Good Samaritan Society Joins Mayo Clinic Healthy Aging and Independent Living Lab Consortium

Friday, December 09, 2011

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation is pleased to announce that The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society has accepted an invitation to be a founding member of the Healthy Aging and Independent Living consortium.

The HAIL Lab Consortium is supported by member organizations that share a vision with Mayo Clinic to support this growing segment of our population — helping seniors remain at home, in a connected and safe manner. The HAIL Lab itself, established in September 2011, is a "living lab" located in the Charter House, a continuing care retirement community in Rochester.

"We share a strong sense of values and commitment to 'aging in place' with the Good Samaritan Society. They are a leader in the United States in exploring new, innovative and compassionate ways to serve seniors. We are thrilled that they are joining our HAIL Consortium," says Barbara Spurrier, administrative director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. "We intend to pilot new services, care models and technologies around such themes as connection and engagement, health and wellness, and home safety."

The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, established in 1922, is the nation's largest not-for-profit provider of senior care and services. The Good Samaritan Society — headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D. — serves more than 27,000 people in 240 locations nationwide. Services range from traditional skilled nursing care, senior living apartments, home health, assisted living, hospice care, inpatient and outpatient therapy and specialized care for people with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

"During our discussions with Mayo's Center for Innovation, it was evident there was synergy between the innovation strategy of the Good Samaritan Society and Mayo's vision to help seniors remain at home," says Kelly Soyland, the Good Samaritan Society's director for Innovation and Research and its VIVO Innovation Center. "Both organizations recognized the value in a collaborative model, and the consortium gave us the method to realize that opportunity. We're excited about what these opportunities to learn from each other will mean for our nation's seniors and their families."

The Good Samaritan Society joins Best Buy, the first founding consortium member. Best Buy has been exploring the growing potential for wireless-enabled health-related devices, and its participation in the consortium is a natural extension of other investments the company has made in health and wellness technologies.

The HAIL Lab — a primary research home for the HAIL Consortium — is a collaboration among the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, Mayo Clinic's Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging and the Charter House, where research and experiments will take place to help seniors remain at home, healthy and independent. The HAIL Lab will be a place for focus groups and for designing, prototyping and piloting new services and technologies with voluntary participation from Charter House residents and other community agencies.

"The goal of the HAIL Lab is to understand the needs of seniors and develop products and services that will help them live longer, more independent lives," says Nicholas LaRusso, M.D., medical director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation.

Corporations interested in learning more about consortium should contact Michael Matly, M.D., director of Business Development for the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation via email, or by calling 507-293-1656.

###

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit MayoClinic.com or MayoClinic.org/news.

Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.