Originally published by Honor
By Seth Sternberg, Co-founder and CEO of Honor Technologies, Inc.
Most of us don’t know how to age. We know quite a bit about how to live longer: eat healthy foods, exercise, get plenty of sleep, yada yada. That’s all really important and pretty ubiquitous knowledge. But navigating the actual aging journey—what happens and how our needs change and multiply as we hit our 70s, then 80s, then 90s and beyond—is a mystery to most people.
It doesn’t seem to be wisdom that’s readily passed down from generation to generation. A number of reasons come to mind:
It’s a hard conversation to have. People are living longer with chronic diseases. People’s needs, as they age, are extremely varied.
As a result, most people need guidance. I get calls all of the time from friends of mine that start with some version of “my dad/mom/friend’s mom had this thing happen to them and we don’t know what to do.” And because the aging space is so fragmented, the process of finding guidance can be overwhelming. Let alone finding the products and services you need once you know you need them.
Today, Honor announced the U.S. launch of Honor Expert, the go-to resource for older adults and their families to find the answers, services, and products they’ll need—and may not even know they’ll need—along the entire aging journey. Visitors to HonorExpert.com can read educational articles on aging topics that are relevant to them. And they can get referrals to appropriate service providers that can support their needs or the needs of an aging loved one.
We’ve positioned Honor Expert to become the search engine for aging adults, only better. Because they can also chat or speak directly with a member of our team of social workers, gerontologists, and aging advocates via a dedicated toll-free number. Our experts can provide a listening ear and an empathetic voice when families are feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to turn. This is a groundbreaking resource that fills a huge, and growing, unmet need.
Timing is everything
Most people start looking for answers to aging questions when they hit crisis mode. Dad fell and broke his hip and needs someone to care for him. Mom’s dementia has progressed to the point where she needs someone with her 24/7. Families find themselves scrambling to cobble together support for their loved one, often with new, unfamiliar needs seeming to pop up every day. It can feel like a frenzied game of whack-a-mole, only with much higher stakes.
This is the moment where I and my co-founders saw an opportunity to improve the aging experience back in 2014. In the process of building the most advanced technology platform that’s now serving the world’s largest home care network, we discovered that people need answers and products and services long before they reach crisis mode - and often long before they need home care!
Honor Expert represents an exciting and necessary expansion of the powerful Honor Care Platform, beyond home care. It enables Honor to help older adults earlier in the aging journey and across broader socio-economic circumstances. Honor’s purpose is to expand the world’s capacity to care. This is a great example of what that can look like.
For the launch of Honor Expert, we’ve partnered with 14 companies, providing solutions across three areas of interest: health & wellness, home management, and care planning. So right off the bat, we’re able to refer visitors to service providers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Freshly, as well as the Honor Care Network and Home Instead, Honor’s flagship home care brand. As we gain insights during this initial phase, we’ll be adding more interest areas and partnering with more providers. This positions Honor Expert to become THE platform for connecting products and services with the growing aging population.
Fuel for growth
What we learn with Honor Expert will also inform Honor’s future growth and expansion. The consumer insights we gather will help us determine where future investment, innovation, and expansion will make the biggest impact for the aging population. And that’s really what this is all about: where and how we can improve the aging experience for as many people as possible.
At Honor, we’re building the world today that everyone wants to age in tomorrow. As the leader in senior care, we’ve amassed a wealth of knowledge about the aging journey that we can now share with anyone who plans to age with agency and dignity. I could not be more proud of the team that built and launched this important new service that will help revolutionize the aging experience.
Learn more about Honor.