Village of Maumelle Offers Electronic Health Tracking for Seniors

Photos by Steve Lewis

On a brisk weekday morning in Maumelle, homebuilder Ron Harris was found outside two under-construction homes at his latest development project, the Village of Maumelle.

In recent days Harris, co-founder of Summerwood Homes, with his wife, Vikki, has been trying to get up to speed on some of the unique technological features to be included in the Village’s homes — a range of electronic systems to monitor the health and safety of the seniors expected to comprise a majority of the residents.

The homes at the Village of Maumelle come with Electronic Caregiver activity detection system.

Harris is no stranger to state-of-the-art construction, energy efficiency and green technology, but on that sunny morning, he brought along Krista Hughes, master care partner at Electronic Caregiver, to help explain the tech her company is providing for the development.

“This is going to be kind of an interesting scenario,” Harris said, taking stock of the health-monitoring, activity-detecting devices that can provide seniors with a greater degree of freedom while also reducing health care costs.

“Builders need to think about aging in place,” said Hughes, a former state director of the Department of Human Services Division of Aging, Adult and Behavioral Health Services.

Harris said much of the appeal of his latest development has to do with walkability.

The 13-acre development on Maumelle’s Commerce Drive will be a gated community for seniors, retirees and empty nesters that will boast leading-edge technology and a ton of walkability. Residents will be able to stroll to city parks and walking trails, as well as a number of local businesses, including a grocery store, and restaurants will also be in reach.

There will also be a clubhouse with pickleball courts and two dog parks, while future development plans include shopping, movies and other entertainment.

“A lot of it has to do with walkability,” Harris said.

The two homes going up side by side among the otherwise vacant plots, and utility hookups are complete enough for Harris and Hughes to take visitors in out of the cold. Harris first shows off the storm-proofed cupboard in one home and utility room in the other, both reinforced with hurricane straps and bolts, that he refers to as a “poor man’s tornado shelter.”

The homes at the Village of Maumelle come with built-in storm reinforcements.

Stepping into the kitchen area of the first home, Harris and Hughes explain the health-monitoring technology and the need to have it in homes as the U.S. grapples with an aging population. Each day, 10,000 Americans turn 65, and in addition, 12 million people older than 65 live alone, and 97 percent of older adults said they would prefer to live in their own homes.

“I just saw a need,” Harris said. “I started asking questions. That’s where I learned about this tsunami of aging.”

Hughes offers a variety of data explaining some of the health risks and financial hardships faced by seniors who live alone. The No. 1 reason for hospital readmission is the failure to properly take prescribed medications; a person spends an average 17.5 hours without help after falling; and there are 52 million caregivers caring for someone 18 and older.

As of December, the average cost of a home caregiver in Arkansas was $17.40 an hour, $696 for a 40-hour work week and $2,262 a month (130 hours). The cost of assisted living in the state ranges from approximately $3,400 a month to $4,400 a month, while a semiprivate room in a nursing home is about $5,170 a month, and a private room is close to $5,800 a month.

“The cost of a person one-to-one taking care of somebody is quite expensive,” Hughes said, adding that many other health care-related expenses are not covered by insurance.

Harris is familiar with the pricing.

“I saw my parents go from owning their own home to, boom, $6,000-a-month assisted living,” he said.

Electronic Caregiver offers Premier, a mobile device and wrist pendant that uses GPS and location services and features customized activity detection; the ProHealth smart health hub system that measures and records vitals associated with a treatment plan; a 24-hour emergency response monitoring center; a 24-hour PocketMD service that allows immediate connection to a physician facilitator and a quick response from a doctor; the FamilyCare App, which allows families and caregivers to send messages directly to an Electronic Caregiver device and keep tabs on loved ones; and programming that matches a client’s care plan and sends reminders to follow through on medications and appointments.

The systems can track anything from a person’s location to their blood sugar levels to weight fluctuations. If someone normally rises at 5:30 a.m. and has not moved by 6:30 a.m., for example, the technology recognizes that and sends out alerts, and doctors, family and any other members of a senior’s care team can be looped in.

The Premier costs about $49 a month with no contract, Hughes said, which is much less expensive than having a caregiver on retainer, waiting for something to happen. Just as important, the tech allows seniors greater freedom and independence to come and go as they please, rather than be “tied to a wall,” Hughes said.

Founded in 1997, Summerwood — a combination of Summer, Harris’ daughter, and his middle name of Woody — has completed 250 projects in its 21 years. It is a number that should increase drastically when the Village of Maumelle comes online.

Harris noted that since the 2022 ribbon cutting, Summerwood has received 199 responses expressing interest in the three- and two-bedroom single family homes and the three- and two-bedroom town homes. The interest is greatest among people 55 and older, with some older than 75, though people younger than 55 are also interested.

Harris said there are no age restrictions necessarily, and Hughes points out that anyone from 21 to 55 can be disabled and have use for the smart tech.

There are not many developments like the Village of Maumelle yet — Harris has heard of one in Missouri and one in northwest Arkansas — but with the population growing older, he has no doubt there will be more, and he is happy to help fill the need.

“As a builder, I like to build what people want,” he said.