October 24, 2025 • 48 mins
If you’ve ever left a doctor’s appointment wondering what was said—or wished your siblings understood how much you’re doing—this conversation is a must-listen.
In episode 112, Susie and Don sit down with Crystal Gallo, founder of innerhive—a groundbreaking app using AI to help caregivers capture, organize, and share vital information while staying present for the people they love.
From preventing burnout to improving family communication, Crystal shares how Innerhive was born from her own caregiving experience and designed to bring clarity and connection to one of life’s most chaotic and emotional journeys. Together, they explore how technology can enhance humanity—not replace it—and why wellness, empathy, and smarter tools are key to transforming the caregiving experience.
Email: hello@innerhive.com, crystal@innerhive.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Priess (00:00):
When the world has got you down, Alzheimer's sucks.
It's an equal opportunitydisease that chips away at
everything we hold dear. And todate, there's no cure. So until
there is, we continue to fightwith the most powerful tool in
our arsenal, love. This is Loveconquers all's a real and really
(00:22):
positive podcast that takes adeep dive into everything,
Alzheimer's, The Good, The Badand everything in between. And
now here are your hosts, Suzysinger Carter and me. Don
Priess,
Susie Singer Carter (00:41):
hello everybody. It's Susie singer,
Carter,
Don Priess (00:44):
and I'm Don Priess, and this is Love conquers alls
Hello Susan. We're
Susie Singer Carter (00:48):
back. It's been a while. We are we have
been so inconsistent. But thankyou for everybody who is hanging
in there with us, because wereally appreciate it. We love
talking to you, and we love welove doing this show so much,
and it's very important to us,and because we love speaking to
the people that we have on ourguests and so but the
(01:14):
documentary has definitely sidesidelined us a bit, and but the
good news is we launched onAugust 1 on on Amazon, and now
we're on available on hoopla andalso on Tubi. And we are very
happy. We're getting excellentresponse, and it's stirring the
(01:36):
pot, and that's what we weretrying to do. And so happy.
We're happy, and we would loveeverybody that's out there too.
If you haven't watched it, watchit, please. It's three, it's
three parts. So you can takeyour you can take a break, and I
will, I'll say it's not an easywatch, but it's an important
watch, and it's also, it's aneducational watch as well, and
(02:02):
you'll learn a lot that you needto know, because all of us are
facing some kind of caregivingsituation, and usually it's a
crisis kind of situation. So ifwe can mitigate all those, any
kind of issue that you knowthat's possible, why not?
Doesn't that sound better? Andthen you don't have to, if
you're
Don Priess (02:21):
listening to this right now, you're probably into
that. If you're listening rightnow, you're probably in a
position where you are eithercaregiving or in need of
caregiving. And so this directlyrelates to everyone who's that's
Susie Singer Carter (02:33):
so true. I didn't think about that, Don I
didn't think about that, becauseotherwise you'd be listening to
like Amy Poehler in good hangExactly. Because although we're
kind of like Amy Poehler andgood hang, we're just, you know,
in the caregiving world, well,I'm like Amy Poehler, you are.
You're more like Amy Poehler,similar. Yeah, you look a lot
like her, that's for sure.
Except they think you werethinking of Amy Schumer. No, I
was thinking of Amy Poehler. Oh,okay, in this case, yeah, the
(02:56):
good hang, that's my favoritepodcast. It's so fun.
Don Priess (03:01):
Yeah, all the Amy's, all
Susie Singer Carter (03:03):
the Amy's, and one Susie, that's name of my
book, all the Amy's, and oneSusie Amy's, and one season, uh
huh, so and if you do, I'm justgonna let me just finish my
commercial for a second, whichis a good commercial. I'm not
make. We don't make money off ofthis at all. I just want to say
that, you know our the what weget out of it is, is impact and
(03:24):
change. And so if you would beso kind to watch this and go to
either Amazon, if you get itthrough Amazon and please rate
and review, because that couldthat connects to their
algorithm, and that out, andthen that tells them, tells
Amazon that we're importantenough to keep pushing it out
there and not bury us somewherewhere you have to type in the
(03:47):
name and find us and then, andif you don't, if you get it for
free on to be then please,please, just go to IMDb, which
is the Internet Movie Database.
If you're not in the industry,you might have to, I think you
do have to sign up. It's free,but it is for a good cause, you
guys. I'm not, you know, I'm notasking you to put out any money.
Just write it, review it,because it will help us get it
(04:09):
out past our echo chamber. Sothat's super important. And
thank you.
Don Priess (04:16):
Share it with everyone you know, because,
yeah, so there's our commercial.
Susie Singer Carter (04:22):
We did it, done and done. And so today
we're doing it. We're doing atake two. As they say in our
business of filmmaking, we'redoing a take two with someone
that we that we had such a greatconversation. And, you know,
things happen, I and and itdoesn't matter, it's but
whatever it is, we're back, andwe're going to be talking to
(04:42):
this amazing woman and and she'skind enough to, like, cut us a
break for whatever we put we didsomething. I don't remember what
it was, but something happenedand she came back to us. It was
a technical difficulty, if youwill. Yeah, so here we are, and
I feel grateful for that. At andso let's, let's just jump in.
Don give her the best yesintroduction ever.
Don Priess (05:07):
Let me give it a whirl. Okay, after 15 years
building teams and growing highimpact technology companies,
Crystal Gallo discovered hertrue calling in the most
unexpected way, throughcaregiving. When her own family
faced dementia and cancer, sheexperienced firsthand how
isolating and overwhelming thecaregiver journey can be.
(05:30):
Inspired by her own path andcountless others she met
navigating similar challenges,she founded inner hive, a
company dedicated to endingcaregiver burnout and helping us
all show up better for ourselvesand the people we love, and to
find out more about thiswonderful innovation, let's say
hello to Crystal. Gallo, hellocrystal. Hi Chris, good.
Susie Singer Carter (05:55):
Thank you for coming back and joining us
again. So first, how are youdoing? On a personal note,
Crystal Gallo (06:01):
I'm good. I feel like probably not as wild of a
ride as what you guys are goingthrough right now. I think it's
pretty rad that you finally wereable to get the documentary
launched. Have some phenomenalconversation rolling. So it's
exciting to kind of see thosethings happening in the Eco you
know out there. Thank you.
Grateful to be here to support
Susie Singer Carter (06:21):
you. Oh, thank you so much so. But okay,
enough about me, but give ussome more. Give us some
background on Crystal Gallowfirst and how you got into this,
this arena, this community ofcaregiving. Because I think, I
think everyone understands thatthere's some reason why we all
end up here?
Crystal Gallo (06:43):
Yeah, I mean the juicy background, I just I can
get into all sorts of fun stuffthat I love to do in my spare
time, but mostly as it relatesto this, I've spent a lot of
time and kind of grown up intechnology, so I worked really
hard to kind of earn theinfluence and opportunities that
I had, and was fortunate to beat companies that were high
growth, all with successfulexits, but I never really had
the privilege of being able towork on something personal,
(07:05):
something that I could holddeeply, something that was an
experience that I went throughand I held strong conviction
around and, you know, a lot ofpeople that know me know my
curiosity kind of runs deep. Ihold a great affection around
continued learning, and there'sjust an energy that I get from
being able to explore andconnect and grow. And I knew at
some point I was going to findmy way back to, you know,
(07:27):
wellness has always been at thecore of all my decisions and
kind of my growth, and it's mypassion. I just I didn't expect
that that path back home, so tospeak, would be, you know, maybe
how it unfolded. Some say it waswake up call. Some maybe say
it's healthy perspective. Otherssay it's crazy. But in any case,
(07:47):
I feel like inner hive startedfrom a deeply personal, rooted
place that I found myself in anunexpected kind of caregiving
situation, but after being ableto connect with others and
feeling inspired by theirwillingness to be open and raw
and recognizing that we share acommon understanding. We've been
(08:09):
there. We've we've been in the,you know, the trenches,
navigating the chaos. We feltcompletely overwhelmed and
alone, and we've, you know, theimpact that that has in terms of
burnout creeping in and feelinglike your own wellness is being
negatively, you know, not in agood space. And so despite the
risk and the challenge thatcomes with pursuing new
(08:30):
territory, I think my intuitiontold me I really had to pursue
this path. This was it wasreally important. It was
meaningful. There was there wasgreat personal purpose, and
being able to kind of have thiscommon denominator, the shared
experience among others, was theinspiration behind inner hive.
Susie Singer Carter (08:46):
I love it because that's I think, like I
said, Everybody comes to thiscommunity with with a story,
right? And something thatmotivates you, and then and then
you we all look at what's ourstrengths to hopefully make it
an easier space based on ourexperience being a filmmaker. I
do it that way, and you comefrom a tech background, which is
(09:07):
phenomenal and also scary ashell, because it changes
constantly, and I don't know howyou keep
Crystal Gallo (09:11):
up. We're not a tech company trying to sell
something to caregivers. We'reactually caregivers who were in
it, who had that breakdown, whofelt it, who made an intentional
pivot. We just happen to knowtech. So I think being able to
think about, how do we solvecomplex problems and something
that's so personal, and how canwe leverage tech to be able to
enhance the humanity side, to beable to, like, give a space, to
(09:33):
be present, that was ourmission. Like we want to do that
and make sure that it stayshuman. US people, the connection
at the core, because you can'tuse technology to solve these
things. It's, I don't know, youknow, there's different opinions
out there, but emotions have allsorts of colors, so there's a
huge spectrum to that. And yeah,this is a deeply emotional
(09:54):
space, and so being able toleverage that technology is
good, but it will never replaceYeah.
Don Priess (10:00):
Yeah. So what is the, what is the elevator pitch?
Basically on how inner hiveworks. What is I mean, just so
for somebody who has no idea,how do you tell them? This is
what we do and this is how itworks,
Crystal Gallo (10:13):
yeah, so I guess I'll start you off. But we
really rallied around we had theopportunity to connect with
hundreds of families, and wejust wanted to ground ourselves
to make sure that our personalbias and so our team
collectively has had experiencein care, you know, but from
different perspectives. So itmight be caring for a parent or
someone that you know is aging.
It might be caring for a childwith medical complexity. It
could be caring for a partner,you know, mental health. There's
(10:35):
been a whole spectrum. So wewanted to kind of remove what we
felt and connect with families.
And the biggest challenge thatwe kept hearing is information
overload in the very beginning,like the greatest pain point
people have is I had an accidentor I had a situation or fall or
new diagnosis, and then whathappens next? Everyone's calling
(10:56):
each other. You haveconversations that are
happening, you have appointmentsthat you're going to right
trying to just process all ofit, and it's so overwhelming,
and so we wanted to make itreally easy with just a couple
of clicks. How can we helpcapture, summarize and make it
easy to share that information?
Because it lets you staypresent. It brings others into
the fold. And when you can usethe information as a source of
(11:17):
connection, you've got theability where other people don't
feel like they're boxed out,they're sharing that care load,
and it's just really importantcontext. It really helps when
you can process that flood ofinformation and you can bring
clarity to where do I focus?
What's next? It changesoutcomes. It provides a better
quality of life when you've gotthat caliber of organization and
(11:38):
connection in your supportcommunity. So how
Don Priess (11:40):
does, what does what does that look like? How does
that I mean, for just an exampleof
Susie Singer Carter (11:44):
maybe this, I could frame it this way. So
there's a lot of support groupsright out on Facebook. Say, What
does inner hive offer that isdifferent from a forum?
Crystal Gallo (11:54):
I love that we'll put a pin in the forum piece,
because that's been a greatpoint of feedback. So let me
just paint a picture. If youguys have any siblings, or if
you've, you know, I know, giventhe experience you've been in,
let's just say your mom has anaccident. You get a call. You're
generally her primary, like, goto whether that's legally or
just that just happens to be,she's going to call you, and it
(12:15):
kicks off this telephone chain.
