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Continuing our series on interviews with interesting people and providers, today we bring you our interview with Jill Gilbert. Jill Gilbert is the founder and CEO of Gilbert Guide. Gilbert Guide is the leading resource on the topic of elder care or senior care. It educates, entertains and provides listings of service providers in your local area for senior care. This interview is being presented in two parts. The first part of the interview is presented here for your information, education and enjoyment…

Boomer411: Tell me about Gilbert Guide and how you see it fulfilling a niche in the marketplace?
JG: Gilbert Guide is a “mecca” for Baby Boomers with aging parents. What I mean by that is we provide the most diverse wealth of information regarding senior care on the Web. Very simply, we guide people through the process of searching for senior care—answering hard questions, and tackling tough topics that you won’t see anywhere else. That’s where the “guide” in Gilbert Guide comes from.

GilbertGuide.com is supported by a virtual community of topic experts, senior care professionals and family caregivers. The idea is that by bringing all of these people together, the caregivers will become well-informed consumers, and the experts and professionals will learn from the people who require their services—to really understand, in great depth, what those needs are and how they evolve. In that way, Gilbert Guide is an agent of change for senior care world.

Boomer411: What services and products does Gilbert Guide offer? Briefly explain each
JG: A few of the many incredible services GilbertGuide.com offers are our Care Planner (I like to call it the “Action Plan”), Partner Marketplace and Provider Finder. The Care Planner is a great interactive tool that guides users through a series of questions and delivers a personalized action plan, expert recommendations, names of providers and contact information for them, and maps—all within minutes.

One of the services I’m most proud of is called “Find Senior Care” or “Provider Finder”. It is the most comprehensive, detailed national directory of senior care providers and senior service providers on the Web. It lists independent living, assisted living, nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, home care providers (both nonmedical and medical), geriatric care managers, adult day services, hospice providers, and senior move managers. Basically, no matter where you live in the country, and no matter what your needs are, you will find what you need. One really cool feature is that anyone can review their experience with a particular provider—good, bad or just in between—so that others can make more informed decisions in the future. The best part is: every single service we offer is 100% free.

Boomer411: What’s new at Gilbert Guide?
JG: We recently expanded the site with the addition of three new Solutions Centers: Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care, Senior Housing and Care at Home. These centers  support readers through the entire process—for example, in the Senior Housing Solutions Center, you’ll learn about all of the housing options, beginning with independent living, continuing care and life care, assisted living and nursing homes. There’s detailed information, provided by the industry’s leading experts, on each of these subcategories as well as related topics like moving and downsizing. That’s actually a big issue—it’s tough downsizing after you’ve lived in your home for many years, accumulating more and more possessions. Readers come to Gilbert Guide for answers, and our Solutions Centers are where they find them. We take a very consumer-oriented approach in creating all of the content on our site. No matter what your level of knowledge, be it beginner, expert or something in between, Gilbert Guide’s job is to answer your questions.

Each center features multiple tool-kits with essential “how-to” information. In the Senior Housing Solutions Center, you’ve got access to an Assisted Living Evaluation & Moving Kit, in the Care at Home Solutions Center, you have How to Evaluate Home Care and How to Evaluate Home Health Care kits, and so on. We equip our readers with the best tools to get the solutions they need.

In the Alzheimer’s Care Solutions Center, users are guided through diagnosis and treatment, finding Alzheimer’s home care, finding care communities, and managing Alzheimer’s care. The topics encompass a broad range—for example, in terms of managing Alzheimer’s care, there are in-depth articles on: creating an Alzheimer’s friendly home (a step-by-step guide), dealing with combativeness, managing the behaviors associated with Sundowner’s Syndrome and much, much more. There’s a lot of information, but it’s all organized so that even first-time visitors to the site will have no problem finding what they need.

Boomer411: Do you have another outlet for communicating with your readers other than through your Web site?
JG: In April we launched our newsletter, Gilbert Guide Monthly to make sure our readers stay on top of what’s going on in the senior care world. It has been a huge success. I know a lot of people see senior care as boring and dry—so my biggest goal is to make sure everyone has a little fun with it! 

Boomer411: What can we expect next?
JG: We recently launched our version of Daily Candy (my personal newsletter staple—it gives me the skinny on new local restaurants and stores). It’s called The Weekly Insider. Here’s a sneak preview of what you can expect: “Get in-the-know advice and reviews on home modification tips and tools, senior gadgets, must-have services—and anything that’s new, helpful or just impressed the heck out us!”

Boomer411: What else makes Gilbert Guide unique?
JG: Our Partner Marketplace is a special part of the site where we link to the best senior-related products and services—but first, we do all the background research to make sure they’re reputable. Boomers are probably the busiest people on earth, so we’ve eliminated the time they would otherwise need to spend comparison shopping. When they click on the Partner Marketplace, they can feel good about making a solidly researched choice.

Boomer411: Who can benefit from your services? Where do they start?
JG: Baby Boomers who are searching for services for their parents OR who want to understand more about an aging parent’s condition OR who want to connect with other boomers and caregivers—these are the people who are on our site every day. Baby Boomers drive GilbertGuide.com. They tell us what they want to read about, what they want to educate themselves on, and we fill those needs. The starting point for most everyone is our Care Planner.

This concludes Part 1 of our interview with Jill Gilbert. Stay tuned for the second and concluding part of this interview to be published this Thursday…