This eWeek article from last year about remote monitoring hardware and software, titled: Report: Digital Health Coming to Grandma's House, has a key sentence:

The Parks Associate report predicts such equipment will become more common, particularly as a nursing shortage restricts home-care visits.

The fact is, just as an increasingly connected world (email, web, PDAs, cell phone text messaging) means home monitoring from near and far (remote) is now efficient and high fidelity, by public and private caregivers, there is a stimulus unrelated to technology: A deficit of accredited home health workers.

Further, new services such as from www.simplyhome-cmi.com flip the paradigm-- instead of the need for a consistent visit from a caregiver, whether that caregiver is a nurse, friend or family member, a "canary can be placed in the coal mine" such that WHEN there's trouble, or the appearance thereof, alerts are instantly fed electronically to one or more folks who can then react as needed.

The idea is continuous monitoring and reactions/visits as needed, versus hoping to catch trouble on a daily or bi-weekly on-site visit on a schedule. After all, trouble fits no set schedule.