How NY Is Using Tech to Fight Social Isolation and Support Aging at Home | The AgeTech Podcast S4E24 with Greg Olsen

Do you think robotic pets are just toys? Well, think again. In this episode of the AgeTech podcast, I talked to Greg Olsen, director of the New York State Office for the Aging, about how a cat from Amazon sparked a tech revolution that’s helping New York State serve millions of residents with technology.

Stay tuned, because this story is truly inspiring.

Keren Etkin: Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg Olsen: Well, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited.

Keren Etkin: Thank you so much for joining. So, your organization has been working with older adults and aged tech companies for a number of years now. Its least since covid to the best of my knowledge. And I wanna maybe look back into like the origin story behind all of this wonderful work that you’re doing and asking you, ask you, I wanna ask you like what got you started, what got you interested in technology and what got you started in.

Utilizing technology to. Help older New Yorkers.

Greg Olsen: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it is gonna be an interesting story. I appreciate the question. We actually started using tech in 2018 so it was prior to Covid. You see, behind me, I have animatronic pets, and that’s really where it started completely by accident.

So I just, you know, for your audience members, they’re gonna know this. You know, there’s a myth out there that older adults don’t use technology, and it’s exactly that. It’s a myth. A RP does a report every year. And in 2024, it was the first time in history that older adults use tech at the same rate everybody else does.

So you know, we’re not trying to, introduce tech to take the place of human beings. But the fact of the matter is there’s a lot of people that don’t have any social support systems and we can kind of do both at once. But how we got into it was really interesting. You know, the surgeon General has talked about the last couple of years the impact of loneliness and isolation on older adults.

Right? It’s equivalent smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day. It increases mortality, meaning it’ll kill you. You know, those types of things. But that data actually came out in August of 2018 and that’s the first time that I read it. And our network, we oversee 59 county offices for the aging work with 1,242 not-for-profits in the community.

And we’ve been combating social isolation and loneliness. Literally for 50 years. But that’s the first time somebody actually aggregated what the spending was. $7 billion to treat just in Medicare alone. And so that came out in August of 20 2018. Literally the same week I came home and my young daughter, Anya, came running to the door.

Daddy, daddy, I just bought this amazing cat on Amazon and I can’t wait. You know, till it comes. Hopefully it’ll come before vacation. And so I said to her, honey, that’s so great. I can’t wait to see it. But what I was thinking is, oh great, another stuffed animal to go into the bins of stuffed animals in the basement.

Well, it showed up and as soon as I saw it, I’m like, I said to her, oh my God, this would be an amazing. Thing to try with some of the people who are isolated and lonely that we’re already serving. And that’s literally how this got started. So I did a pilot. I reached out to the company after looking at them online, had no idea that they were actually designed for the purpose that I thought we would use them for.

So we bought, you know, we got 12 counties to partner with us, bought 30 cats, 30 dogs. Did a pre. Social isolation, loneliness, screen, and then at three months, six months and 12 months. And what we found at the end of 12 months is 75% of individuals who received them had a reduction in loneliness, isolation, and actually pain.

One county used the the 10 point pain scale and 75% of their clients went from a nine to 10 on the pain scale down to a one or two after a year. And now there’s been 13 or 14 other studies after ours that have really validated what you know, we expected. And why would we expect it? Because, you know, there’s things that matter to people regardless of age.

Could be politics, could be sports, it’s arts and culture. Certainly pets. So I expected those types of results. And you know, to date we’ve put out 33,650 pets and our model is being replicated in more than 40 states across the country.

Keren Etkin: Wow, there was so much to unpack. So first of all, I did not know that this was, this all sort of happened by, by chance, which is quite remarkable.

I always assumed you would sort of, you identified that there was a loneliness and social isolation problem, and then went ahead. I. Look for a solution, but it’s wonderful. It was the other way around.

Greg Olsen: We, we did know that, but our solutions were usually things you try to do in person, right? A friendly visitor.

