Telecare – time to lose the last “e”?

January 12, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

Many years ago when I co-founded eForum to promote what was then called “eGovernment”, it was common for smart speakers to begin their conference presentations by saying that it’d soon be plain “government”, which indeed it has been now for many years; around the world, government sector workers have embraced technology to offer huge improvements in quality of service to citizens at reduced cost. Sadly health services have proved far more resistant to the beneficial use of technology, so eHealth & mHealth seem likely to take rather longer to lose their prefixes, in spite of pleas from the VA. If any support for this view was needed, the telehealth news from the flat earth society of a recent survey of GPs (more…)

Telefonica and Capita to partner on eHealth

December 16, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Telefonica-logojpg.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Five months after pulling out of the telehealth market in the UK, Spain’s Telefonica has struck a partnership to develop eHealth solutions. In a recent press release Telefonica announced a “global partnership agreement” with Capita “to deploy innovative communications and telehealth technologies”. According to the release Telefonica is set to enhance its portfolio of eHealth services with clinical content.

One of the three criteria for choosing Capita as its partner is stated as Capita’s NHS Direct website for the UK Department of Health. However, the same NHS Direct service was said by a Department of Health spokesman earlier this year to have “struggled to meet the standards required” (more…)

Microsoft Surface dives into mHealth, telehealth tablet market

February 26, 2013 | by

“Not only Lync but Skype as well are becoming fairly predominant platforms for what I call ‘commodity’ telemedicine and telehealth services,” Dr. Bill Crounse, Microsoft’s senior director for worldwide health, told Pulse IT Magazine during a promotional visit to Australia. “We are seeing amazing progress at an institutional level, with people understanding and mapping out where are their patients coming from and how far are they travelling. How can we leverage this technology to better serve that population [of] patients who are being asked to travel three hours across town for a snippet of information or reassurance, when in fact this technology can be applied.”

It’s a good point, but as EHR Intelligence goes on to point out: ‘In contrast to the iPad mini, which fits neatly into lab coat pockets and has the advantage of millions of apps in the mature Apple ecosystem, the Surface Pro is a bulkier product, weighing in at two pounds and saddled with an $899 price tag. In the era of bring your own device (BYOD) healthcare, Microsoft faces an uphill battle when it comes to attracting individual physicians looking to pick up a supplementary device for their office work.’ EHR Intelligence item: Microsoft Surface dives into mHealth, telehealth tablet market.