So you get a call, Hey, I haveearly onset Alzheimer's. I need
to go. I need to connect withthe doctor. I need to learn a
little bit more about what thatlooks like, what I can do.
You're like, great. I'll go.
I'll be with you. I'll supportyou. So you go to this
conversation with your mom, andby the time dinner rolls around,
she's completely forgotteneverything that had happened in
(12:37):
the conversation. It felt likeshe was present. She had
questions. She was capturing it.
Everything felt good. And thenyou get to the dinner table, and
you're you're trying to share,and you're trying to bring your
siblings and her partner in theloop, and it's gone. All of a
sudden, she doesn't evenremember the conversation
happened. And so instantly, me,as her daughter feels, what am I
going to do? Like, should I havetaken notes during the
(12:58):
appointment? I don't want mom tofeel like I'm kind of
micromanaging, or she's a casestudy. Do I record and not tell
her that doesn't feel good? Ifeel completely guilty, like I
should have been capturing thatinformation. I just thought she
seemed like she was in a goodplace, where we had it covered,
and now I don't even know whatto say, like I instantly had
this flush of emotion, and I'moverwhelmed and I can't answer
(13:19):
the questions. So we made itsuper easy. If you were to go
and download our app, you canuse it on your phone. So you can
get it in Google Play, you canget an app store. You can go use
it on iPad, desktop. But in acouple clicks, you say, hey, you
know, I really just want tocapture some notes. Are you okay
with that? Great. You lettechnology run in the
background. Don't worry about ifyou can read your notes,
scribbling, keeping up trying tounderstand the medical jargon.
(13:40):
Don't worry about trying to askall the right questions. Just be
there for your mom. Be presentin her company, there to support
her. It's such an emotionaljourney to go through these
conversations. Then when thatmeeting, that appointment, ends,
you've got that. You have theentire transcription. So if you
want to go back and listen to itor read it, you've got all the
details, but mostly you have asummary. Here's what we
(14:00):
discussed. Here's next steps. Ineed to schedule this
appointment. I need to, youknow, up this medication, and
that's so easy to share. So thensix months later, when, when
your mom's condition hasprogressed and she maybe isn't
in a place where she canadvocate for herself anymore,
you have that recording. Youhave her own words, what she you
know, you have that appointment,you have the conversation that
could have happened after, whereshe got to express, hey, here's
(14:23):
my preference. Here's what'smeaningful to me, what matters.
And so that takes the weight offof you. You're no longer in a
situation, right? Having tothink, wow, what do I do? It's
like, Hey, Mom, do you rememberwhen we went to this
appointment? Let's talk aboutthis. And do you remember when
we had this conversation after,and we kind of captured our
discussion of what yourpreferences were, it's a
phenomenal way of just providinga voice. It's keeping a record.
(14:46):
It's
Susie Singer Carter (14:49):
a record.
Yeah, yeah. So it's this isincorporating AI,
Crystal Gallo (14:55):
yeah, exactly.
We're using AI to helpsummarize, so that that you can
be proud.
Don Priess (15:00):
Isn't that technology when you have a
doctor's Yeah, when you have adoctor's appointment, or you're
talking with your siblings andyou're trying to decide who's
doing what, and all thosethings, all those, all of that
can the same technology can beused for those conversations,
especially with the doctors.
Because doctors every, I mean,in normal situations, you go to
the doctor, they tell yousomething, and the second you
(15:20):
walk out that door, you have,you can't remember what they
said, you know. So I assume itcan be used for all can it be
used over the phone, and if youhave with phone conversations,
or how would that work? And justin person, if
Crystal Gallo (15:33):
you have someone on speaker, it can absolutely be
used. So if you have someone onspeaker and you're sitting there
and you have your phone active,you can use it. Then we've had
families that have had, youknow, again, the care
preference. So you have someone,maybe with cognitive decline,
and when they're still lucid,you get to capture some of those
cool moments and preferences. Wehave another family, it's really
sweet. Had the opportunity tomeet with him recently, and he
(15:54):
was sharing some tidbits abouttheir journey. And his mom is
nonverbal now, and so he's hadto learn how to kind of
understand her vocalizations andwhat that means, and how to
interpret and how is sheexpressing emotion? Well, that's
so difficult to be able toarticulate and share with your
family. If they're not there,it's not it's not easy to
explain, it's not easy toreplicate. He was able to use
(16:15):
this, this note taking, scribeand record it and send it to his
siblings. And so you can use itin medical appointments. You can
use it in home careconversations. We have families
that are talking to each other,and they just want to summarize
and have a record of thediscussions of like, Hey, Mom,
what's your preference? How youfeeling? We people use it every
day for journaling. Mom is doinggreat today. She just had hip
surgery. She's still using awalker. You know, Fast forward
(16:38):
four days. Mom's letting go ofthe walker. She's feeling
independent. She's doing hergates looking better. We have
people that use it as just amemory log. Think about a
digital scrapbook, where you canpiece all these together, and
over time, you get to be able togo back and reflect. And there's
something special about that. Ihave a voicemail from tonight. I
(16:58):
think I've shared with you mygrandparents helped raise me,
and so when I lost mygrandfather, that was kind of
like the first I had gonethrough loss in my life, but
that was the first one that hithome very differently, and I was
so thankful. We always checkedin, and we talked every day. And
after I had moved it became alittle harder with the time
zone, so he would call superearly. They're on East Coast, on
(17:19):
West Coast. And sometimes, if hedidn't get me, he'd leave a
voicemail. And he had left thisvoicemail one morning, and it
was unexpected when he hadpassed the next week, but that
voicemail has been my gold everyyear I've been able to listen to
it. I've been able to share it.
Whenever I bring it up with mymom and a grandmother. You know
it it just you can see theemotion and the energy and the
feeling that comes back. It'slike listening to a song that
(17:40):
brings up nostalgic memories.
That's what this offers. It'sjust a really great way of
taking a lot of information,capturing it, summarizing it,
making it super easy to share.
And yeah, like you said, you canuse it in so many different
ways. Does it? Catalog it aswell? So you'll have a complete
note file. You can filter andjust say, show me all my notes.
Show me the notes withrecording, you have the option
(18:00):
when you share it out you knowwhat level of detail, it gives
you explicit action items thatyou can engage with. So if
you're managing care withothers, for example, we have a
family and long distance. Thedaughter happens to live and is
caring for her mom and herbrother is not, and they were
running into a little bit offamily dysfunction. She was
feeling like she was carryingthe low burning out. What?
Susie Singer Carter (18:22):
That's crazy. I've never heard that
before. I know that's so real,
Crystal Gallo (18:32):
but it's you do.
You get stuck in this like awfulcycle of exhaustion and guilt,
and then you start to buildresentment. And it's like people
have good intention and theywant to help, but they just
don't have the tools, and theydon't know how. And so in this
case, the frustration was kindof growing, and she was then
able to, we had the opportunityto meet, and she started using
inner hub to capture theconversations. So then it made
it easy, because now when she'ssharing it with her brother,
(18:56):
Mark's not just getting, youknow, her interpretation, he's
getting the raw at the source.
He can hear, you know, what theconversation look like. He can
hear the response. So they'vegot that baseline, and they're
operating from the same jumpoff, which makes it super easy.
So now they can collaborate, andthey can both go, Oh, hey, I
listened to that. I'm going todo this research. You do that
research. Let's come backtogether and we can make a
(19:18):
decision together, versus herfeeling like this is all on me.
And also, right? You know,here's what I heard. And half
the time you walk away like yousaid. You're overwhelmed. You're
like, Wait, shoot, what do Ineed to do? What was that?
Susie Singer Carter (19:29):
Yeah, okay, right? Just for that, it's worth
everything, because if you haveno seriously, if, because this,
these kinds of caregivingissues, can bring up so much
contentious kind ofrelationships that were maybe
were brewing in the background,but then all of a sudden, you
know all when you're in crisis,or when there's crisis, plus
(19:53):
money involved, and all kinds ofthings that make people
different than you everexpected, you have a record.
It's not on you just to say, no,no, this actually happened. You
can show it.
Crystal Gallo (20:05):
It's funny. You say that. So family, family
dynamics is a really big part ofextending care. It it people
don't realize it escalates fast,and communication, when
communication is broken downlike it could be either powerful
and insights to help inform,make good decisions and bring
you together. It's like thebridge, or can do exactly the
opposite. And I had theopportunity to work with this
family and same thing. Sothere's three siblings, and
(20:28):
they're caring for their dad,and they've all decided they,
you know, have a super busylife. Each person wants to care
for a very specific part, sothey have a care plan. They've
had the conversation ingenerally, they felt like we're
in a good spot. We're prepared.
We know what to do, like, we'vetalked about it, right? Had a
situation recently where theyreached out and they're like, we
just have to share with you howthis was really valuable to us,
(20:48):
because we almost went on eachother's throats because
basically their dad had calledone of the siblings, and
basically it said, I've seen somany doctors this week. I don't
even remember what I'm supposedto be doing. Do you know what
I'm supposed to be taking formeds? I know it changed, but I
don't changed, but I don't know.
And his son instantly was like,Oh my gosh, is he is this like a
emergency? Is this a Didsomething happen? Do I need to
(21:10):
call 911, right? They'remanaging from a distance. And so
anyway, you go through thetelephone chain, you call your
siblings, and then before youknow it, you're like, oh well,
it's because he took theneurology appointment, his
sister took the primary doctor,and then his other sister took
the other doctor. So they didn'trealize that their dad was
accurate. He was veryoverwhelmed, because he had been
(21:31):
through so many, you know,appointments that week, right?
But the problem was they wereall managing it in a siloed
approach, and so now they useinner hive, and they're able to
put all the information inthere. They can post a note and
pushes out. You can see it.
You've got a reference, youknow, all the people, places
involved. And so it's like,okay, when these situations
happen, you don't need to gointo crisis. It's dad did have
(21:51):
three appointments this week.
Here's what's happening. Like,he is pretty overwhelmed, but
you can totally avoid thatcrisis just through information
sharing.
Don Priess (22:01):
So is there a video component to it, or is it all
audio?
Crystal Gallo (22:05):
It's all audio, right now, that's interesting.
So when you, when you talk aboutvideo, like to be able to have
the ability to record and keepkeep logged, because right now
people can upload so you cantake your phone and you can
record a video on your phone,you can take a picture on your
phone and you can upload that toinner hive. Yeah. Enter hive. So
we have a place to store alldocuments, whether it's
(22:26):
documents like that and it's,you know, observations,
reflections, progress, it couldbe documents like insurance. It
could be documents
Susie Singer Carter (22:34):
like Power of Attorney. That's what I'm
talking about. Yeah, that's soimportant because, yeah, go
ahead, like anything that'sanything that is, you know, that
affects that family, the unit asa whole, that that is so
important because it takes anyof the suspicion out or the
mistrust, or if it's there tobegin with, and and it mitigates
(22:58):
all Those problems right thereand then. So let me just clarify
one more time. So when, whenit's recording, is it actually
recording an audio file? So youhave that
Crystal Gallo (23:12):
perfect, perfect, yeah, yeah. And most people
don't want to go back and listento that full transcription, but
they have it as a reference thatthey want.
Susie Singer Carter (23:19):
No, but it's important if you have it
like the nut, yes,
Don Priess (23:24):
with, with dealing with like, like, my mother right
now, who has Parkinson'sdementia, and she's to a point
where she basically all herspeech is just sounds. It's not
words. Yet she thinks she'sactually speaking. You can tell
she's talking as if she wastalking, but there's, it's just
sounds, but behaviors that youcan show her physician, things
(23:45):
like that. That's why I wasthinking about the video
component. Also, you know, thatyou can engage when you're with
the person you're care caringfor. Now, you can shoot that on
your phone, that's a differentthing, and then upload it. But I
didn't know. That's why I wasjust asking about the video
component as far as if it wouldbe, you know, melded within the
transcripts and all thosethings, you know, I don't know,
(24:07):
but yeah, no,
Crystal Gallo (24:07):
that's great.
