By Patty Thorsen
Patty Thorsen is a part of the Citizens League’s Backup Plan for Solo Seniors task force, an 18-month study on the challenges many individuals face as they age alone. As the project move forward, Patty will be updating followers of the project with a periodic blog post. Patty is a member of the Transportation Accessibility Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Council.
The focus of the next month for task force members is to identify and evaluate the quality and usefulness of information resources that help individuals to develop a backup plan for senior solos. The structure I use to proceed with our charge this month is to categorize the types of information resources that we identify. Each resource will fall into a variety of the categories.
- Online resources
- Websites
- Databases
- Newsletters/e-letters
- Phone resources
- Brick-and-mortar resources
- Clinics
- Legal service centers
- Hospitals
- Primary resources (providing facts from which relevant analysis is based)
- i.e. clinic lab test, will from an attorney
- Secondary resources
- Information and referral services that direct individuals to sources of primary information
- i.e. doctor’s interpretation of lab results
Another factor that is involved in identifying information resources addressing the need for developing a backup plan for seniors is to answer what types of organizations create relevant information:
- State agencies and departments
- Regional agencies and departments
- County agencies and departments
- Local agencies and departments
- Nonprofit organizations
- For-profit agencies that provide generic information related to healthcare
- Pharmacies
- Medical emergency alarm systems
- Online medical record depositories, such as MyChart
Would you like to contribute to this project? Email [email protected] to learn more.
This project is made possible by the generous support from The Bush Foundation.
