Connected care start-up targets aging-in-place

PCL Health monitors key vitals at home, providing caregivers with peace of mind and supporting aging-in-place.
British start-up PCL Health (formerly Poonyah Care) is on a mission to change the way that the health of older people is monitored and managed at-home. The company has developed a range of (aging-in-place) hardware devices that monitor vital biomarkers, and a predictive digital platform that analyses the data to identify potential health issues.

Longevity.Technology: Our aging population is also a population that increasingly wants to remain at home as they get older – a 2018 AARP survey found that 87% of US adults over 65 wanted to age in place. New technology developments are key to enabling aging-in-place: we have our 3rd market intelligence unit report planned for this very subject. We caught up with founder and CEO Deepti Atrish to find out how PCL Health is addressing the challenge of keeping loved-ones safe and independent.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Atrish experienced the challenges first-hand, when caring for her elderly mother in India, while she herself was based in London.

“I started thinking about why there wasn’t a solution that could connect people with their families,” she says. “You had fitness trackers and some algorithms, but there wasn’t one platform where people could connect and actually see what’s going on. I realised that people don’t die because of a problem, they die because they don’t get help in time – so we need to measure and be preventive about health.”

At-home health monitoring
While people spend thousands each month on care homes or care-at-home services for older relatives, Atrish points out that “you don’t get any medical vitals” with such services.

Connected care start-up targets aging-in-place