NYeC Digital Health Conference (New York City)

October 6, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nyec_dhc_2014_logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]17-18 November 2014, Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, New York

The New York eHealth Collaborative will hold its fourth annual Digital Health Conference with two full days of meetings and presentations. They are returning to Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River which will have ample room for the more than 850 attendees expected.

  • Keynote speakers include Eric J. Topol, MD, Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute and the controversial
    Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives & Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania.
  • The agenda includes ‘Big Data in Healthcare: Hype and Hope on the Path to Personalized Medicine’ to ‘Designing Wearables for the Long Run’ with a stop at Xanadu…no, Scanadu courtesy of their chief medical officer Alan Greene MD speaking on ‘Science, Sensors, and Superpowers—From Sci-Fi to Reality’.

Important: TTA readers receive a 10% registration discount. Use code TTA when registering at DigitalHealthConference.com  TTA is a media partner of the 2014 Digital Health Conference.

Tunstall secures additional £20 million from Charterhouse: implications?

October 6, 2014 | by

Breaking News  Tunstall Healthcare Group quietly announced on 25 September an additional investment of £20 million from its private equity owner, Charterhouse Capital Partners. Our readers know from our May and July articles the business challenges Tunstall has faced. We have particularly focused on–as have Bloomberg in May, this Editor and our Founder/EIC Emeritus Steve Hards over the years–on the heavy burden of Tunstall’s debt service, multiple management changes on both sides of the Atlantic, and a decided ‘failure to launch’ in the US market.

Readers of the Sunday Times woke up to this headline and lede (what news writers use to introduce the topic and entice you to read on):

Headline: £20m to steady ship at Tunstall

Lede: CHARTERHOUSE Capital Partners, one of the City’s oldest and most secretive private equity firms, has been forced to provide a multimillion-pound lifeline to another of its investments. A fortnight ago, Charterhouse ploughed £20m into Tunstall, a healthcare technology company that makes equipment to monitor the elderly and sick at home.

Insider Media Limited (business news review) had a more measured take in its ‘Yorkshire News’ section:

Headline: BACKERS PUMP £20M INTO HEALTHCARE FIRM (more…)

The King’s Fund videos, presentations online

October 4, 2014 | by

The King’s Fund has posted video highlights from last month’s International Digital Health and Care Congress. Talks include those from futurist Ray Hammond, Kathleen Hammond (US Department of Veterans Affairs), Dr Ali Parsa (Babylon), Paul Rice (NHS England) and Sian Jones (NHS Bristol). Click on the tabs at top for presentation decks and posters. TTA was a media partner of the Congress. Hat tip to Mike Clark via Twitter (@clarkmike).

Facebooking health: good for communities, not for privacy?

October 3, 2014 | by

In a Reuters exclusive, Facebook is reportedly considering creating online communities which will support those with various medical conditions, as well as ‘preventative care’ applications for those minding their healthy lifestyle. According to Reuters’ sources, Facebook representatives have been meeting with medical industry experts and entrepreneurs. They are also starting a research and development unit to test new health apps. It is not a far reach to assume that Facebook, which is always seeking to maximize its profitability dependent on digital ad revenues (second only to Google), yet finding its younger audience on the decline, is attempting to grapple with the concerns of its older-skewing audience–and also seeking a way to monetize another slice of data. Yet the 55+ audience is wary of Facebook given (more…)

Data mining health records: the good, bad and ugly

October 2, 2014 | by

Take your time this weekend and read this article from the Washington Post on the ‘brave new world’ of data mining health records. While those with experience analyzing real-world health data snicker at Larry Page of Google’s inflated claims of ‘saving 10,000 lives in the first year’ if only he could get his hands on that identified data (of course, then there’s the opportunity to make $£€¥, which is what Larry and Sergey are really interested in–count your Editor as a cynic!), the Health Data Analytics Express rolls on. The promise lies in more precision in treatment areas such as brain tumor radiology where sizing is critical (BraTumIA) and individualized genomics for disease. Yet the author does not touch on healthcare decision support systems best exemplified by IBM Watson, (more…)

Wearables: the ‘comfy sensor patch’ changes color, a cushion nags on posture

October 2, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/skin_heart_monitor-1.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]Another sensor patch out of the John A. Rogers ‘skunk works’ at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign is designed to be continually worn (presumably in a discreet–not discrete–place) and is capable of monitoring temperature and moistness on the skin’s surface, relating to cardiovascular health and skin care. This ‘epidermal photonic sensor’  has 3,600 0.5mm squared “thermochromic liquid crystals patterned into large-scale, pixelated arrays on thin elastomeric substrates” (meaning a stretchy sensor). Based on this Editor’s reading of the research abstract, color changes with temperature; algorithms and a digital camera shot of the patch then turn temperature data into decipherable health information. What’s not known is how the sensor information transmits. Gizmag, Nature Communications (abstract) Rogers’ previously developed sensors: Biostamp and Reebok Checklight TTA 28 July, the original ‘comfy sensor patch’ 10 April and 8 April.

And watch how you sit. The Darma seat cushion adds 1mm fiberoptic sensors (more…)

House Bill introduced to improve Accountable Care Orgs (US)

October 1, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/file0001205588090-doctor.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A bill has been introduced in the US Congress with the aim of improving Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The cross-party bill HR 5558, to be known as the ACO improvement act of 2014, if passed, will amend the Medicare ACO Programs to permit the use of remote patient monitoring, deliver images to remote providers and improve the data sharing between ACOs and Medicare administration.

ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together voluntarily to give care to Medicare patients. The goal of the three ACO programs is to ensure patients, specially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time avoiding duplication and waste. When an ACO succeeds in achieving savings for Medicare, that saving is shared with the (more…)