It's great feedback. Wedefinitely wanted to start with,
like families that said, there'sso much chaos. Please, just help
us find clarity, and then helpus remember to find connection.
Because in that stress, it'sreally easy to box people out or
to get frustrated or let theemotions take over. So we wanted
to not ask them to do anything.
We're like, Hey, we're gonnameet with you where you're at.
We don't want to add to youryour list. We're actually gonna
(24:28):
take from you couple clicks. Letthis record. We'll give you a
summary you can easily share.
You've got a reference point.
We'll give you like veryspecific tasks. You can
interact. It feels so good tocheck stuff off that list. Share
that care with others. Then wedesigned it so that as they go
through, which is where you'rekind of jumping to, we want to
be able to grow with that carejourney. A lot of times, if
(24:48):
there is a shift and it's achronic condition or something
changing, progressing over time,it's really important that we're
taking some sort of record andjournal of that every day. And
so we do have the ability in ourdaily journal, which. Tax. How
are you feeling, you know, whatdid you get today? For movement?
What did you get for sleep? Whatabout nutrition? Where's your
energy level at? As the personextending care, how much time
(25:08):
did you get to spend onyourself? And what are the care
events that you extended? Youknow, did you spend most of it
with meal prep, or maybe it wasrunning to the appointments, or
possibly it was medicationmanagement, and you can even put
in, you know, the amount of timeon average, maybe it was 15
hours today. So it's reallygreat because it tracks every
single day in less than aminute, you're taking
information, you're givingyourself insight. You can share
(25:29):
it with others. You can see andunderstand, wow, on average,
this week, I had a good week. Iwas actually happy most days. I
saw my sentiment, and I was ableto get an hour to myself, you
know, I was able to help withsome meal prep. We had some
appointments, but it wasn'tterrible. Mom was great. And you
can record some of those thingsand capture that, and then maybe
the week before it was you canlook back and you go, wow, I was
(25:50):
not in a good place for thosedays. What happened? And you can
see the pattern of, oh, it wasbecause mom was not wanting to
take the medication. I washaving to negotiate a little bit
more, and that was taking moreenergy, and we were exhausted.
Exhausting more trying to getthat. And the, you know, the
nutrition components balanced,but it brings awareness. So then
you can start to understand,what am I doing, how am I
(26:13):
feeling, what am I extending forcare? Where is my wellness at?
And eventually we want to beable to then offer suggestions.
So when we see that trend andsomething maybe is not great for
a week, we want to be able toreach out to your inner circle
and say, hey, you know, Susiecould really use your support
this week. Maybe you want toconsider dropping off some food.
She's been spending a lot oftime on meal prep. Or, you know,
(26:33):
here's an exercise that you cando that's going to help you. 30
seconds do this. It will helpbring you and the frustration
with your mom down because she'snot not understanding what
you're asking her to do, we'regoing to help you reframe it. Or
here's a tip. Here's what othercaregivers have found that has
been successful in terms of, youknow, being able to help with
movement, or if they don't wantto do physical therapy
(26:56):
exercises, get creative. Stopthinking about stepping up the
stairs. Think about, let's go tothe park where there's flowers
to pick, which has stairs whichfocused on, let's go and get
those beautiful flowers overthere. We're gonna have to walk
those two steps to get there,but let's go get those flowers.
Susie Singer Carter (27:10):
I love it.
Do you have an AI that goes,Hey, your sister's doing all the
work. What's your problem?
Kidding? Maybe.
Where? Have you been? No, I'mkidding.
Don Priess (27:24):
It's called Yeah, the bad the bad cop. We call it
Yeah.
Susie Singer Carter (27:28):
It's like, I don't want to say anything,
but she has put in like 25 hoursthis week, and yours is zero.
Crystal Gallo (27:37):
Well, it's kind of funny. You mentioned that
because family dynamics camecome up more than you think, and
when you actually have thatjournal. And I had someone else
that shared that sentiment, andshe was building resentment with
her sibling, and she was like, Ijust really strongly dislike
them right now, and they're notthey don't care, and they're not
helping. And I was like, Well,why don't you journal
(27:59):
everything? Why don't you thenshare that, and at least start
with you've done your job interms of, let me give them some
perspective. Let me help themunderstand what I'm managing,
what's going on. Because she'slike, No, they don't get it.
They don't care. And I was like,Well, have you explained? No,
they don't. They don't. They'relike, what takes so long? What
are you doing all day? Why doesit what do you really spend that
many hours? Is it really thatstressful? And she's like, I
just want to hang up the phone.
I was like, Well, put yourenergy into the journal. It's a
(28:21):
good reference for you. You getto learn about you and your mom.
You can share it with yoursiblings, whether or not you
know, lead the horse to water,whether or not the horse decides
to drink different differentconversation. But at least let
some of that emotional energyout. Find a way to turn into
insight. Let them have theopportunity to consume and
understand a little bit more.
Build some empathy around Wow.
You are navigating a lot.
Don Priess (28:41):
So family members use, I mean, they can have
input, or is it just one inputand everyone else can just
access it? Or can many people domemos and things like that? I
missed
Crystal Gallo (28:54):
the beginning, but I think what you asked is,
can you have one account wheremultiple people are engaging in
it? And if that
Don Priess (28:59):
is engaging, yes, both, not only just reading or
seeing it, but also, again,doing input and things
Susie Singer Cart (29:04):
contributing.
Yeah, 100% 100%
Crystal Gallo (29:07):
Yep, you have the ability. So all accounts. Let's
just say, Me, Crystal wants tosign up to inner hive. I go, I
download it, my enter in crystalat lives free.com and I say, I'm
actually going to bring mysister Rosie and my other sister
Sarah in, and they're going tobe co owners. So that means
they're going to have fullaccess. We can add edit, we're
all in there. We trust eachother, and then maybe I'm going
to bring my brother in as aviewer, and he can see what's
(29:29):
going on, but not be a co owner.
How about family dynamics? Hasthat for How's that for a
softball? Yeah, but there is anoption where you can choose to
bring people in as CO owners.
They can see it all and do it,and do it all. And then you can
bring people in as viewers. Andwe have a lot of families that
will use that in situationswhere they're bringing in help
into the home for respite, orsometimes they go into a day
program, you know, maybe formovement or spiritual groups.
(29:51):
And so it's really important tobe able to have that context. It
gives them the ability to, youknow, in many cases, there's a
profile page that says, here'smy dad's preferences. Here. His
medications, allergens,diagnoses. Also, here's some
context around how he tends tocommunicate best, and that's so
invaluable. When you're you'retrying to figure out, like, how
can I best connect and givesomeone a great experience when
(30:12):
I'm not there, it gives a peaceof mind. It gives you, know, a
slice of confidence you're like,I I feel good and I know that
they're safe because they've gotthe critical information.
Susie Singer Carter (30:21):
I love this I love this technology. I'm just
getting into AI a little bitmyself with just, you know, my
social media, and it's been sohelpful. And I think that, you
know, at least for me, I don'tknow how your technology and how
your AI works, and I'm assumingthat you are building it on a on
(30:41):
a database of, you know, allthis information that's already
there from caregiving that, youknow is, is informing how AI
responds to certain things. So,but is there also that personal
component where it understands,like, like, let's say the three
of us are on the same account.
So it's like, this is Susiechecking in, and that AI knows,
it starts to learn my patternsand starts to learn what's going
(31:04):
on. And then you can say to it,hey, listen, what would be a
really nice way to tell mybrother to step up like and give
me? Could you do that? Is thatpart of the component or not? So
Crystal Gallo (31:16):
there's two parts. Yes, it starts to
understand and learn. So it doesstart to recognize who's in the
conversation and then identify.
Then the other piece that youhad said would be more like, can
I use AI in an interactiveconversational way? And we do
have within our app be a littlenod, because inner hive was kind
of born we we have a love fornature and bees and their social
structure. I mean, everyonethinks, oh, busy bee, and that's
(31:37):
great, but it's actually theresilience, the way they
communicate, the way they cometogether. And that shared
collaboration was something thatwe wanted to kind of, you know,
emulate and shine through withinner hive. So B is our little
interactive chat. And so in thiscase, you can absolutely chat
with her and say, Hey, can yougive me some questions that I
can consider asking my brother,or can you give me some tips and
(31:59):
how I can help my brotherrecognize that he's maybe not
sharing the care load, or thatI'm frustrated. So you can have
that interaction with bee. Andshe also gets smarter and starts
to to be able to understand andlearn. And she can offer you
some some guidance, where it'slike, hey, consider this. And
you can go then do some furtherdiscovery, or right, right,
here's something that you might,you know, you might find
(32:19):
valuable or I
Susie Singer Carter (32:22):
think that's so great. I think that's
such a good tool, because justjust the idea of having to sit
down and write an email tosomeone that you're already
upset with because you're tiredand you're frustrated, so now
you've got to sit down and thinkabout the, you know, a non
confrontational way of likeasking a question, and everybody
(32:44):
is very sensitive, that is sucha good tool to have. And it's
learning you like that. To me,this is the best, the best use
of AI for me. And I'm a writer,so I mean, I I find it really
helpful in framing certainthings that you that are that
(33:04):
just, you know how to frame it,but it takes too much time.
Yeah, does that make sense?
Crystal Gallo (33:09):
Yeah, it does. I still think there's a lot of
opportunity there, because we'veexplored, we've had a lot of
people say, you know, it'd bereally great. I can identify my
inner circle. I can share, youknow, updates, help, requests,
whatever there. We've had peopleask and say, Okay, what if I
want that inner circle toexpand? Can we just have all
inner hive users? And you'rebringing caregivers together,
and then we're havingconversation there. So there's
(33:30):
learning that's happening atmultiple levels. So a lot of
people have said, if they getthat guidance and they help, you
know, they're given a space tojust journal, let the emotion
out, also a space to have somedialog around, how do I reframe
this, and some data to kind ofback them up and say, hey, look,
here's what's going on. It doeschange the entire way that
connection happens throughcoordination. It makes it less
(33:52):
viable. It makes people feelmore informed and present.
Susie Singer Carter (33:55):
And it's so great because I'm sorry, I just
get to be so excited. It's sogreat. Because, do you have
like, if you're saying somethingand you want to present
something AI, because it doesclock and cat, you know, and
catalog everything that youinput. It just that's the nature
of AI. It could easily say backon such and such, remember, use
(34:17):
this, you know, bring upsomething that you forgot to
even think of to mention aboutan appointment that you had, you
know, journaled or logged in, orwhatever. And it can bring that
up and say, don't forget toremind them this. You know what
I mean that I think that that'sthose things start happening. I
noticed it with with workingwith AI. Now that it, it has all
(34:38):
the memory that I've given it,everything that I've, you know,
all my information is there, soit has it, it'll say, oh, yeah,
remember when this so and so didthis? Yeah, let's, let's do this
instead. You know, to, know,offer up different ways.
Crystal Gallo (34:52):
I love that.
Actually, I feel like that'ssuper applicable to people that
are navigating, well, you know,you understand the audience,
Alzheimer's, yeah? Dementia. Orany sort of cognitive
impairment, because it helpsyou, like, being organized isn't
just helpful. It's actuallyreally protective, because it
supports your safety. Youreduce, like, you know, you
reduce any sort of errors ormissed care steps. It provides
you with continuity, so you'vegot a reference point, a nice
(35:14):
kind of audit trail, if youwill, when your memory fades. So
it's not really a luxury. Whenpeople think, well, I don't need
that. It's actually, it's a youdo need that. It is a necessity
like that is going to help you.
