Wireless Health 2013 (US)

October 24, 2013 | by

1-3 November 2013, Johns Hopkins University-Carey Business School, Baltimore, Maryland

Presented by the San Diego-based Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA), the trans-disciplinary focus of the conference, crossing research, development and implementation lines, will bring together members of the medical and health research community, device manufacturers, clinical and health services providers, government leaders and policy makers. Peer-reviewed papers and abstracts, interactive workshops, emerging application demonstrations, and distinguished speakers will be featured. 1 November features pre-conference workshops. Keynoters include Dr. Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer and Wellness Institute Chair at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Peter Tippet, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of the Verizon Innovation Incubator, and computer/healthcare scientist Deborah Estrin of Cornell NYC Tech. Release.  Information and registration here.

150 Health 2.0 presentations online

October 24, 2013 | by

Last month’s Health 2.0 three-day conference in San Francisco appears to be almost totally on video, with presentations ranging from 5 minutes to over 1/2 hour. The 15 pages include demos, keynotes and interviews. Warning–don’t use the categories at the upper right hand corner or the sidebar to try to sort through them, because these group together multiple meetings by topic. Everything you wanted to know about Quantified Selfing, patient communities (PatientsLikeMe, Medivizor), HIT, EMRs, employer wellness programs (Keas), discussing end of life care (Blaine Warkentine’s Vimty) as well as other ‘unmentionables’ like vulnerability, caregiving, social support, death, sex, taxes. Quite a few on the US health insurance exchange which was going to lead Americans to The New Healthcare Jerusalem in a few days. Somehow GetInsured.com manages to calculate possible individual insurance savings in two-three screens, though you have to call about insurance. Tim Kelsey, the NHS National Director for Patients and Information, announces £1 billion in a technology fund here. Health 2.0 San Francisco 2013.

Turn up, tune in but don’t drop out with health monitoring earphones

October 23, 2013 | by

microsoft_septimu_earphonesAs part of a recent research project, Microsoft has incorporated health and fitness monitoring into a pair of earphones.

One application being developed for the hardware platform named Septimu, is a smartphone app called Musical Heart. The app enables Septimu to generate tunes based on a person’s mood or activity. So for example, fitness enthusiasts who want to keep the heart rate high can use Musical Heart to automatically up the tempo, helping them keep up the pace. Or for those feeling stressed or angry, Musical Heart could select something more soothing to help bring the heart rate and breathing down to a more relaxed level. Reported in PSFK. 

A timely study published online last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated that ‘musical agency’ (i.e. music chosen by the study participants) greatly decreased perceived exertion during strenuous activity. (more…)

What the Blue Blazes and 3D printing apps

October 22, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/blue-blazes.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /] 3D printing and apps are both very topical just now, so surely a 3D printing app has to be the height of popular appeal? Well perhaps not when MakerBot launched their Thingiverse iPhone App for the 3D Printing Community.

Unless I’m missing something critical, it just seems to be a smartphone photo album for keeping (2D) pictures of your favourite 3D printout on. Oh and you can “browse Thingiverse and check out featured, noteworthy, and popular designs, all on your phone”.

UK Comparative Healthcare Costs

October 21, 2013 | by

OECD have recently updated their useful summary of comparative healthcare costs, with pointers to further detail if required.

It poses a bit of a puzzle by pointing out that the UK’s healthcare expenditure as a proportion of GDP is marginally higher than the OECD average, even though the number of physicians/unit of population is below the OECD average, the number of hospital beds on the same measure is significantly below the OECD average and MRI & CT scanners per million population are both less than half the OECD average. Although it’s not hard to guess the cause, no explanation is offered as to why costs are not therefore lower than the OECD average. (The number of nurses/unit of population is similar to the OECD average.)

Hat tip to Prof Mike Short.

Telehealth round-up: the good, the bad, and the future

October 20, 2013 | by | 2 Comments

Getting the bad news out of the way first, the seemingly-eternal researchers have thrown their grappling iron into the ancient store of data from the now-only-historically-relevant Whole System Demonstrator data pool and dragged out yet another unexploded bomb that they have then endeavoured to detonate, in the form of a short research article.

Thankfully the explosive has deteriorated with age so (more…)

Startup accelerators come to Germany

October 17, 2013 | by

Hubraum, based in Berlin, announced the seven startups in its program including health technology, an online education startup, a digital identity provider and a service that lets users monetize their own personal data (perhaps Primal Shield will find a way to pay back those QS Obsessives, but alas it’s only from the social network). Three out of the seven are in health tech: Goderma (teledermatology), OPTretina (teleopthamology) and PocketAid (rewards for your wait time in hospital or doctor’s office room). Hubraum is backed by Deutsche Telekom, launched 2012 and recently collaborated with two accelerators in Tel Aviv to bring early-stage Israeli companies to Berlin and recently launched a programme in Krakow. Hubraum’s new accelerator batch…(Venture Village Berlin)

Humana, Healthrageous and some object lessons

October 16, 2013 | by

The acquisition of the assets of Partners HealthCare spinoff Healthrageous by insurance and health service giant Humana is reverberating in the field in the US, particularly those in the buzziest digital health sectors. Some may look away, but a hard look provides some object lessons at the sheer unpredictability of the field for those who are innovating and attempting to shape consumer behavior and health. (Not behavioral health)

