NASHUA, New Hamphire (The Nashua Telegraph), August 12, 2007:
S. Erik Skoug, a former international management consultant, has started and run at least five healthcare-related businesses in recent years. His latest, however, is all together different. It falls into the medical category and reflects Skoug’s expertise in information technology, but this business has a personal impetus.
The former city resident, who maintains his offices here, recently turned 75, an age when older relatives and friends are losing their health and the significant others in their lives.
“I personally had experienced the problems, years ago, when my mother was in her nineties and was living alone,” Skoug said, explaining in an e-mail how he came up with the idea for his company.
“Then, my wife’s widowed father in his late eighties, who also lived alone, became feeble and only seemed to live for the daily phone call from his eldest daughter. When he died in his sleep, that daily phone call not answered, raised the alarm, and proper and immediate action was taken.”
In June, Skoug and two business partners, Kenneth E. Igoe and Fred Chua, completed plans for SeniorCallup.com, an Internet-based, national network of callers and clients staffed by women who work from their homes for two hours a day or from a calling center in the Philippines where, Skoug said, they are under strict supervision.
He said he chose the Philippines rather than India, where many U.S. corporations contract with call centers, because of the proficiency with English of native speakers.
“It took 1½ years to get here with the software, development and testing,” Skoug said during an interview. “First of all we had to find out what elderly people want.”
Skoug said surveys he took revealed the most important need of frail, elderly people living alone was “the human touch.” Supervision of medical issues was a close second, he added, observing that elderly patients frequently forget to take their medications or become confused about their daily regimens.
“The statistics show that many elders can’t read the prescription bottle because of their eyes, the small print,” Skoug said.
In addition, older patients experience more confusion than their younger counterparts, frequently forgetting the doctor’s instructions by the time they have left the office, Skoug said.
To address these needs, Skoug developed a training manual for callers based on three key questions:
* Are you OK?
* Have you taken your medicines?
* Do you need anything?
He said in September when the program begins, callers, who are paid $8 an hour for their two-hour-a-day shifts, will be provided with a medical depression screening questionnaire, used with the caller’s discretion when a client sounds unhappy.
Callers train using a manual that Skoug and his colleagues produced.
The daily phone call lasts five minutes, time enough, according to Skoug, to ask the three questions, assess the client’s mental state, and exchange a pleasantry or two.
Callers learn to terminate conversations with a business-like, “I’m sorry. I need to go,” Skoug said.
He said during a pilot of the program, which involved five elderly people, participants said what they valued most was the daily phone call.
“It meant a big deal to them, and they expected that call,” Skoug said. “The call came at the same time, between 9 and 10 or between 10 and 11.”
In addition to breaking the cycle of loneliness that often plagues older, frail adults living alone, the program serves another need.
Skoug said the program takes the onus of worry off adult children by allowing their elderly parents to confide in another adult.
“You don’t want your children to be worried about you,” Skoug said, using himself for an example. “I don’t want to discuss health problems with my daughter.”
The businessman said he and his partners deliberately kept the cost of the service low, $39.95 a month for a daily five-minute call.
“This SeniorCallup is very close to my heart because it has to do with really helping people,” Skoug said.
By Hattie Bernstein, Telegraph Staff
© 2006, Telegraph Publishing Company