It's going to bring youtogether. It's going to help
with your preferences and, youknow, decision making. And there
is so much power and informationif we can sift through and help
(35:34):
people remove the noise, we cangive them the insights that are
Susie Singer Carter (35:37):
going to change the outcome, the
important things, and get theemotions out of their way. No,
Crystal Gallo (35:41):
I mean, we could say here, we have other features
in the app that are, you know,there's a community piece. You
can hook up your calendar andbring your appointments in. It
will remind you and say you havea doctor's appointment with your
neurologist in five minutes.
Would you like to record? So itputs it in front of you. Don't
have to think about it. It givesyou the option right after it
finishes and says, added thenotes would you like to share
with your inner circle? Andwe're trying to take a lot of
that, that mental load out, andwe're trying to make it as easy
(36:03):
as possible. So there's a lot ofrichness with our journal, with
our appointment, with a noterecording. There's, there's so
many different places that, youknow, people extending care can
kind of grow and they can picktheir own journey in the app. So
Susie Singer Carter (36:16):
this is so, so great and so important. I'm,
I'm even more excited aboutinner hive now. So I'm glad this
was a happy accident, because Ilike the I like the direction
that you're going in and it, andI get it, and I think, you know,
looking back at if I had thatkind of tool, it would have been
so helpful in so many ways, likesuper duper helpful. And I mean,
(36:41):
I'm all for it. I'm all in Ithink, I think this is really
good.
Don Priess (36:46):
Yeah, I wanted to ask a couple things about Doctor
interfacing, because I assume Bcan say, you know, you can
summarize, here's here was theday we spent with her, and some
weird things were going on, andblah, blah, blah. And I assume
you can ask B to say, hey, Iwant to express what happened
today to my doctor in acoherent, simplified way based
(37:06):
on all of this. So I assume youcan take whatever transcripts it
has, and it'll kind of summarizeand say, Yeah, this would be a
great way of communicating toyour doctor. This is the
important, salient points thatreally he need. Would need to
know. Would it go that deep?
Yeah, that's
Crystal Gallo (37:23):
interesting. We haven't actually connected those
two, because right now you canhave a conversation and we
provide a summary, and we havevery clear next steps or themes,
so like, here's what wediscussed and here's what needs
to be done, and that's typicallyshared, but I think what you're
doing is taking a step furtherand thinking about the emotional
undercurrents or the nuances,like, how can I position this
differently? Or what am I notthinking about? And you could
absolutely take absolutely takethat, it's not automated right
(37:45):
now, but you could take that andyou could connect with B and
say, Hey, B, I want to show you,and I want to express what we
did today. Can you help mereframe, you know, how I can
share this with my doctor? Yeah,so that's and that's probably an
area that we can explore even,you know, in terms of where
there's opportunity. And this iswhy, the more people we can get
in, the more families we canreach, the faster we're gonna
find, what do they need? Yeah,what
Susie Singer Carter (38:09):
completely, yeah. And then you're speaking,
you're speaking Doctor lingo tonot, not in but I mean, enough
so that it's short it, you know,you're doing a shorthand in a
way, not, I'm not I'm not sayingthat it's medical, but you're
doing a quicker short. I'm like,you know, I didn't know any
terms when I was taking care ofmy mom, right? So I'm trying to
explain everything like, Ididn't know what acuity was.
(38:31):
Like a high acuity. I didn'tknow when they were throwing all
these words to me, likecomorbidities and all these
things. I didn't know what thatmeant, right? So those are
things that you know we mightnot ask at the time, like, Wait,
slow down. What are you talkingabout? What? What? What's high
acuity? What do you mean? Like,and how? When you say high
(38:52):
acuity, how many acuities arethere? Like, what are we talking
about? You know what I mean?
Because we don't know. If youdon't know, it's not your
business and you but these arethings you need to know as a
caregiver.
Crystal Gallo (39:02):
Yes, yeah. The other side of that reference to,
like, go back to and learn andspend time and process, because
in on the fly, when you're,like, elevated or, you know,
you're just, you're trying to bepresent, it's really difficult
to difficult. We can't be amedical scribe and an emotional
support and a firefighter andeverything else that you know,
at once though,
Susie Singer Carter (39:21):
and because you are good, let me just one
say one thing. So because yourapp is geared towards this, it's
not like you're going in,because people could say, well,
I could just do a Google search.
No, because it's different,because yours is already fine
tuned, and it's already in thisin this lane, it's, it's, it's
primed for this kind ofconversation, so it's just
(39:42):
picking up and holding on to theimportant things that belong in
the caregiving conversation.
Correct?
Don Priess (39:52):
Yes, yes, also relevant to your your situation.
Susie Singer Carter (39:57):
That too personalized, but I'm saying on
a bigger Yeah. Yeah, but I'mseeing on the bigger, but, like,
on a bigger resourcecapability, it's it, to me, it's
short. It's like, you know, yourather go there than to a Google
search where it's like, thisgeneralized AI that comes up and
goes well, that there's manyideas that could happen with
(40:17):
that. And there's, you know, andthen it gives you this, you
know, but this, this AI, B knowsyou.
Crystal Gallo (40:24):
It's targeted. It already knows what you're there
for. It already has anunderstanding of what happens
when you're extending care. It'svery a lot of people have
shared, you know, I wantsomething custom. It's just like
you're an entrepreneur. You wantto find another entrepreneur.
Because you don't explainyourself. You just say, Oh, I'm
not trying to Oh, I get it. Youwant to find someone else's
extending care. Same thing. Itremoves that load, and it just
(40:45):
makes it easier to thencollaborate and know very
specifically, like, here's thesituation, you have empathy,
totally.
Susie Singer Carter (40:52):
Does it say? Good job. I like it. I like
it. I like it. Keep going. I'mall about it. I'm all about it.
I don't care that it's amachine. When my AI tells me I'm
a fierce lioness, I like it.
Don Priess (41:12):
Do you have you had heard any experiences or, you
know, for example, if I wasusing this and I went in to see
the doctor, I would want to turnthis thing on and say, I, I'm,
I'm recording this information,yeah, and you should be able to
do that, you know. But you know,for example, when Susie was, you
(41:32):
know, caregiving was her mom,they were like, oh, you can't
turn your you can't record, youknow, the CNAs were like, You
can't do this, or you can'trecord this. You know. Have
there been any pushback? Do youknow of any or do you suspect
there would be from any one onthe medical side saying we're
documenting this?
Crystal Gallo (41:48):
I think different offices and different doctors or
care teams have differentpreferences, but if you're
talking from like a statewidegovernance there's definitely
different laws by state, if it'sa single party or, you know, two
party or whatnot. So that's whywe have a consent before you do
is like, Hey, make sure thateveryone's good with you
capturing notes on here. Butgenerally, Have we had any
(42:10):
pushback with the families thathave been using it? No, because
they've gotten more value out ofit than any sort of barrier of
entry. And in many cases, youknow, we actually had an
organization, and by chance, Ihappened to meet this
organization because of thefamily. And so what had happened
was a gentleman had needed to gointo assisted living. He ended
up going in. They happen torecognize some patterns that
(42:31):
maybe there was possibly, like abipolar situation. So ended up
sending him off and said, Hey,maybe you want to go chat with
your doctor. Describe this alittle bit more. Had a doctor's
appointment. He was, in general,cognitive like health, no
issues. Had the doctor'sappointment was so overwhelmed
with what was said, missed abunch of it, misunderstood what
the doctor said, walked away,think the doctor said he was
(42:51):
bisexual. Ended up going back tothis organization and thinking,
Oh my gosh. Had such anemotional response. And was
like, I need to understand ifthis is accurate, pursued some
inappropriate discovery, endedup snowballing into a situation
that could have been completelyavoided had he had a record of
no it was actually the doctorsaying, you know, you might have
(43:11):
some bipolar, and here are someways we're going to explore it.
But he was so overwhelmed, hemisunderstood. He heard
something different and walkedaway. So there's been so many
cases where it's valuable toboth parties in terms of making
sure someone gets help, makingsure, you know, there's the
information is heard, and whenyou think about it, I just did a
post recently on LinkedIn, whereI was talking about, you know,
(43:32):
what does this look like interms of medical errors? Because
the volume of money that happensfrom missed conversations or
from information beingmisunderstood is crazy. It's
reported that just shy of 80% ofpeople that walk out of an ER
don't like they think they knowwhat's next, and they think they
understand what's happening. Butthen you've got almost 30%
(43:53):
readmission and you've got whenyou look at the dollars, you
know, we're spending over 40billion in just medical like
medication errors, 20 billion ingeneral, system errors. So like,
there's a disconnect happeningwith communication. So anyone
that doesn't see value andcoming together and finding a
better way of feeling morealigned, you may, you know, you
(44:14):
may question their why,
Susie Singer Carter (44:17):
also, besides the financial issue with
that kind of information chasmright there. There's also the
fact that they're most mostfacilities, even if they're a
hospital or rehab or whateverthe case may be, they're
understaffed, so the chances ofgetting records accurate when
(44:40):
people are rushing are, youknow, that is a that can be a
problem, so and that, and and soif you can take an accurate
record on your own, then you'reahead of the game, because, you
know, you can say, like, I'mjust thinking in my own case,
like when I would take, took mymom into the. Urgency for the
20th time, and the doctor justimmediately put her on another
(45:04):
antibiotic. And I said, but Ithink she's on two right now?
And he's like, Yeah, I don'tknow. I don't know. And I could
have easily said, Well, she is.
She's on blah blah blah, blah,blah blah without, without being
stressed out about it. But sothat comes in handy, because,
you know, they're, they don'thave time to look it up,
especially an emergencysituation, they're like,
(45:25):
whatever, you know, they'll dowhatever it takes to keep to get
them at a base level, that's it,
Don Priess (45:33):
yeah, as simple as just the, just what you said,
what medications are shecurrently on? Yes, because
they're not going to look it up.
They, you know,
Susie Singer Carter (45:41):
they don't have time. Yeah, they don't have
Crystal Gallo (45:43):
time. And a lot of the systems don't talk to
each other. And, yeah, there'salways behind, like you've got
the person extending care andthe person receiving care, and
almost always the person thatneeds the care. They're under
their own like they have theirown situation, they're working
through and emotions, and theyhave a whole nother level of
confusion, but almost alwaysbehind that degree of confusion
is someone in the family that'sextending care, and they're
(46:06):
completely overwhelmed. I mean,two thirds of people extending
care cannot keep track ofinformation, and if you don't
have the right information, justlike you said, impacts decisions
quality of care, it may beprevents decisions from even
happening, and you're sitting inthe space that can then have
detrimental impact. Like, it'scrazy, there's there's a better
way we can use information to beinsightful and really change
(46:28):
outcomes. And there's a muchmore proactive way of being able
to identify some of these trendsand patterns and help people.
It's just, there's so much outthere. It's overwhelming.
Don Priess (46:37):
I love it. I love it. You're doing a better way.
You're creating a better way.
Yeah, yes. Good on you.
Susie Singer Carter (46:44):
I'm all in, I'm all in crystal. I think this
is great. I love it. Well, thankyou. Yeah, thank you for coming
back on and thank you forsharing this and and just, I'm
excited about that, like I'mexcited about what, what our
technology can do. I knowthere's a lot of bad side to it,
but I think you know what itbrings to us, in terms of
(47:07):
Assistance and Resource is, isunbelievably valuable. It's just
so incredible and super excitingtoo, I think. But it also it
also frees you up as a caregiverand and allows you to enjoy the
(47:30):
time that you have with yourcare, with your loved one,
instead of being stressed outall the time because you never
know life is very tricky, andyou know, you want to be able to
get as much quality time and asyou can and and not be so
stressed out, not be so tired,not be, you know, killing
(47:50):
yourself.
Crystal Gallo (47:51):
Literally, yeah, literally, we're there. We can
be there to like
Susie Singer Carter (47:57):
you got, yeah, you're there. I love it.
