A daily check-in call for a parent who lives alone

What a check-in call is

It is a short phone call to her own number at a time you choose. It says good morning, asks how she is, maybe asks one or two things you care about, and hangs up. On an ordinary day it is over in about two minutes, and nobody in the family had to remember to make it.

The part that matters is the day she does not answer. A call that writes down "no answer" and tries again tomorrow is not worth paying for. A proper service rings again, and if the phone still rings out, it tells a named person, in the order you set, until somebody says they are on it.

What happens when she does not pick up

This is how Care does it. Use it as a yardstick for any service you look at.

1. The call rings at the time you picked, say 9:00.
2. No answer. It rings again at 9:10 and sends a text to her phone.
3. Still no answer at 9:25. The first person on your list gets a text and an email.
4. If that person does not confirm, the next one is told, then the next, until somebody does.

Half an hour from the first ring to you hearing about it. Long enough for her to be in the garden or in the shower, short enough that a fall at nine is not found at six in the evening.

An answering machine counts as no answer. A machine picking up tells you nothing about her.

What it listens for when she does answer

Her answers are written down as text, in her own words. If she says she fell, that she has pain in her chest, that she is dizzy or cannot get up, you are told right away instead of reading it in a weekly note. The list of words it reacts to is broad on purpose. A false alarm costs you a phone call. A missed one costs a lot more.

You can add questions of your own, up to three a day, read out exactly as you type them: "Did the nurse come today?", "Did you eat breakfast?". You choose whether you hear about it when the answer is no, or when it is yes. If something she said yesterday was worth asking about, the next call asks about it, in the word she used.

Who it suits, and who it does not

• A parent who is well and independent, and would refuse anything that looks like being watched.
• Somebody who lives alone with nobody dropping by every day.
• Families spread across states or time zones, where the morning call has been one sibling's job for years.
• A parent with a landline and no smartphone. Any phone that rings will do. What is different on a landline.

It is a poor fit if she needs somebody with her, if memory loss means she cannot follow a short call, or if her hearing makes phone calls hard. Look at in-person help or a visiting service first in those cases.

What a check-in call cannot do

• It cannot see a fall. It can tell you nobody answered, and it tells you at once if she says she fell.
• It is not an emergency service. Every Care call says, before it asks anything, to hang up and dial 911 if she needs help now.
• It is not a medical device, and nothing it says is medical advice.
• It does not replace you calling her. It means you call because you want to, not to make sure she is alright.

Setting one up without upsetting her

1. Ask her first. Care's setup asks when you asked her and what she said, and the calls do not start without it. How to bring it up has its own page.
2. Pick a time she is reliably up and near the phone. You can change it any day.
3. Save the number in her phone, so she sees a name and not an unknown caller. You get the number before the first call.
4. Put the people to tell in order. The person nearest to her first, not the most worried one.
5. Hear it yourself first. Have the call ring your own phone, so you know what she will hear.

If she goes into hospital for a week, pause the calls with an end date and they start again on their own. If she tells the call she does not want to be called any more, it stops calling her.

Questions

Does she need a smartphone or an app?

No. Any phone that rings works, including a landline.

Is a real person calling her?

No. Every Care call is made by an automated assistant, and it says so at the start of every call.

How long does the call take?

About two minutes on an ordinary day.

What if she is away or in hospital?

Pause the calls with an end date. They start again on their own.

Is the call recorded?

No audio is kept. Her answers are kept as text, so the family can read them.

How much does a daily check-in call cost?

From nothing, where her county runs a free program, to around fifty dollars a month for a live caller. The prices side by side.