Andrew S. Dibner, PhD, is considered the Father of Personal Response Systems (PRS) in the United States. He first created the "lifeline" concept in 1972 while on sabbatical at Duke University and has since devoted his career to the development of this service. In 1974, Dr. Dibner and his wife Susan, a sociologist, founded Lifeline Systems, Inc., the leading company in PRS in the world. He has performed numerous studies of the system's effectiveness and has promoted its acceptance by government and health care providers nationally and internationally. Dr. Dibner's background is in clinical psychology and as a professor at Boston University, he specialized in the psychology of aging.