We love we love anything thathas to do with right Don
Don Priess (48:04):
why we do and you know, why? Then that's because
love is powerful. Love iscontagious, and love conquers
all. Conquers all. We thankeverybody for watching,
listening. We hope you sharelike all those good things
Susie Singer Carter (48:19):
and yeah, go check out inner hive. Go
check out people. We'll have allthe information for that. Yeah,
you got look at all this greatinformation today on this
episode. It's worth it. Look atwe have so much good stuff for
you guys. Thank you for comingand provide you.
When the world has got you down, Alzheimer's sucks.
It's an equal opportunitydisease that chips away at
everything we hold dear. And todate, there's no cure. So until
there is, we continue to fightwith the most powerful tool in
our arsenal, love. This is Loveconquers all's a real and really
(00:22):
positive podcast that takes adeep dive into everything,
Alzheimer's, The Good, The Badand everything in between. And
now here are your hosts, Suzysinger Carter and me. Don
Priess,
Susie Singer Carter (00:41):
hello everybody. It's Susie singer,
Carter,
Don Priess (00:44):
and I'm Don Priess, and this is Love conquers alls
Hello Susan. We're
Susie Singer Carter (00:48):
back. It's been a while. We are we have
been so inconsistent. But thankyou for everybody who is hanging
in there with us, because wereally appreciate it. We love
talking to you, and we love welove doing this show so much,
and it's very important to us,and because we love speaking to
the people that we have on ourguests and so but the
(01:14):
documentary has definitely sidesidelined us a bit, and but the
good news is we launched onAugust 1 on on Amazon, and now
we're on available on hoopla andalso on Tubi. And we are very
happy. We're getting excellentresponse, and it's stirring the
(01:36):
pot, and that's what we weretrying to do. And so happy.
We're happy, and we would loveeverybody that's out there too.
If you haven't watched it, watchit, please. It's three, it's
three parts. So you can takeyour you can take a break, and I
will, I'll say it's not an easywatch, but it's an important
watch, and it's also, it's aneducational watch as well, and
(02:02):
you'll learn a lot that you needto know, because all of us are
facing some kind of caregivingsituation, and usually it's a
crisis kind of situation. So ifwe can mitigate all those, any
kind of issue that you knowthat's possible, why not?
Doesn't that sound better? Andthen you don't have to, if
you're
Don Priess (02:21):
listening to this right now, you're probably into
that. If you're listening rightnow, you're probably in a
position where you are eithercaregiving or in need of
caregiving. And so this directlyrelates to everyone who's that's
Susie Singer Carter (02:33):
so true. I didn't think about that, Don I
didn't think about that, becauseotherwise you'd be listening to
like Amy Poehler in good hangExactly. Because although we're
kind of like Amy Poehler andgood hang, we're just, you know,
in the caregiving world, well,I'm like Amy Poehler, you are.
You're more like Amy Poehler,similar. Yeah, you look a lot
like her, that's for sure.
Except they think you werethinking of Amy Schumer. No, I
was thinking of Amy Poehler. Oh,okay, in this case, yeah, the
(02:56):
good hang, that's my favoritepodcast. It's so fun.
Don Priess (03:01):
Yeah, all the Amy's, all
Susie Singer Carter (03:03):
the Amy's, and one Susie, that's name of my
book, all the Amy's, and oneSusie Amy's, and one season, uh
huh, so and if you do, I'm justgonna let me just finish my
commercial for a second, whichis a good commercial. I'm not
make. We don't make money off ofthis at all. I just want to say
that, you know our the what weget out of it is, is impact and
(03:24):
change. And so if you would beso kind to watch this and go to
either Amazon, if you get itthrough Amazon and please rate
and review, because that couldthat connects to their
algorithm, and that out, andthen that tells them, tells
Amazon that we're importantenough to keep pushing it out
there and not bury us somewherewhere you have to type in the
(03:47):
name and find us and then, andif you don't, if you get it for
free on to be then please,please, just go to IMDb, which
is the Internet Movie Database.
If you're not in the industry,you might have to, I think you
do have to sign up. It's free,but it is for a good cause, you
guys. I'm not, you know, I'm notasking you to put out any money.
Just write it, review it,because it will help us get it
(04:09):
out past our echo chamber. Sothat's super important. And
thank you.
Don Priess (04:16):
Share it with everyone you know, because,
yeah, so there's our commercial.
Susie Singer Carter (04:22):
We did it, done and done. And so today
we're doing it. We're doing atake two. As they say in our
business of filmmaking, we'redoing a take two with someone
that we that we had such a greatconversation. And, you know,
things happen, I and and itdoesn't matter, it's but
whatever it is, we're back, andwe're going to be talking to
(04:42):
this amazing woman and and she'skind enough to, like, cut us a
break for whatever we put we didsomething. I don't remember what
it was, but something happenedand she came back to us. It was
a technical difficulty, if youwill. Yeah, so here we are, and
I feel grateful for that. At andso let's, let's just jump in.
Don give her the best yesintroduction ever.
Don Priess (05:07):
Let me give it a whirl. Okay, after 15 years
building teams and growing highimpact technology companies,
Crystal Gallo discovered hertrue calling in the most
unexpected way, throughcaregiving. When her own family
faced dementia and cancer, sheexperienced firsthand how
isolating and overwhelming thecaregiver journey can be.
(05:30):
Inspired by her own path andcountless others she met
navigating similar challenges,she founded inner hive, a
company dedicated to endingcaregiver burnout and helping us
all show up better for ourselvesand the people we love, and to
find out more about thiswonderful innovation, let's say
hello to Crystal. Gallo, hellocrystal. Hi Chris, good.
Susie Singer Carter (05:55):
Thank you for coming back and joining us
again. So first, how are youdoing? On a personal note,
Crystal Gallo (06:01):
I'm good. I feel like probably not as wild of a
ride as what you guys are goingthrough right now. I think it's
pretty rad that you finally wereable to get the documentary
launched. Have some phenomenalconversation rolling. So it's
exciting to kind of see thosethings happening in the Eco you
know out there. Thank you.
Grateful to be here to support
Susie Singer Carter (06:21):
you. Oh, thank you so much so. But okay,
enough about me, but give ussome more. Give us some
background on Crystal Gallowfirst and how you got into this,
this arena, this community ofcaregiving. Because I think, I
think everyone understands thatthere's some reason why we all
end up here?
Crystal Gallo (06:43):
Yeah, I mean the juicy background, I just I can
get into all sorts of fun stuffthat I love to do in my spare
time, but mostly as it relatesto this, I've spent a lot of
time and kind of grown up intechnology, so I worked really
hard to kind of earn theinfluence and opportunities that
I had, and was fortunate to beat companies that were high
growth, all with successfulexits, but I never really had
the privilege of being able towork on something personal,
(07:05):
something that I could holddeeply, something that was an
experience that I went throughand I held strong conviction
around and, you know, a lot ofpeople that know me know my
curiosity kind of runs deep. Ihold a great affection around
continued learning, and there'sjust an energy that I get from
being able to explore andconnect and grow. And I knew at
some point I was going to findmy way back to, you know,
(07:27):
wellness has always been at thecore of all my decisions and
kind of my growth, and it's mypassion. I just I didn't expect
that that path back home, so tospeak, would be, you know, maybe
how it unfolded. Some say it waswake up call. Some maybe say
it's healthy perspective. Otherssay it's crazy. But in any case,
(07:47):
I feel like inner hive startedfrom a deeply personal, rooted
place that I found myself in anunexpected kind of caregiving
situation, but after being ableto connect with others and
feeling inspired by theirwillingness to be open and raw
and recognizing that we share acommon understanding. We've been
(08:09):
there. We've we've been in the,you know, the trenches,
navigating the chaos. We feltcompletely overwhelmed and
alone, and we've, you know, theimpact that that has in terms of
burnout creeping in and feelinglike your own wellness is being
negatively, you know, not in agood space. And so despite the
risk and the challenge thatcomes with pursuing new
(08:30):
territory, I think my intuitiontold me I really had to pursue
this path. This was it wasreally important. It was
meaningful. There was there wasgreat personal purpose, and
being able to kind of have thiscommon denominator, the shared
experience among others, was theinspiration behind inner hive.
Susie Singer Carter (08:46):
I love it because that's I think, like I
said, Everybody comes to thiscommunity with with a story,
right? And something thatmotivates you, and then and then
you we all look at what's ourstrengths to hopefully make it
an easier space based on ourexperience being a filmmaker. I
do it that way, and you comefrom a tech background, which is
(09:07):
phenomenal and also scary ashell, because it changes
constantly, and I don't know howyou keep
Crystal Gallo (09:11):
up. We're not a tech company trying to sell
something to caregivers. We'reactually caregivers who were in
it, who had that breakdown, whofelt it, who made an intentional
pivot. We just happen to knowtech. So I think being able to
think about, how do we solvecomplex problems and something
that's so personal, and how canwe leverage tech to be able to
enhance the humanity side, to beable to, like, give a space, to
(09:33):
be present, that was ourmission. Like we want to do that
and make sure that it stayshuman. US people, the connection
at the core, because you can'tuse technology to solve these
things. It's, I don't know, youknow, there's different opinions
out there, but emotions have allsorts of colors, so there's a
huge spectrum to that. And yeah,this is a deeply emotional
(09:54):
space, and so being able toleverage that technology is
good, but it will never replaceYeah.
Don Priess (10:00):
Yeah. So what is the, what is the elevator pitch?
Basically on how inner hiveworks. What is I mean, just so
for somebody who has no idea,how do you tell them? This is
what we do and this is how itworks,
Crystal Gallo (10:13):
yeah, so I guess I'll start you off. But we
really rallied around we had theopportunity to connect with
hundreds of families, and wejust wanted to ground ourselves
to make sure that our personalbias and so our team
collectively has had experiencein care, you know, but from
different perspectives. So itmight be caring for a parent or
someone that you know is aging.
It might be caring for a childwith medical complexity. It
could be caring for a partner,you know, mental health. There's
(10:35):
been a whole spectrum. So wewanted to kind of remove what we
felt and connect with families.
And the biggest challenge thatwe kept hearing is information
overload in the very beginning,like the greatest pain point
people have is I had an accidentor I had a situation or fall or
new diagnosis, and then whathappens next? Everyone's calling
(10:56):
each other. You haveconversations that are
happening, you have appointmentsthat you're going to right
trying to just process all ofit, and it's so overwhelming,
and so we wanted to make itreally easy with just a couple
of clicks. How can we helpcapture, summarize and make it
easy to share that information?
Because it lets you staypresent. It brings others into
the fold. And when you can usethe information as a source of
(11:17):
connection, you've got theability where other people don't
feel like they're boxed out,they're sharing that care load,
and it's just really importantcontext. It really helps when
you can process that flood ofinformation and you can bring
clarity to where do I focus?
What's next? It changesoutcomes. It provides a better
quality of life when you've gotthat caliber of organization and
(11:38):
connection in your supportcommunity. So how
Don Priess (11:40):
does, what does what does that look like? How does
that I mean, for just an exampleof
Susie Singer Carter (11:44):
maybe this, I could frame it this way. So
there's a lot of support groupsright out on Facebook. Say, What
does inner hive offer that isdifferent from a forum?
Crystal Gallo (11:54):
I love that we'll put a pin in the forum piece,
because that's been a greatpoint of feedback. So let me
just paint a picture. If youguys have any siblings, or if
you've, you know, I know, giventhe experience you've been in,
let's just say your mom has anaccident. You get a call. You're
generally her primary, like, goto whether that's legally or
just that just happens to be,she's going to call you, and it
(12:15):
kicks off this telephone chain.
So you get a call, Hey, I haveearly onset Alzheimer's. I need
to go. I need to connect withthe doctor. I need to learn a
little bit more about what thatlooks like, what I can do.
You're like, great. I'll go.
I'll be with you. I'll supportyou. So you go to this
conversation with your mom, andby the time dinner rolls around,
she's completely forgotteneverything that had happened in
(12:37):
the conversation. It felt likeshe was present. She had
questions. She was capturing it.