  • Healthrageous had an impressive lineage and credibility. Developed over three years at Partners HealthCare, it was spun off in 2010, PHC members on the board, leadership from well-known/regarded figures such as Rick Lee and Mary Beth Chalk–and enjoyed abundant, rapid startup funding–$12.5 million in two rounds, the last exactly one year ago, from equally impressive investors, reportedly $15 million total. No raiding the credit cards here.
  • It occupied what everyone for the past few years thought of as a sweet spot–personal health management targeted to employers/benefit managers along with health plans to lower costs that combined sensor-based telehealth data with individualized coaching and feedback–and data from a broad base of 10,000 users. (more…)

Oxitone Medical developing pulse O2 telehealth at wrist

October 16, 2013 | by

Israel’s Oxitone Medical is one of the Lucky Thirteen participants in the GE/StartUp Health Academy Entrepreneurship Program [TTA 4 April]. By this profile in MedCityNews, it appears they are getting closer to being in market with their wrist-worn device. Current fingertip devices are uncomfortable and not wearable for long periods of time, a major advantage with a bracelet style (if not too clunky). The device is still in prototype, but the system will send out alerts to family, caregivers and a call center if saturation drops below a pre-set level, who can then attend or call for medical assistance. Their first markets are COPD and CHF patients. Device moves continuous oxygen saturation monitoring from the fingertip to the wrist

Google Glass for gait improvement

October 16, 2013 | by | 2 Comments

The University of Twente in the Netherlands is doing some unusual research in developing an app to help improve the gait of a group at high risk of falls–those with Parkinson’s disease. Current research has found that certain patterns and rhythms when viewed or heard improve gait, such as stripes on the floor or a metronome’s ticking. Glass or another intelligent glasses would display these pattern and/or rhythmic sound, and it would interact with the cameras and accelerometers already built into the devices. The MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine is working on the project together with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (Nijmegen), the Medisch Spectrum Twente hospital and the VUmc University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. Smart glasses can improve gait of Parkinson’s patients  It also sounds like an investigatory area for smartphones and fitness bracelets. Hat tip to contributing editor Toni Bunting.

The sea of security ‘red flags’ that is Healthcare.gov

October 15, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/120306.png” thumb_width=”170″ /]It’s just a fact of life
That no one cares to mention
She wasn’t very good
But she had good intentions

—Lyle Lovett, ‘Good Intentions’

Confirmed by experts to the more-than-mainstream Christian Science Monitor are the layers of insecurity completely feasible on the current Healthcare.gov website–and the 14 state (plus DC) websites feeding into the Federal health insurance exchange and up into the mysterious hub linked to other Federal agencies. Healthcare.gov is supposed to adhere to NIST standards but these are no guarantee–and the state sites are not required to. ‘Red flags’ cited by experts (aside from ‘Wildman’ John McAfee) make for interesting reading:

  • Cross-site request forgery
  • ‘Clickjacking’–an invisible layer over the legitimate website
  • Cookie theft, and not by the Cookie Monster
  • Problematic verification from state to Federal, from legitimate third-party assistance, from brokers and so on
  • Log in fraud–the happy hunting ground of hackers and DDOS attacks

Warnings were apparent as early as 2 October [TTA 8 Oct]. And as our later coverage has explained, undoing all of this is near-impossible even with funding, in the less-than-a-month window till the crash time deadline in mid-November and then early January. Obamacare website security called ‘outrageous’: How safe is it? (+video)

Our 11-14 October compilation is a narrative and summary of major articles on the failure of the Healthcare.gov website and its consequences like none you will see elsewhere.

Wanted: Connected Health Symposium correspondents 23-25 October-Boston

October 15, 2013 | by

With our successful request for CATCH at Sheffield, TTA is asking for one or more of our readers who are already attending the Symposium to be volunteer correspondents for the Connected Health Symposium in Boston from Wednesday 23 October through Friday 25 October. If you are willing to write up an article or a compilation of impressions within 72 hours of the event or even as the days end or start, please email EIC Donna here (donna.cusano@telecareaware.com). It is a large event so it’s expected that you can be selective and interesting rather than comprehensive. You will be credited of course but expenses and article will not be covered.

European Telemedicine Conference–HIMSS Europe

October 14, 2013 | by

29-30 October 2013, The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, Scotland

The first annual European Telemedicine Conference (ETC) combines the efforts of several leading European healthcare organisations into one event.  This year, the ETC incorporates the annual NHS 24 Scottish Centre for Telemedicine and Telecare Conference with the Scottish Government’s Joint Improvement Team and also combined with the UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) International Telemedicine Conference. Website, speaker information and registration.

VA Department data breaches soar (US)

October 14, 2013 | by

If after the Healthcare.gov debacle, there’s still any confidence that centralized Federal systems are secure and trustworthy, please read this HealthcareITNews tally of the multiple data breaches and HIPAA violations taking place at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

From 2010 through May 2013, VA department employees or contractors were responsible for 14,215 privacy breaches affecting more than 101,000 veterans across 167 VA facilities, including incidences of identity theft, stealing veteran prescriptions, Facebook posts concerning veterans’ body parts, and failing to encrypt data, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigation revealed.

The two-month investigation by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review published this weekend found that the VA led the way in HIPAA violations–17 in the past few years–for reasons centering on lack of accountability, shoddy safeguards, sloppiness in handling data and failure to encrypt data even after the 2006 theft of a laptop put records of 26.5 million veterans in danger. There are few firings, disciplinary actions or HHS fines.

This should put telehealth and telemedicine providers on notice that their encryption will have to be ‘stronger than the VA’, as both they and Department of Defense (DOD) are the single largest users of telehealth in the US.