The world may have turned upside down (and around) with Brexit, but London Technology Week happened nevertheless. It’s exploded into 400 events and 43,000 attendees, with 300 attending an event at London City Hall on health tech within the NHS. (Attendees invited to contribute in Comments.) Designer Brooke Roberts, an ex-NHS radiographer who advocates the fusion of fashion and tech, debuted her brain scan-inspired knitwear, accomplished by translating scans into digital files capable of programming industrial knitting machines. According to GP Bullhound in their annual European Unicorns report, 18 of Europe’s 47 billion-dollar digital startups are now based in the UK. So who needs the EU? TechCityNews, CNN, Yahoo Tech
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/MonBaby.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]On the other side of the Atlantic, there was a disappointing absence of wearables and health tech at the Consumer Electronics Association’s NYC summer event, CE Week. It’s been a major feature since 2009 at International CES in January; the NYC summer show and the November CES preview had always featured a mostly local exhibitor contingent and conference content. None this year–a representative cited a mystifying ‘change in direction’. There was one lone wearable way back in the exhibit hall–MonBaby, which came in from 16 blocks uptown. The snap-on button monitor works with any garment (unlike the Mimo onesie and the Owlet sock) (more…)Telegraph takes a quick look at CES 2016 trends, including wearables (updated)
Update. During CES, Parks Associates will hosting their 7th annual CONNECTIONS Summit on 6-7 January (Wednesday – Thursday). The most health tech related session is ‘Wearables: Healthcare, IoT, and Smart Home Use Cases’ on Wednesday 10:30am-11:45am, with a panel including executives from Honeywell Life Care, Care Innovations, Qualcomm, Independa, IFTTT and Lumo Body Tech, hosted by director Harry Wang of Parks whom this Editor counts as a Grizzled Pioneer, Research Division. Separate registration required. Information and full agenda here.
To our Readers: Are you attending CES? Interested in contributing some insights? Contact Editor Donna.
Short takes for a spring Friday: wounds, babies and ‘frequent fliers’
Starting off your spring weekend….WoundMatrix, which uses generally older model smartphones to take pictures of wounds which are uploaded either to their own or to a destination clinical platform, with proprietary software that helps a clinician analyze the wound remotely and then to track healing progress, has gone international with Honduras’s La Entrada Medical and Dental facility run by non-profit Serving at the Crossroads, and in Rwanda in the care of nearly 1000 patients by the Rwanda Human Resources for Health Program, established by their Ministry of Health with the cooperation of several American universities. At ATA they also announced a new release of software. Release (PDF attached)….A BMJ (British Medical Journal) article critiquing the surge in what we call ‘telehealth for the bassinet set‘ scores the Mimo onesie (Rest Devices), the Owlet sock and the Sproutling band as taking advantage of concerned parents. It’s too much continuous monitoring of vital signs that can vary and yet be quite normal, and no published studies on benefit. A reviewer did find that Owlet is in clinical tests at Seattle Childrens and University of Arizona. MedPageToday (BMJ requires paid access)….A surprise from Philips, which we in the US associate with the Lifeline PERS. They have quietly moved into telehealth focusing on post-discharge programs that target the most costly patients, often dubbed ‘frequent fliers’ based on their frequent stays in hospital. The ‘Hospital to Home’ telehealth pilot with Banner Health in Arizona, dubbed for them the Intensive Ambulatory Care (IAC) program, focuses on the top 5 percent of complex patients which are the highest cost and most care intensive. IAC results among 135 patients over six months reduced hospitalizations by 45 percent, acute and long-term care costs decreased by 32 percent and overall cost of care by 27 percent. However, is this program continuing–or transitioning their patients? iHealthBeat, PR Newswire
More telehealth for the bassinet set
Also: Investor/engineering lab Lemnos Labs’ blog posting on Sproutling’s development from application/prototype to a scalable production model will be interesting especially if you are being challenged in the hardware development process.
Previously in TTA: Wearables on the hype cycle: a ‘Fitbit for babies’, Owlet baby monitor sock exceeds funding goal (But Huggies Tweet Pee seems to have stayed in Brasil…), Owlet baby monitor sock moving to market, Cute sensor fashions now for baby.
Pacifying baby, taking temperature
UK developer BlueMaestro has announced a temperature-sensing baby pacifier with the somewhat obvious name Pacifi. According to Mobihealthnews (but frustratingly not on their website), the pacifier sends temperature data via Bluetooth Smart to an iPhone or Android app. Parents can record medication dosing and reminders, track temperature and medication over time, and set up an alarm when baby runs a high predetermined temperature. It’s also dishwasher safe. Pacifi joins Raiing Wireless‘ body thermometer FDA cleared in 2012 (now iThermometer) and Kinsa’s plug-in smart thermometer which took a crowdsourcing approach to local public health. It is not cleared for sale yet in the UK or US, but was shown at last month’s Mobile World Congress Barcelona and the Smart UK Project in London. Unfortunately, it may be a while before Quantified Self Moms can put it on the list for their baby showers, along with the Owlet monitoring sock, Mimo onesie and iTeddy [TTA 10 Sept]. Related: MedCityNews compares Mimo to adult sleep monitor Lark, awarding the matchup to Mimo. The real matchup is Owlet versus Mimo (see this Editor’s comment). (Also see our comments here discussing the safety of RF monitoring around babies.)
The CES of Health (Friday)
Rounding up the 10 Ring Vegas Circus-Circus, it’s time for ‘best and worst lists’: hopping with the Kiwi tracker, no one’s kind to Mother, in the kitchen with 3D printers and what may be up with Google, FDA and contact lenses.
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/02-itoi-620×400.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]ZDNet rounds up its Friday coverage with a Best of CES selection. It’s always interesting to get the broader non-healthcare techie view of ‘what’s hot’–they spotted fitness bands early when even diehard QSers were skeptical– and to then see if their picks make it into the broader market. Their health tech picks are the Mimo Baby onesie + detachable turtle monitor from Rest Devices (sure to be a hit at your next baby shower; TTA 10 Sept], movement profiler Notch(see Thursday; it also made The Guardian’s roundup), MakerBot’s home 3D Replicator Mini (Wednesday) and the Epson Moverio BT200 digital content projection smart glasses (in-market March, @ $699.99 a bargain for what use?). Au contraire, see 11 born-to-fail worst gadgets which includes being mean to Sen.se’s Mother and, in worst design, an iPad video ‘periscope’ from iTOi which looked like it was stolen off the set of the 1956 space opera Forbidden Planet. For today’s market, it definitely could have used a steampunk vibe to carry off its ‘Blue Blazes’ design.
Yet one of their writers gives Mother, a/k/a the “M2M Mollycoddle”, “part-Russian doll and part-Doctor Who monster”, a more thoughtful once-over. (more…)
Owlet baby monitor sock exceeds funding goal
There’s a bit of a boomlet in baby monitoring products, with Mobihealthnews lining up the Rest Devices’ Mimo onesie plus ‘turtle’ monitor, Croatia’s iDerma Teddy the Guardian teddy bear [TTA 22 July], Pixie Scientific’s Smart Diapers which not only detects wetting but also UTIs or kidney problems and the simpler Huggies Tweet Pee that alerts to changing (and reminds to buy diapers) which is in test in Brazil but reportedly will launch this month. Baby showers and their concomitant oohing and aahhing will never be the same. 6 baby activity trackers announced this summer
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