Everything felt good. And thenyou get to the dinner table, and
you're you're trying to share,and you're trying to bring your
siblings and her partner in theloop, and it's gone. All of a
sudden, she doesn't evenremember the conversation
happened. And so instantly, me,as her daughter feels, what am I
going to do? Like, should I havetaken notes during the
(12:58):
appointment? I don't want mom tofeel like I'm kind of
micromanaging, or she's a casestudy. Do I record and not tell
her that doesn't feel good? Ifeel completely guilty, like I
should have been capturing thatinformation. I just thought she
seemed like she was in a goodplace, where we had it covered,
and now I don't even know whatto say, like I instantly had
this flush of emotion, and I'moverwhelmed and I can't answer
(13:19):
the questions. So we made itsuper easy. If you were to go
and download our app, you canuse it on your phone. So you can
get it in Google Play, you canget an app store. You can go use
it on iPad, desktop. But in acouple clicks, you say, hey, you
know, I really just want tocapture some notes. Are you okay
with that? Great. You lettechnology run in the
background. Don't worry about ifyou can read your notes,
scribbling, keeping up trying tounderstand the medical jargon.
(13:40):
Don't worry about trying to askall the right questions. Just be
there for your mom. Be presentin her company, there to support
her. It's such an emotionaljourney to go through these
conversations. Then when thatmeeting, that appointment, ends,
you've got that. You have theentire transcription. So if you
want to go back and listen to itor read it, you've got all the
details, but mostly you have asummary. Here's what we
(14:00):
discussed. Here's next steps. Ineed to schedule this
appointment. I need to, youknow, up this medication, and
that's so easy to share. So thensix months later, when, when
your mom's condition hasprogressed and she maybe isn't
in a place where she canadvocate for herself anymore,
you have that recording. Youhave her own words, what she you
know, you have that appointment,you have the conversation that
could have happened after, whereshe got to express, hey, here's
(14:23):
my preference. Here's what'smeaningful to me, what matters.
And so that takes the weight offof you. You're no longer in a
situation, right? Having tothink, wow, what do I do? It's
like, Hey, Mom, do you rememberwhen we went to this
appointment? Let's talk aboutthis. And do you remember when
we had this conversation after,and we kind of captured our
discussion of what yourpreferences were, it's a
phenomenal way of just providinga voice. It's keeping a record.
(14:46):
It's
Susie Singer Carter (14:49):
a record.
Yeah, yeah. So it's this isincorporating AI,
Crystal Gallo (14:55):
yeah, exactly.
We're using AI to helpsummarize, so that that you can
be proud.
Don Priess (15:00):
Isn't that technology when you have a
doctor's Yeah, when you have adoctor's appointment, or you're
talking with your siblings andyou're trying to decide who's
doing what, and all thosethings, all those, all of that
can the same technology can beused for those conversations,
especially with the doctors.
Because doctors every, I mean,in normal situations, you go to
the doctor, they tell yousomething, and the second you
(15:20):
walk out that door, you have,you can't remember what they
said, you know. So I assume itcan be used for all can it be
used over the phone, and if youhave with phone conversations,
or how would that work? And justin person, if
Crystal Gallo (15:33):
you have someone on speaker, it can absolutely be
used. So if you have someone onspeaker and you're sitting there
and you have your phone active,you can use it. Then we've had
families that have had, youknow, again, the care
preference. So you have someone,maybe with cognitive decline,
and when they're still lucid,you get to capture some of those
cool moments and preferences. Wehave another family, it's really
sweet. Had the opportunity tomeet with him recently, and he
(15:54):
was sharing some tidbits abouttheir journey. And his mom is
nonverbal now, and so he's hadto learn how to kind of
understand her vocalizations andwhat that means, and how to
interpret and how is sheexpressing emotion? Well, that's
so difficult to be able toarticulate and share with your
family. If they're not there,it's not it's not easy to
explain, it's not easy toreplicate. He was able to use
(16:15):
this, this note taking, scribeand record it and send it to his
siblings. And so you can use itin medical appointments. You can
use it in home careconversations. We have families
that are talking to each other,and they just want to summarize
and have a record of thediscussions of like, Hey, Mom,
what's your preference? How youfeeling? We people use it every
day for journaling. Mom is doinggreat today. She just had hip
surgery. She's still using awalker. You know, Fast forward
(16:38):
four days. Mom's letting go ofthe walker. She's feeling
independent. She's doing hergates looking better. We have
people that use it as just amemory log. Think about a
digital scrapbook, where you canpiece all these together, and
over time, you get to be able togo back and reflect. And there's
something special about that. Ihave a voicemail from tonight. I
(16:58):
think I've shared with you mygrandparents helped raise me,
and so when I lost mygrandfather, that was kind of
like the first I had gonethrough loss in my life, but
that was the first one that hithome very differently, and I was
so thankful. We always checkedin, and we talked every day. And
after I had moved it became alittle harder with the time
zone, so he would call superearly. They're on East Coast, on
(17:19):
West Coast. And sometimes, if hedidn't get me, he'd leave a
voicemail. And he had left thisvoicemail one morning, and it
was unexpected when he hadpassed the next week, but that
voicemail has been my gold everyyear I've been able to listen to
it. I've been able to share it.
Whenever I bring it up with mymom and a grandmother. You know
it it just you can see theemotion and the energy and the
feeling that comes back. It'slike listening to a song that
(17:40):
brings up nostalgic memories.
That's what this offers. It'sjust a really great way of
taking a lot of information,capturing it, summarizing it,
making it super easy to share.
And yeah, like you said, you canuse it in so many different
ways. Does it? Catalog it aswell? So you'll have a complete
note file. You can filter andjust say, show me all my notes.
Show me the notes withrecording, you have the option
(18:00):
when you share it out you knowwhat level of detail, it gives
you explicit action items thatyou can engage with. So if
you're managing care withothers, for example, we have a
family and long distance. Thedaughter happens to live and is
caring for her mom and herbrother is not, and they were
running into a little bit offamily dysfunction. She was
feeling like she was carryingthe low burning out. What?
Susie Singer Carter (18:22):
That's crazy. I've never heard that
before. I know that's so real,
Crystal Gallo (18:32):
but it's you do.
You get stuck in this like awfulcycle of exhaustion and guilt,
and then you start to buildresentment. And it's like people
have good intention and theywant to help, but they just
don't have the tools, and theydon't know how. And so in this
case, the frustration was kindof growing, and she was then
able to, we had the opportunityto meet, and she started using
inner hub to capture theconversations. So then it made
it easy, because now when she'ssharing it with her brother,
(18:56):
Mark's not just getting, youknow, her interpretation, he's
getting the raw at the source.
He can hear, you know, what theconversation look like. He can
hear the response. So they'vegot that baseline, and they're
operating from the same jumpoff, which makes it super easy.
So now they can collaborate, andthey can both go, Oh, hey, I
listened to that. I'm going todo this research. You do that
research. Let's come backtogether and we can make a
(19:18):
decision together, versus herfeeling like this is all on me.
And also, right? You know,here's what I heard. And half
the time you walk away like yousaid. You're overwhelmed. You're
like, Wait, shoot, what do Ineed to do? What was that?
Susie Singer Carter (19:29):
Yeah, okay, right? Just for that, it's worth
everything, because if you haveno seriously, if, because this,
these kinds of caregivingissues, can bring up so much
contentious kind ofrelationships that were maybe
were brewing in the background,but then all of a sudden, you
know all when you're in crisis,or when there's crisis, plus
(19:53):
money involved, and all kinds ofthings that make people
different than you everexpected, you have a record.
It's not on you just to say, no,no, this actually happened. You
can show it.
Crystal Gallo (20:05):
It's funny. You say that. So family, family
dynamics is a really big part ofextending care. It it people
don't realize it escalates fast,and communication, when
communication is broken downlike it could be either powerful
and insights to help inform,make good decisions and bring
you together. It's like thebridge, or can do exactly the
opposite. And I had theopportunity to work with this
family and same thing. Sothere's three siblings, and
(20:28):
they're caring for their dad,and they've all decided they,
you know, have a super busylife. Each person wants to care
for a very specific part, sothey have a care plan. They've
had the conversation ingenerally, they felt like we're
in a good spot. We're prepared.
We know what to do, like, we'vetalked about it, right? Had a
situation recently where theyreached out and they're like, we
just have to share with you howthis was really valuable to us,
(20:48):
because we almost went on eachother's throats because
basically their dad had calledone of the siblings, and
basically it said, I've seen somany doctors this week. I don't
even remember what I'm supposedto be doing. Do you know what
I'm supposed to be taking formeds? I know it changed, but I
don't changed, but I don't know.
And his son instantly was like,Oh my gosh, is he is this like a
emergency? Is this a Didsomething happen? Do I need to
(21:10):
call 911, right? They'remanaging from a distance. And so
anyway, you go through thetelephone chain, you call your
siblings, and then before youknow it, you're like, oh well,
it's because he took theneurology appointment, his
sister took the primary doctor,and then his other sister took
the other doctor. So they didn'trealize that their dad was
accurate. He was veryoverwhelmed, because he had been
(21:31):
through so many, you know,appointments that week, right?
But the problem was they wereall managing it in a siloed
approach, and so now they useinner hive, and they're able to
put all the information inthere. They can post a note and
pushes out. You can see it.
You've got a reference, youknow, all the people, places
involved. And so it's like,okay, when these situations
happen, you don't need to gointo crisis. It's dad did have
(21:51):
three appointments this week.
Here's what's happening. Like,he is pretty overwhelmed, but
you can totally avoid thatcrisis just through information
sharing.
Don Priess (22:01):
So is there a video component to it, or is it all
audio?
Crystal Gallo (22:05):
It's all audio, right now, that's interesting.
So when you, when you talk aboutvideo, like to be able to have
the ability to record and keepkeep logged, because right now
people can upload so you cantake your phone and you can
record a video on your phone,you can take a picture on your
phone and you can upload that toinner hive. Yeah. Enter hive. So
we have a place to store alldocuments, whether it's
(22:26):
documents like that and it's,you know, observations,
reflections, progress, it couldbe documents like insurance. It
could be documents
Susie Singer Carter (22:34):
like Power of Attorney. That's what I'm
talking about. Yeah, that's soimportant because, yeah, go
ahead, like anything that'sanything that is, you know, that
affects that family, the unit asa whole, that that is so
important because it takes anyof the suspicion out or the
mistrust, or if it's there tobegin with, and and it mitigates
(22:58):
all Those problems right thereand then. So let me just clarify
one more time. So when, whenit's recording, is it actually
recording an audio file? So youhave that
Crystal Gallo (23:12):
perfect, perfect, yeah, yeah. And most people
don't want to go back and listento that full transcription, but
they have it as a reference thatthey want.
Susie Singer Carter (23:19):
No, but it's important if you have it
like the nut, yes,
Don Priess (23:24):
with, with dealing with like, like, my mother right
now, who has Parkinson'sdementia, and she's to a point
where she basically all herspeech is just sounds. It's not
words. Yet she thinks she'sactually speaking. You can tell
she's talking as if she wastalking, but there's, it's just
sounds, but behaviors that youcan show her physician, things
(23:45):
like that. That's why I wasthinking about the video
component. Also, you know, thatyou can engage when you're with
the person you're care caringfor. Now, you can shoot that on
your phone, that's a differentthing, and then upload it. But I
didn't know. That's why I wasjust asking about the video
component as far as if it wouldbe, you know, melded within the
transcripts and all thosethings, you know, I don't know,
(24:07):
but yeah, no,
Crystal Gallo (24:07):
that's great.
It's great feedback. Wedefinitely wanted to start with,
like families that said, there'sso much chaos. Please, just help
us find clarity, and then helpus remember to find connection.
Because in that stress, it'sreally easy to box people out or
to get frustrated or let theemotions take over. So we wanted
to not ask them to do anything.
