The aging care industry is faced with a wealth of opportunities and challenges as our population grows older. According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans over age 60 will more than double from 1970 to 2050, and the UN Population Division anticipates that 20 percent of the people in the world will be 65 by 2035.

New approaches, technologies and ways of thinking must be developed to ensure that our growing population of older people ages in the healthiest, wealthiest and happiest way possible.

Louisville is the world-leader in lifelong wellness and aging care. With more than 21,000 professionals producing more than $50 billion in revenue, Louisville is home to the nation’s largest collection of headquarters in nursing home, rehabilitation, assisting living and home health administration.

This large industry base makes Louisville the natural place to chart the future of the industry at events like the Louisville Innovation Summit (LISummit.com), a gathering of nearly 500 executives, entrepreneurs and academics taking place October 14 and 15.

Now in its second year, the Summit draws the highest level of speakers and participants to Louisville, home of founding partners Delta Dental of Kentucky, Humana, Kindred, ResCare, Signature HealthCARE and Trilogy. The Summit’s trans-continental reach is bolstered by the fact that these sponsors employ nearly a quarter of million people across the country.

“We are a city of innovation,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. “This summit represents who we are and where we are headed in so many ways. Now is the time and Louisville is the place for the next wave of cutting edge solutions for long term wellness.”

The Louisville Innovation Summit is organized into two main tracks that are core to the beliefs of all six founding sponsors: Aging with Vitality and Empowered Aging. In these tracks international thought-leaders will guide discussions such as “Aging as a Superpower,” “10 Biggest Aging Care Innovations,” “Compassion as Innovation,” “Social Media in Senior Care” and “Aging Innovations in Space.”

These conversations will be lead by executives from dozens of top companies and institutions at the core of lifelong wellness and innovation, including AARP, Mayo Clinic, National Institute of Advanced Care Planning, Rare Genomics Institute, Stanford University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and each of the founding sponsors.

Two keynote addresses will anchor the Summit. The first will feature a conversation between Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Dr. Jordan Shlain. IDEO’s Chief Creative Officer, Paul Bennett, will deliver the second keynote addressing The Powerful Now.

 When asked about his participation in the Summit, Chopra explained, “Louisville is fast emerging as one of the nation’s health IT hotspots. I’m honored to join this engaged community in helping shape a 21st century care delivery system.”

The Summit will also feature the finals of a Start-Up competition that will highlight and reward new companies focused on re-imagining the future of aging care. The finalists, ten national and five Kentucky companies, feature software, robotic, device and technology innovations that intend to enhance the quality of life for senior adults.

The 10 national finalists include:

• Care Angel, The company’s Smart Care 3.0 platform utilizes simple yet powerful remote monitoring technology to gather well-being measures, daily activities and health status indicators, serving as a virtual caregiver for aging-in-place seniors.
• Chartspan has an innovative “Engagement-as-a-Service” platform for clinics, hospitals and health systems that integrates with its consumer health platform for patients.
• Homeward Health acquires, analyzes, and adds meaning to psychosocial data to align predictive analytics with digital humanism, which they define as technology that brings patients and caregivers into harmony.
• Luvozo applies state-of-the-art technologies to long-term care settings, including its flagship product, SAM, which is a robotic concierge service that supplements staff with non-medical care.
• Moving Analytics helps hospitals implement remote cardiac rehab programs delivered through patients’ mobile devices.
• Neutun has software that uses preexisting wearable and mobile devices to track chronic and acute health conditions. Neutun also aggregrates and anonymizes the resulting data for better forecasting.
• Redox is an integration platform to help software and cloud apps easily and securely interoperate with Electronic Health Records.
• Together+Clinic captures patient generated data in real time and pushes it to providers for better ongoing care, beyond the appointment.
• TowerView Health helps chronically ill patients manage complex medication regimens with a connected pillbox system that senses missed doses and sends reminders.
• Vynca has software that aligns care preference with care provision to enable high-quality care at the end-of-life.

The 5 Kentucky finalists are all from Louisville, and include:

• Breath Diagnostics has developed a patented technology that uses a patient’s breath to detect lung cancer.
• Edumedics is a Population Health Management company that applies robust algorithms to identify at-risk members, activate them and deliver high-touch care enabled by its Healthward platform.
• Medica Nexus is a consumer health infomediary, which enables individuals to manage their own health information and communications wherever they connect for care.
• Psyche Comfort Products makes Neck Guard, an ergonomic device designed for overhead work, as well as the Psyche C-PAP Pillow, a side-sleeper pillow designed for the sleep apnea patient.
• Thrive365 uses a mobile platform integrated with a patented food-scoring algorithm to enable users, especially those with diabetes, to manage their diet in a way that helps stabilize their blood glucose levels.

Alternates for Kentucky include Dechoker of Prospect, and iPillBox of Louisville.

The winners will be announced on Thursday, October 15, but all of the competitors will benefit from exposure to industry leaders made possible by the Louisville Innovation Summit.

The lifelong wellness and aging care sector, together with innovators and advances in technology, drive the growth in this industry and promise a brighter future for millions of aging adults. With support from the Summit’s supporting partners – Office of Mayor Greg Fischer, Louisville Forward, Greater Louisville, Inc, Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau, Health Enterprises Network, Nucleus and Innovate LTC – Louisville, Kentucky will be home for tomorrow’s innovations.