You have your home delivered meal driver trained who checks in on somebody. You provide transportation for people who can’t drive to get them to a community event or a senior center. You do phone trees. So we’ve done all of those types of things. But this was the really, the first time where it kind of clicked with me that technology really can be a positive solution.

And to date, starting in again the fall of 2018 to today, we’ve launched 29 public-private partnerships with tech companies and are serving a million more people for literally pennies on the dollar.

Keren Etkin: Wow, amazing. And it sounds like the joy for all the robotic cats and dogs were possibly the most effective intervention out of everything that you’ve tried.

Is that true?

Greg Olsen: They are one of many. What we have found you know, because we measure everything. So, you know, we have a partnership with Intuition Robotics. They develop the the LEQ, which is a proactive ai where you literally create a relationship with this device who really becomes a companion and a friend.

And we’re seeing reductions in loneliness and isolation in the 95%. Great. We’ve been working with them for three years, but also an improvement in overall health and wellness because of some of the other features it provides again in the mid nineties. So there’s a lot of different solutions and what we try not to do here is to duplicate but really to vet companies.

That, you know, based on my experience doing this type of work for 33 years, both in the community, with families in the legislature, and now at state government, is to fill gaps that I know exist. And that’s really what we’ve done.

Keren Etkin: That’s amazing. Full disclosure, I was the first employee at Intuition Robotics, and I did not ask Greg to specifically mention the company, but I’m so happy and to hear that L DQ was so effective in improving.

And the outcomes of this program. So I wonder what does the process currently look like? You’ve been doing this for seven years. What does the process currently look like in terms of identifying a need and then going out to find a solution to pilot?

Greg Olsen: So how it really happens is kind of organic. You know, you mentioned the pandemic.

And the pandemic really for us, put this on steroids. We had to find. A different way to provide services very quickly. Change our business model overnight because in New York we had a stay at home order. For people over the age of 75 people with compromised immune system health issues everything was shut down as you know, whether it be libraries, senior centers nursing homes, assisted living.

So people were really isolated. And you know, how I got involved with Intuition Robotics is we just happened to be on a national call together. I was asked repeatedly by SAMHSA. The administration for community living CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to present on our pandemic response.

And so through that process, I got connected with with companies who then asked if they could, you know, talk to me about what they’ve done and, you know, if it fit as I mentioned with gaps that I knew existed. Then, you know, we did a pilot and we measure them to see if they’re effective or not.

That’s not something usually government does. So we’re very unique in that way. And the, and again, the reason why is because, you know, you’re constantly, you should never be, you know, stuck. You should always be trying to evolve, always trying to expand services even if you don’t have dollars to do that.

How to serve more people, how to serve them more effectively. Not to replace, but to add to the toolbox. So you know that’s really what we’ve done. And then because of these partnerships, you know, people talk to each other and they say, how did you get a contract with Greg in New York? Can you give me his number?

And so. I literally and I’m not exaggerating. I probably vet two companies a week for the last four years. And so what I’m seeing now is a lot of duplication. I. A lot of replication you know, taking an original platform and maybe adding some features. So it’s kind of the same with a little bit of you know, enhancements to it.

And then I also, you know, get asked to speak around the country at age tech conferences. And so, you know, there’s a lot of startups that, we have really helped put on the map that have expanded exponentially. But I think one of the greatest fears I have is what’s going on at the federal level right now, and are we gonna be able to continue to not only replicate and expand, but to try new things.

And right now the jury’s out on that.

Keren Etkin: That actually leads me to my next question. How does funding work? Is it a combination of federal and state funding?

Greg Olsen: So that’s a unique question. Some of it was, I mean, the funding that we get from the federal government and the state is required by law to go to the counties for services.

So from their perspective, there’s a lot of flexibility in federal and state funds if they want to do this on their own. They can for me it’s mostly admin dollars, right? Whether that be our federal admin dollars, whether that be stimulus, federal dollars, which will expire September of 2025. And then there’s some additional funding in my budget.

To help individuals stay at home. And so, I don’t wanna say risk in a bad way, but I feel it’s my responsibility to take the risk, quote unquote, to try some of these things to measure them. And then the goal is really, there’s a short term goal and a long term goal. If we can endorse that something actually works and put our logo on it, then that sends a message to the general public, to my counterparts across the country, to people within the state that this is a good product and that we’ve done this.