We're like, Hey, we're gonnameet with you where you're at.
We don't want to add to youryour list. We're actually gonna
(24:28):
take from you couple clicks. Letthis record. We'll give you a
summary you can easily share.
You've got a reference point.
We'll give you like veryspecific tasks. You can
interact. It feels so good tocheck stuff off that list. Share
that care with others. Then wedesigned it so that as they go
through, which is where you'rekind of jumping to, we want to
be able to grow with that carejourney. A lot of times, if
(24:48):
there is a shift and it's achronic condition or something
changing, progressing over time,it's really important that we're
taking some sort of record andjournal of that every day. And
so we do have the ability in ourdaily journal, which. Tax. How
are you feeling, you know, whatdid you get today? For movement?
What did you get for sleep? Whatabout nutrition? Where's your
energy level at? As the personextending care, how much time
(25:08):
did you get to spend onyourself? And what are the care
events that you extended? Youknow, did you spend most of it
with meal prep, or maybe it wasrunning to the appointments, or
possibly it was medicationmanagement, and you can even put
in, you know, the amount of timeon average, maybe it was 15
hours today. So it's reallygreat because it tracks every
single day in less than aminute, you're taking
information, you're givingyourself insight. You can share
(25:29):
it with others. You can see andunderstand, wow, on average,
this week, I had a good week. Iwas actually happy most days. I
saw my sentiment, and I was ableto get an hour to myself, you
know, I was able to help withsome meal prep. We had some
appointments, but it wasn'tterrible. Mom was great. And you
can record some of those thingsand capture that, and then maybe
the week before it was you canlook back and you go, wow, I was
(25:50):
not in a good place for thosedays. What happened? And you can
see the pattern of, oh, it wasbecause mom was not wanting to
take the medication. I washaving to negotiate a little bit
more, and that was taking moreenergy, and we were exhausted.
Exhausting more trying to getthat. And the, you know, the
nutrition components balanced,but it brings awareness. So then
you can start to understand,what am I doing, how am I
(26:13):
feeling, what am I extending forcare? Where is my wellness at?
And eventually we want to beable to then offer suggestions.
So when we see that trend andsomething maybe is not great for
a week, we want to be able toreach out to your inner circle
and say, hey, you know, Susiecould really use your support
this week. Maybe you want toconsider dropping off some food.
She's been spending a lot oftime on meal prep. Or, you know,
(26:33):
here's an exercise that you cando that's going to help you. 30
seconds do this. It will helpbring you and the frustration
with your mom down because she'snot not understanding what
you're asking her to do, we'regoing to help you reframe it. Or
here's a tip. Here's what othercaregivers have found that has
been successful in terms of, youknow, being able to help with
movement, or if they don't wantto do physical therapy
(26:56):
exercises, get creative. Stopthinking about stepping up the
stairs. Think about, let's go tothe park where there's flowers
to pick, which has stairs whichfocused on, let's go and get
those beautiful flowers overthere. We're gonna have to walk
those two steps to get there,but let's go get those flowers.
Susie Singer Carter (27:10):
I love it.
Do you have an AI that goes,Hey, your sister's doing all the
work. What's your problem?
Kidding? Maybe.
Where? Have you been? No, I'mkidding.
Don Priess (27:24):
It's called Yeah, the bad the bad cop. We call it
Yeah.
Susie Singer Carter (27:28):
It's like, I don't want to say anything,
but she has put in like 25 hoursthis week, and yours is zero.
Crystal Gallo (27:37):
Well, it's kind of funny. You mentioned that
because family dynamics camecome up more than you think, and
when you actually have thatjournal. And I had someone else
that shared that sentiment, andshe was building resentment with
her sibling, and she was like, Ijust really strongly dislike
them right now, and they're notthey don't care, and they're not
helping. And I was like, Well,why don't you journal
(27:59):
everything? Why don't you thenshare that, and at least start
with you've done your job interms of, let me give them some
perspective. Let me help themunderstand what I'm managing,
what's going on. Because she'slike, No, they don't get it.
They don't care. And I was like,Well, have you explained? No,
they don't. They don't. They'relike, what takes so long? What
are you doing all day? Why doesit what do you really spend that
many hours? Is it really thatstressful? And she's like, I
just want to hang up the phone.
I was like, Well, put yourenergy into the journal. It's a
(28:21):
good reference for you. You getto learn about you and your mom.
You can share it with yoursiblings, whether or not you
know, lead the horse to water,whether or not the horse decides
to drink different differentconversation. But at least let
some of that emotional energyout. Find a way to turn into
insight. Let them have theopportunity to consume and
understand a little bit more.
Build some empathy around Wow.
You are navigating a lot.
Don Priess (28:41):
So family members use, I mean, they can have
input, or is it just one inputand everyone else can just
access it? Or can many people domemos and things like that? I
missed
Crystal Gallo (28:54):
the beginning, but I think what you asked is,
can you have one account wheremultiple people are engaging in
it? And if that
Don Priess (28:59):
is engaging, yes, both, not only just reading or
seeing it, but also, again,doing input and things
Susie Singer Cart (29:04):
contributing.
Yeah, 100% 100%
Crystal Gallo (29:07):
Yep, you have the ability. So all accounts. Let's
just say, Me, Crystal wants tosign up to inner hive. I go, I
download it, my enter in crystalat lives free.com and I say, I'm
actually going to bring mysister Rosie and my other sister
Sarah in, and they're going tobe co owners. So that means
they're going to have fullaccess. We can add edit, we're
all in there. We trust eachother, and then maybe I'm going
to bring my brother in as aviewer, and he can see what's
(29:29):
going on, but not be a co owner.
How about family dynamics? Hasthat for How's that for a
softball? Yeah, but there is anoption where you can choose to
bring people in as CO owners.
They can see it all and do it,and do it all. And then you can
bring people in as viewers. Andwe have a lot of families that
will use that in situationswhere they're bringing in help
into the home for respite, orsometimes they go into a day
program, you know, maybe formovement or spiritual groups.
(29:51):
And so it's really important tobe able to have that context. It
gives them the ability to, youknow, in many cases, there's a
profile page that says, here'smy dad's preferences. Here. His
medications, allergens,diagnoses. Also, here's some
context around how he tends tocommunicate best, and that's so
invaluable. When you're you'retrying to figure out, like, how
can I best connect and givesomeone a great experience when
(30:12):
I'm not there, it gives a peaceof mind. It gives you, know, a
slice of confidence you're like,I I feel good and I know that
they're safe because they've gotthe critical information.
Susie Singer Carter (30:21):
I love this I love this technology. I'm just
getting into AI a little bitmyself with just, you know, my
social media, and it's been sohelpful. And I think that, you
know, at least for me, I don'tknow how your technology and how
your AI works, and I'm assumingthat you are building it on a on
(30:41):
a database of, you know, allthis information that's already
there from caregiving that, youknow is, is informing how AI
responds to certain things. So,but is there also that personal
component where it understands,like, like, let's say the three
of us are on the same account.
So it's like, this is Susiechecking in, and that AI knows,
it starts to learn my patternsand starts to learn what's going
(31:04):
on. And then you can say to it,hey, listen, what would be a
really nice way to tell mybrother to step up like and give
me? Could you do that? Is thatpart of the component or not? So
Crystal Gallo (31:16):
there's two parts. Yes, it starts to
understand and learn. So it doesstart to recognize who's in the
conversation and then identify.
Then the other piece that youhad said would be more like, can
I use AI in an interactiveconversational way? And we do
have within our app be a littlenod, because inner hive was kind
of born we we have a love fornature and bees and their social
structure. I mean, everyonethinks, oh, busy bee, and that's
(31:37):
great, but it's actually theresilience, the way they
communicate, the way they cometogether. And that shared
collaboration was something thatwe wanted to kind of, you know,
emulate and shine through withinner hive. So B is our little
interactive chat. And so in thiscase, you can absolutely chat
with her and say, Hey, can yougive me some questions that I
can consider asking my brother,or can you give me some tips and
(31:59):
how I can help my brotherrecognize that he's maybe not
sharing the care load, or thatI'm frustrated. So you can have
that interaction with bee. Andshe also gets smarter and starts
to to be able to understand andlearn. And she can offer you
some some guidance, where it'slike, hey, consider this. And
you can go then do some furtherdiscovery, or right, right,
here's something that you might,you know, you might find
(32:19):
valuable or I
Susie Singer Carter (32:22):
think that's so great. I think that's
such a good tool, because justjust the idea of having to sit
down and write an email tosomeone that you're already
upset with because you're tiredand you're frustrated, so now
you've got to sit down and thinkabout the, you know, a non
confrontational way of likeasking a question, and everybody
(32:44):
is very sensitive, that is sucha good tool to have. And it's
learning you like that. To me,this is the best, the best use
of AI for me. And I'm a writer,so I mean, I I find it really
helpful in framing certainthings that you that are that
(33:04):
just, you know how to frame it,but it takes too much time.
Yeah, does that make sense?
Crystal Gallo (33:09):
Yeah, it does. I still think there's a lot of
opportunity there, because we'veexplored, we've had a lot of
people say, you know, it'd bereally great. I can identify my
inner circle. I can share, youknow, updates, help, requests,
whatever there. We've had peopleask and say, Okay, what if I
want that inner circle toexpand? Can we just have all
inner hive users? And you'rebringing caregivers together,
and then we're havingconversation there. So there's
(33:30):
learning that's happening atmultiple levels. So a lot of
people have said, if they getthat guidance and they help, you
know, they're given a space tojust journal, let the emotion
out, also a space to have somedialog around, how do I reframe
this, and some data to kind ofback them up and say, hey, look,
here's what's going on. It doeschange the entire way that
connection happens throughcoordination. It makes it less
(33:52):
viable. It makes people feelmore informed and present.
Susie Singer Carter (33:55):
And it's so great because I'm sorry, I just
get to be so excited. It's sogreat. Because, do you have
like, if you're saying somethingand you want to present
something AI, because it doesclock and cat, you know, and
catalog everything that youinput. It just that's the nature
of AI. It could easily say backon such and such, remember, use
(34:17):
this, you know, bring upsomething that you forgot to
even think of to mention aboutan appointment that you had, you
know, journaled or logged in, orwhatever. And it can bring that
up and say, don't forget toremind them this. You know what
I mean that I think that that'sthose things start happening. I
noticed it with with workingwith AI. Now that it, it has all
(34:38):
the memory that I've given it,everything that I've, you know,
all my information is there, soit has it, it'll say, oh, yeah,
remember when this so and so didthis? Yeah, let's, let's do this
instead. You know, to, know,offer up different ways.
Crystal Gallo (34:52):
I love that.
Actually, I feel like that'ssuper applicable to people that
are navigating, well, you know,you understand the audience,
Alzheimer's, yeah? Dementia. Orany sort of cognitive
impairment, because it helpsyou, like, being organized isn't
just helpful. It's actuallyreally protective, because it
supports your safety. Youreduce, like, you know, you
reduce any sort of errors ormissed care steps. It provides
you with continuity, so you'vegot a reference point, a nice
(35:14):
kind of audit trail, if youwill, when your memory fades. So
it's not really a luxury. Whenpeople think, well, I don't need
that. It's actually, it's a youdo need that. It is a necessity
like that is going to help you.
It's going to bring youtogether. It's going to help
with your preferences and, youknow, decision making. And there
is so much power and informationif we can sift through and help
(35:34):
people remove the noise, we cangive them the insights that are
Susie Singer Carter (35:37):
going to change the outcome, the
important things, and get theemotions out of their way. No,
Crystal Gallo (35:41):
I mean, we could say here, we have other features
in the app that are, you know,there's a community piece. You
can hook up your calendar andbring your appointments in. It
will remind you and say you havea doctor's appointment with your
neurologist in five minutes.
