds the distinction of having the world’s most aged society, with those over 65 comprising about 30% of the total population. #### Struggling to Stay Ahead With so many of us living longer, this is posing a problem for many aging societies. Specifically, the recruitment of nursing staff has not kept pace with the rapid rise in the elderly population. This emerging global issue is particularly acute in Japan, where, if the caregiving workforce cannot be increased, the nursing care industry will experience a shortfall of about 320,000 care workers in 2025, rising to as many as 690,000 in 2040. Undoubtedly, the elderly are set to be most impacted by this crisis of aged care; many have individual and specific care requirements that simply can’t be optimally met where there is a shortage of caregivers. But caregivers are also affected; those who are in service are often mentally depleted and physically strained with overwork and have to operate within inefficient legacy care systems. The quality of care for the elderly is ripe for innovation and systems that not only improve elderly care but also improve operational efficiencies and relieve the burden of overstretched caregivers.  #### The Transformation of Elderly Care The Sompo Group, one of Japan’s largest insurance and nursing care businesses, has developed an approach to nursing care that addresses the challenges referred to earlier. Based on the concept of ‘egaku’, which means ‘draw’ in Japanese, Sompo Care, the Group’s nursing care business, which comprises about 80,000 users, has deployed a digitally enabled, data-intensive nursing care operational system that is set to completely transform the elderly care industry both in Japan and, through strategic partnerships, across the globe. At its core, ‘egaku’ relies on next-generation technology to collect masses of resident data. It is then visualized for easy use and deployed to create operational efficiencies, improve caregiver productivity, and provide fit-for-purpose elderly care. This results in heightened quality care for the elderly, and reduced workloads and concomitant stress for workers. The increased productivity also realizes benefits for nursing care business operators. #### 'egaku' and Elderly Care ‘egaku’ for elderly care is, at its most fundamental level, about developing a nuanced record and understanding of a resident’s individual needs, responses to interventions, and bodily responses during care. Caregivers are able to input resident data, recording everything from food intake to body temperature and weight. The AI-enabled system even provides alerts to caregivers when there are changes in the resident’s condition. The data collected from all this input is visualized for easy reading and used to fine-tune how individual residents are taken care of, eliminating over-caring and under-caring as the right amount of care at the right time is delivered each time. The system itself auto-corrects and suggests optimal care regimes for individual residents in real-time as the resident’s needs change. One of the most revolutionary features of ‘egaku’ is its preventative and predictive capacity for forecasting necessary interventions in response to data, predicting what an elderly resident will need before that need becomes acute or critical. ‘egaku’ was a natural outgrowth of SOMPO’s philosophy on elderly care: a respect for people and a desire to provide care tailored to individual needs rather than a one-size-fits -all approach. --- > “SOMPO will contribute to the growth of the nursing care industry by developing 'egaku' into a de facto industry standard to address social issues arising from the declining birthrate and aging population, which can be described as a national crisis. In addition, by exporting the Japanese nursing care ecosystem centered on 'egaku' to other countries, SOMPO hopes to contribute to solving social issues related to nursing care in countries around the world.” Ken Endo, CEO of Nursing Care & Seniors Business at Sompo Holdings --- #### 'egaku' and Caregiver Outcomes Somewhat counterintuitively, providing individualized care also reduces the workload and care burden of caregivers. This is because, with ready access to each resident’s on- going health status and needs, caregivers can schedule their time more efficiently to attend to one resident or another rather than apply total care to all in a pro-forma fashion. Care is provided to each resident as and when they need it, reducing over-servicing, unnecessary check-ins, and emergency call-outs for assistance. Time that is freed up from such efficient resident-centered care allows caregivers to give their attention not just to other residents but to other tasks that can improve the overall operation of the facility, raising the level of quality of life, satisfaction, and happiness of residents.  #### 'egaku' and Other Labor-Assisting Technologies ‘egaku’ is just one example of a multi-pronged approach by Sompo Care to change “the future of nursing care”. SOMPO launched the Future Care Lab in Japan in 2019, and it has been on a mission to reinvent caregiving by blending technology with a human touch. Take, for example, LOVOT, which SOMPO introduced in Sompo Care facilities. LOVOT is a communications robot with the unique capacity to be almost as lovable and warm as a living creature. It achieves this by communicating through emotions and senses, such as sight and touch, rather than through words. SOMPO’s LOVOT robot provides an opportunity for many residents, including those with dementia, to communicate with other residents and staff. SOMPO also deploys additional advanced technologies, such as sleep sensors that measure body movements, e.g., tossing and turning, breathing, and heartbeat. Traditionally, nursing staff patrol each resident’s room at night to check on sleep status and safety, but with the introduction of sleep sensors, they can now do so without having to make rounds. In addition, by utilizing data obtained by the sleep sensors, SOMPO is able to improve the residents’ quality of sleep, health maintenance, rhythm of life, and ultimately their quality of life. Additional technology allows caregivers to remotely monitor, in real time, resident activities such as sleeping, waking, rising and leaving their beds, thereby improving the efficiency of resident monitoring and care.  #### 'egaku' and Social Outcomes ‘egaku’ probably represents one of the most major advances in elderly care, and it is fitting that it has been tried and tested successfully in Japan, given the country’s early experiences with rapid aging and its impacts on elderly care, the labor market and the social fabric of Japanese life. But SOMPO’s humanistic approach does not end there. They aim to make ‘egaku’ the elderly care industry standard, not only in Japan but throughout the world. SOMPO has already begun exporting its nursing care expertise. Recently, they partnered with the South Korean KB Financial Group to provide education, training and managerial excellence to the Korean nursing care sector. #### Making a Positive Impact on Seemingly Intractable Problems How we support the elderly is as much a moral issue as it is a practical one. Morally, it reflects our humanity and beliefs of equality, equity, and rights, as well as respect for all, irrespective of life stage. SOMPO’s ‘egaku’ approach to elderly care encapsulates that spirit as well as directly addressing the chronic labor shortages of overworked caregivers in our typically under-resourced and tightly stretched nursing care facilities. 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