There are a lot of older adults and people like me that can afford to purchase these products. They’re very low budget in a lot of cases. On their own. It’s not the responsibility of government to buy everything for everybody. We just can’t do that. I wish that we could, but we can’t. But there’s a private market out there, but people don’t know what they don’t know, and they don’t know who to trust.

And so having our logo, I. As an endorsement with some of these companies is really important. Then there’s Medicare Advantage plans. There’s managed long-term care plans. There’s general Medicaid, right? There’s other state agencies where some of the things that we’re doing may be applicable to their constituents, even if they’re not older. And so that’s really been my goal. The whole time is to, you know, test things out, see if they work, and then share the results with others so that we can expand and replicate.

Keren Etkin: That makes a lot of sense. That having the New York State Office for Aging logo on a company or a product saying, we vetted this, we know it works.

It makes a lot of sense that others would follow suit. I wonder how difficult or how easy was it to initially convince the counties. To run these pilots because I imagine it required a lot from their staff on the ground.

Greg Olsen: Well, not necessarily. So the way that we do things, and not all of these pilots are with the county offices for the aging.

A lot of them are. I. But a lot of them aren’t purposely. So what we traditionally do is, you know, one of my partners is Becky Previ. She’s the executive director of the Association on Aging. So they represent our 59 counties and, you know, either we vet these together or one or both of us vet them independently, and then we come together and if we think it’s something that we want to try, then what we do is we do an in-depth presentation with that company.

To the offices for the aging. After that, we will survey them and ask them if they would like to participate. That is really key because I can’t force a county to engage in a pilot, and I don’t want to, I want counties that recognize that this could be a potential solution to a problem, and I want them to self-select.

Yes, I wanna participate, because if they do that, they’re going to implement it. A lot better if they’re on board and understand what we’re trying to do. The companies that we work with have really bent over backwards to make it as easy as possible for the counties or our other providers so that it’s really not a heavy lift.

And that’s really been a working process that has worked extraordinarily well for a number of years.

Keren Etkin: Essentially it sounds like you obviously have to make a lot of effort to get buy-in from the counties. And then, I mean, after you prove it’s success, obviously it’s a no-brainer for everyone else who wants and has the budget to adopt these solutions. Because you have already tested them out and have proven that there’s positive ROI and it allows them to make more out of the funding that they already have.

Greg Olsen: Yeah, in essence, that’s right. I mean, there’s some of the projects that are sustainable, meaning the money’s in the budget every single year. So I gotta give Governor Hoel a lot of credit. I asked for almost $3 million a few years ago for, you know, sustainability and some of the projects. So those would be things like virtual senior center.

Get set up ageless innovation intuition, robotics. So those dollars are secure. They are recurring and so we can continue to do those other things are, you know, designed to be one year pilots. Some of them I’ve extended if I have the ability to do that, others that I don’t, but the best spokespeople for the validity and value of these, in addition to the data that I’m able to provide to them.

Are their peers. And again, it’s all part of the strategy.

Keren Etkin: And after all of this happens on the state level how often do you find that Medicare Advantage plans or other states follow following your footsteps basically and say, Hey, we Greg has vetted this. We’re gonna go ahead and adopt this too for our care recipients.

Greg Olsen: So there’s two answers to that on the payer side. It’s very difficult. It shouldn’t be. So one of the things that we do is we in our comprehensive assessment, we know who. The older adults insurance company is, whether it’s traditional Medicare Advantage and then what those plans are.

So we’ve been having conversations with plans for a number of years to work with us on a pilot because we’re serving the same people. To show that, you know, when you work together, we can have positive outcomes for your clients. It’s very difficult for them. To part with partnership dollars.

So that’s a work in progress that, you know, we’re gonna continue to work on the other states. A lot of the things that we’ve launched here are being replicated across the country. I probably speak at five to seven national conferences every single year. And it’s on things like this, the economic value of older adults because.

