In an interview between Insights Success, Donovan Morrison, Co-founder and CEO, and Matt Wilcox, Co-founder and CTO of Luna Lights, share their resourceful insights about Luna Lights’s journey, its products, and the motive of the organization along with the aim towards revolutionizing the healthcare ecosystem.
Highlights of the interview, between Donovan, Matt and Insights Success, are elaborated as follows:
Give a brief overview of the company, its uniqueness and its vision.
At Luna Lights, we believe, older adults can maintain their health and independence as they age without needing to make major lifestyle compromises. To achieve this, we’ve developed an automated lighting system that uses behavioral analysis to help older adults stay safer at night.
We want to establish Luna Lights as a leader in night-time safety and as a standard of care in assisted living communities across the country. We’re thrilled about creating solutions that not only benefit the long-term care space, but that, older adults embrace and want to use.
What are the cutting-edge products/solutions offered by Luna Lights, Inc.?
Luna Lights consists of an ultra-thin pressure sensor that detects when a user gets out of bed and immediately turns on small, wireless lights around the home. When the user returns to his or her bed, the sensor turns the lights off automatically. Additionally, a software component collects data regarding the frequency and duration that an adult is out of bed at night. Our system sends a text notification to a caregiver if an older adult is out of bed for an unreasonable amount of time. It also allows caregivers to identify trends in nighttime trips and see which individuals are most at risk for falling.
Give a detailed description of the featured personnel’s influence over the company and the industry.
We’ve spent the last few years building Luna Lights and growing the business into what it is today. Through immersing ourselves in the industry we’ve come to fully understand the space, the stakeholders, and their pain points. We designed and developed the system, raised a round of capital, navigated a manufacturing run, and have deployed Luna Lights in senior living communities across the nation.
Describe the experiences, achievements or lessons learnt that have shaped the journey of the company.
We currently have twenty senior living community partners. Based on early results we’ve provided for at least a 30% reduction in the nighttime fall rate for our senior living community partners with as high as a 90% reduction. We’ve been able to connect variations in nightly activity with a host of underlying health conditions. We’ve closed a round of funding, expanded our sales reach nationally, received issuance of our first patent, and were recently named Rising Star Startup of the Year at the Fourth Revolution Awards.
One lesson we take to heart is that if you don’t know something, seek guidance. There are an incredible number of experienced individuals in every field and seeking their perspective can save you from costly mistakes.
What are the challenges faced while providing innovative solutions and how is Luna Lights, Inc. serving to tackle them?
Falls are the number one cause of injury for older adults and over half of all residents in assisted living communities will experience a fall in the next year. Nighttime falls are of great concern in these communities because there is the least staffing and lowest resident visibility. Many older adults refuse to use wearable monitoring solutions at night and sensor technologies are often expensive and complex, so there aren’t any current solutions that effectively address the issue.
By combining tracking and illumination, Luna Lights provides a predictive and preventive experience that is currently unavailable on the market. Luna Lights simplifies the data collected in order to target the elderly population and uses the data in a very specific way: to warn family members and caretakers of potential health problems or falls.
What according to you could be the potential future of your relative industry and how does Luna Lights, Inc. envision sustaining its competency?
As in other healthcare arenas, reducing readmissions is a big area of focus for senior living communities. Keeping the residents safer and reducing social isolation are two factors that are important for senior living communities that don’t want to lose hospital and health system referrals. We help address both of these through providing greater connectivity between residents and care staff.
In many cases communities are starting to move from paper and pencil charting to incorporating the technology in their communities, so we’re excited to be at the forefront of this movement. Integration will be important as multiple technologies are displayed and channeled through one system, and we’re excited to partner with other groups looking to provide comprehensive offerings.
Testimonials over Delivering Optimum Quality
“Luna Lights is an important part of our resident safety strategy in New Friendships memory care unit. Families are comforted, knowing that staff is able to respond quickly when residents are up and moving.” – Leondra Blaser, RN, Assisted Living Director at Friendship Manor in Rock Island, IL
“Luna Lights has helped us reduce overnight falls in our resident population and provides another tool senior living operators can use to mitigate fall risk and help keep residents safe and healthy.” – Brian Geyser, APRN-BC, MSN, VP, Clinical Innovation & Population Health at Maplewood Senior Living
URL: lunalights.org
Source: The 10 Start-Ups with Innovative Solutions in 2018
Luna Lights