Would you like to record? So itputs it in front of you. Don't
have to think about it. It givesyou the option right after it
finishes and says, added thenotes would you like to share
with your inner circle? Andwe're trying to take a lot of
that, that mental load out, andwe're trying to make it as easy
(36:03):
as possible. So there's a lot ofrichness with our journal, with
our appointment, with a noterecording. There's, there's so
many different places that, youknow, people extending care can
kind of grow and they can picktheir own journey in the app. So
Susie Singer Carter (36:16):
this is so, so great and so important. I'm,
I'm even more excited aboutinner hive now. So I'm glad this
was a happy accident, because Ilike the I like the direction
that you're going in and it, andI get it, and I think, you know,
looking back at if I had thatkind of tool, it would have been
so helpful in so many ways, likesuper duper helpful. And I mean,
(36:41):
I'm all for it. I'm all in Ithink, I think this is really
good.
Don Priess (36:46):
Yeah, I wanted to ask a couple things about Doctor
interfacing, because I assume Bcan say, you know, you can
summarize, here's here was theday we spent with her, and some
weird things were going on, andblah, blah, blah. And I assume
you can ask B to say, hey, Iwant to express what happened
today to my doctor in acoherent, simplified way based
(37:06):
on all of this. So I assume youcan take whatever transcripts it
has, and it'll kind of summarizeand say, Yeah, this would be a
great way of communicating toyour doctor. This is the
important, salient points thatreally he need. Would need to
know. Would it go that deep?
Yeah, that's
Crystal Gallo (37:23):
interesting. We haven't actually connected those
two, because right now you canhave a conversation and we
provide a summary, and we havevery clear next steps or themes,
so like, here's what wediscussed and here's what needs
to be done, and that's typicallyshared, but I think what you're
doing is taking a step furtherand thinking about the emotional
undercurrents or the nuances,like, how can I position this
differently? Or what am I notthinking about? And you could
absolutely take absolutely takethat, it's not automated right
(37:45):
now, but you could take that andyou could connect with B and
say, Hey, B, I want to show you,and I want to express what we
did today. Can you help mereframe, you know, how I can
share this with my doctor? Yeah,so that's and that's probably an
area that we can explore even,you know, in terms of where
there's opportunity. And this iswhy, the more people we can get
in, the more families we canreach, the faster we're gonna
find, what do they need? Yeah,what
Susie Singer Carter (38:09):
completely, yeah. And then you're speaking,
you're speaking Doctor lingo tonot, not in but I mean, enough
so that it's short it, you know,you're doing a shorthand in a
way, not, I'm not I'm not sayingthat it's medical, but you're
doing a quicker short. I'm like,you know, I didn't know any
terms when I was taking care ofmy mom, right? So I'm trying to
explain everything like, Ididn't know what acuity was.
(38:31):
Like a high acuity. I didn'tknow when they were throwing all
these words to me, likecomorbidities and all these
things. I didn't know what thatmeant, right? So those are
things that you know we mightnot ask at the time, like, Wait,
slow down. What are you talkingabout? What? What? What's high
acuity? What do you mean? Like,and how? When you say high
(38:52):
acuity, how many acuities arethere? Like, what are we talking
about? You know what I mean?
Because we don't know. If youdon't know, it's not your
business and you but these arethings you need to know as a
caregiver.
Crystal Gallo (39:02):
Yes, yeah. The other side of that reference to,
like, go back to and learn andspend time and process, because
in on the fly, when you're,like, elevated or, you know,
you're just, you're trying to bepresent, it's really difficult
to difficult. We can't be amedical scribe and an emotional
support and a firefighter andeverything else that you know,
at once though,
Susie Singer Carter (39:21):
and because you are good, let me just one
say one thing. So because yourapp is geared towards this, it's
not like you're going in,because people could say, well,
I could just do a Google search.
No, because it's different,because yours is already fine
tuned, and it's already in thisin this lane, it's, it's, it's
primed for this kind ofconversation, so it's just
(39:42):
picking up and holding on to theimportant things that belong in
the caregiving conversation.
Correct?
Don Priess (39:52):
Yes, yes, also relevant to your your situation.
Susie Singer Carter (39:57):
That too personalized, but I'm saying on
a bigger Yeah. Yeah, but I'mseeing on the bigger, but, like,
on a bigger resourcecapability, it's it, to me, it's
short. It's like, you know, yourather go there than to a Google
search where it's like, thisgeneralized AI that comes up and
goes well, that there's manyideas that could happen with
(40:17):
that. And there's, you know, andthen it gives you this, you
know, but this, this AI, B knowsyou.
Crystal Gallo (40:24):
It's targeted. It already knows what you're there
for. It already has anunderstanding of what happens
when you're extending care. It'svery a lot of people have
shared, you know, I wantsomething custom. It's just like
you're an entrepreneur. You wantto find another entrepreneur.
Because you don't explainyourself. You just say, Oh, I'm
not trying to Oh, I get it. Youwant to find someone else's
extending care. Same thing. Itremoves that load, and it just
(40:45):
makes it easier to thencollaborate and know very
specifically, like, here's thesituation, you have empathy,
totally.
Susie Singer Carter (40:52):
Does it say? Good job. I like it. I like
it. I like it. Keep going. I'mall about it. I'm all about it.
I don't care that it's amachine. When my AI tells me I'm
a fierce lioness, I like it.
Don Priess (41:12):
Do you have you had heard any experiences or, you
know, for example, if I wasusing this and I went in to see
the doctor, I would want to turnthis thing on and say, I, I'm,
I'm recording this information,yeah, and you should be able to
do that, you know. But you know,for example, when Susie was, you
(41:32):
know, caregiving was her mom,they were like, oh, you can't
turn your you can't record, youknow, the CNAs were like, You
can't do this, or you can'trecord this. You know. Have
there been any pushback? Do youknow of any or do you suspect
there would be from any one onthe medical side saying we're
documenting this?
Crystal Gallo (41:48):
I think different offices and different doctors or
care teams have differentpreferences, but if you're
talking from like a statewidegovernance there's definitely
different laws by state, if it'sa single party or, you know, two
party or whatnot. So that's whywe have a consent before you do
is like, Hey, make sure thateveryone's good with you
capturing notes on here. Butgenerally, Have we had any
(42:10):
pushback with the families thathave been using it? No, because
they've gotten more value out ofit than any sort of barrier of
entry. And in many cases, youknow, we actually had an
organization, and by chance, Ihappened to meet this
organization because of thefamily. And so what had happened
was a gentleman had needed to gointo assisted living. He ended
up going in. They happen torecognize some patterns that
(42:31):
maybe there was possibly, like abipolar situation. So ended up
sending him off and said, Hey,maybe you want to go chat with
your doctor. Describe this alittle bit more. Had a doctor's
appointment. He was, in general,cognitive like health, no
issues. Had the doctor'sappointment was so overwhelmed
with what was said, missed abunch of it, misunderstood what
the doctor said, walked away,think the doctor said he was
(42:51):
bisexual. Ended up going back tothis organization and thinking,
Oh my gosh. Had such anemotional response. And was
like, I need to understand ifthis is accurate, pursued some
inappropriate discovery, endedup snowballing into a situation
that could have been completelyavoided had he had a record of
no it was actually the doctorsaying, you know, you might have
(43:11):
some bipolar, and here are someways we're going to explore it.
But he was so overwhelmed, hemisunderstood. He heard
something different and walkedaway. So there's been so many
cases where it's valuable toboth parties in terms of making
sure someone gets help, makingsure, you know, there's the
information is heard, and whenyou think about it, I just did a
post recently on LinkedIn, whereI was talking about, you know,
(43:32):
what does this look like interms of medical errors? Because
the volume of money that happensfrom missed conversations or
from information beingmisunderstood is crazy. It's
reported that just shy of 80% ofpeople that walk out of an ER
don't like they think they knowwhat's next, and they think they
understand what's happening. Butthen you've got almost 30%
(43:53):
readmission and you've got whenyou look at the dollars, you
know, we're spending over 40billion in just medical like
medication errors, 20 billion ingeneral, system errors. So like,
there's a disconnect happeningwith communication. So anyone
that doesn't see value andcoming together and finding a
better way of feeling morealigned, you may, you know, you
(44:14):
may question their why,
Susie Singer Carter (44:17):
also, besides the financial issue with
that kind of information chasmright there. There's also the
fact that they're most mostfacilities, even if they're a
hospital or rehab or whateverthe case may be, they're
understaffed, so the chances ofgetting records accurate when
(44:40):
people are rushing are, youknow, that is a that can be a
problem, so and that, and and soif you can take an accurate
record on your own, then you'reahead of the game, because, you
know, you can say, like, I'mjust thinking in my own case,
like when I would take, took mymom into the. Urgency for the
20th time, and the doctor justimmediately put her on another
(45:04):
antibiotic. And I said, but Ithink she's on two right now?
And he's like, Yeah, I don'tknow. I don't know. And I could
have easily said, Well, she is.
She's on blah blah blah, blah,blah blah without, without being
stressed out about it. But sothat comes in handy, because,
you know, they're, they don'thave time to look it up,
especially an emergencysituation, they're like,
(45:25):
whatever, you know, they'll dowhatever it takes to keep to get
them at a base level, that's it,
Don Priess (45:33):
yeah, as simple as just the, just what you said,
what medications are shecurrently on? Yes, because
they're not going to look it up.
They, you know,
Susie Singer Carter (45:41):
they don't have time. Yeah, they don't have
Crystal Gallo (45:43):
time. And a lot of the systems don't talk to
each other. And, yeah, there'salways behind, like you've got
the person extending care andthe person receiving care, and
almost always the person thatneeds the care. They're under
their own like they have theirown situation, they're working
through and emotions, and theyhave a whole nother level of
confusion, but almost alwaysbehind that degree of confusion
is someone in the family that'sextending care, and they're
(46:06):
completely overwhelmed. I mean,two thirds of people extending
care cannot keep track ofinformation, and if you don't
have the right information, justlike you said, impacts decisions
quality of care, it may beprevents decisions from even
happening, and you're sitting inthe space that can then have
detrimental impact. Like, it'scrazy, there's there's a better
way we can use information to beinsightful and really change
(46:28):
outcomes. And there's a muchmore proactive way of being able
to identify some of these trendsand patterns and help people.
It's just, there's so much outthere. It's overwhelming.
Don Priess (46:37):
I love it. I love it. You're doing a better way.
You're creating a better way.
Yeah, yes. Good on you.
Susie Singer Carter (46:44):
I'm all in, I'm all in crystal. I think this
is great. I love it. Well, thankyou. Yeah, thank you for coming
back on and thank you forsharing this and and just, I'm
excited about that, like I'mexcited about what, what our
technology can do. I knowthere's a lot of bad side to it,
but I think you know what itbrings to us, in terms of
(47:07):
Assistance and Resource is, isunbelievably valuable. It's just
so incredible and super excitingtoo, I think. But it also it
also frees you up as a caregiverand and allows you to enjoy the
(47:30):
time that you have with yourcare, with your loved one,
instead of being stressed outall the time because you never
know life is very tricky, andyou know, you want to be able to
get as much quality time and asyou can and and not be so
stressed out, not be so tired,not be, you know, killing
(47:50):
yourself.
Crystal Gallo (47:51):
Literally, yeah, literally, we're there. We can
be there to like
Susie Singer Carter (47:57):
you got, yeah, you're there. I love it.
We love we love anything thathas to do with right Don
Don Priess (48:04):
why we do and you know, why? Then that's because
love is powerful. Love iscontagious, and love conquers
all. Conquers all. We thankeverybody for watching,
listening. We hope you sharelike all those good things
Susie Singer Carter (48:19):
and yeah, go check out inner hive. Go
check out people. We'll have allthe information for that. Yeah,
you got look at all this greatinformation today on this
episode. It's worth it. Look atwe have so much good stuff for
you guys. Thank you for comingand provide you.
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CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.