We live in an age of society and we think older people are a drain on resources. They absolutely are not. We would not have a local, regional, statewide, or national economy. Without them, you wouldn’t have a not-for-profit sector without their volunteer contributions. Many are still working. They pay 40% of the taxes.

So that’s a really important message of the why are we doing these things because we want people. To be as healthy and well in their communities for as long as possible. That’s where they wanna be, and that’s what these results show that we can do in addition to our regular book of business. So it’s not that hard.

I think the questions that I usually get from others was one of the questions you asked me, how did you do it? Where’d you get the money? And it’s a you know, we’re able to be creative here.

Keren Etkin: That’s it’s wonderful and I love that you. Make sure that you speak on all of these stages and not just say, yes, technology is great and we can use it to help our older population, but this is a population that is still contributing to society and so we must, putting the effort to, to support them for as long as they live in our states.

Greg Olsen: Well, you do. And you know, the hardest thing is combating the stereotypes and ageist attitudes that we all grew up with. You know, when I got into working with older adults 33 years ago, the things that I would see in books, in cartoons for my kids in movies versus what.

My real life experience was working with organizations that were run by older adults and understanding what their backgrounds and histories and passions were. They didn’t line up, and so I. You know, really wanted to try to start to talk about older adults differently. And to do that, you’ve gotta, you gotta find the data to back it up.

And so, you know, I have, I’m fortunate that I have a demographer on staff and I asked him to start pulling open source data and, you know, he gave me a bunch of raw files that I put together into a narrative. And then worked with A RP to, you know, encourage them to do the same, which is where they came out with their 50 plus longevity economy.

So anybody out there type in 50 plus longevity economy and your state. And you will actually see what the contributions are. Now we go way further. So like I know in New York that older adults their spending supports 6 million jobs. Their GDP is that’s the goods and services they produce $729 billion, 43%.

They support 40% of state and local taxes. We, and then you look at things like volunteerism. We have almost a vol, a million volunteers providing half a billion hours of service at an economic value of $13.8 billion, 59 billion in social security comes to local communities. Pensions equal almost $95 billion.

But nobody talks about aging that way. And when you do, it’s like, oh my God. Right? If we can. Help, you know, older people stay healthy, active, engaged. You know, we did a statewide needs assessment survey where older adults plan on working into their mid to late seventies. I’m not surprised by that at all because of the longevity, right.

I. And that’s so good for social connections maintaining your health insurance, not drawing down your social security benefit, which will only grow when you do retire. Being mentally and physically active, all of those things are really positive. And we have a job market that really could utilize older adults.

So that’s the why, and that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Keren Etkin: That actually leads me to my next question. Speaking of this needs assessment that you did statewide, what are some of the current challenges older adults are dealing with that you’re actively looking for solutions for? Maybe we have startups in the audience who have solutions and will wanna reach out.

I.

Greg Olsen: It is really hard to say because what the statewide need, we had 127,000 responses that is a huge sample size, and you’ve got people from 60 to 105. The ethnicity of those who took the survey mirrors the state, which I was really proud of. About 11,000 of the responses came from hard to serve communities.

But then it’s broken down by county, and so it’s different everywhere, but it’s the traditional things, right? It is loneliness and isolation. But what I found fascinating, and I’ll pick that one specifically, that older people know about what’s happening in their community, but then when the question says, do you go to any of these things, they say, no.

Transportation is always gonna be an issue. Housing. So it’s the things that have been around for a while that need, you know, whether it be bricks and mortar support, meaning capital investments, that’s one thing. But then there are other ways that if the community uses those types of studies and ours are all available on our website.

The needs assessment for those counties. We’ve provided them to all the counties, all the legislators, so they can see what the responses are in their community. And one of the projects I’m really excited about is working with Jim Furman at Better Age, who’s developed a tool and we supported its development and testing that really digs down individually to a person’s overall.

Public health and how they feel about themselves. Are they in crisis? Are they thriving? What are those areas so that you can tailor those solutions because you actually ask somebody what’s important to them or the, you know, where they’re struggling or not.