The King’s Fund has prepared since 2011 a Quarterly Monitoring Report on the performance of the NHS as seen by its finance directors. It is a ‘regular update on how the NHS is coping as it grapples with the evolving reform agenda and the more significant challenge of making radical improvements in productivity.’ Report #15 does not bring auspicious news as the challenges deepen. 7 of 10 NHS trust directors are concerned about balancing their books next year, and 60 percent have either drawn down reserves or relied on additional financial support. In healthcare delivery performance, over 440,000 patients in this quarter spent more than four hours in A&E (US=ER or ED), the poorest performance since 2003. (more…)
ATA announces award winners, Strategic Summit companies
ATA announced the six winners of their Annual Awards recognizing innovators in telemedicine and telehealth for significant contributions, along with six new members of the ATA College of Fellows. One of the more intriguing winners (Innovation in Remote Care) is the US/UK company Sentrian which has built intelligent predictive data models (‘Remote Patient Intelligence’) that can monitor disease and co-morbidity in thousands of patients with the goal of preventing hospitalization and readmissions. Release. ATA has also selected 30 emerging companies to participate in the Telemedicine Investor and Strategic Summit (more…)
Women and eHealth on the international scale: JISfTeH explores
JISfTeH–the Journal of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth–published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, has an intriguing issue this quarter that focuses on the international role of women and eHealth, not only as recipients but also as developers, designers and integrators of what they term Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Encouraging a greater role for women in what we more commonly call HIT is the subject of various UN, academic and rural efforts. The articles here are about programs designed by, implemented and largely for women: the ‘Zero Mothers Die’ global initiative using mHealth to reduce infant and maternal mortality, using video games in structured exercise to prevent depression and anxiety among new mothers in the rural Philippines, telehealth in the monitoring of gestational diabetes (more…)
Runup to UK General Election: where parties stand on health issues
The King’s Fund continues to perform a great public service in objectively following and compiling where the five major parties stand on health issues and drawing some clear lines. In the 7 May election, the future of the NHS has become one of the major issues facing Britain, to the point of ‘make-or-break’. Their latest digest presents Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and UKIP pledges in six areas in animated infographic style: NHS forward funding, mental health, integrated care (health and social care, national/local levels), GP access (US=primary care), public health and NHS reform. More detailed information is available in PDF form. The main website on their General Election coverage including the major parties’ manifestos as well as the independent National Health Action Party is here. Bottom line: the NHS needs £8 billion to maintain itself. The rest is debate. Kudos to The King’s Fund, and makes us even prouder to be again this year a supporter of the Digital Health and Care Congress (and to offer our readers a 10 percent discount on registration, see sidebar to right.)
Our UK readers who want a stinging critique of the parties’ stances (concentrating on Conservative and Labour) would do well to read Roy Lilley’s latest in his NHSManagers newsletter here.
ATA 2015: keynotes, concurrent sessions and trade show
Now available on the ATA 2015 website are the full speaker lineup, including keynote speakers Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and Yulun Wang, CEO of InTouch Health, Patrick Soon-Shiong, healthcare investor extraordinaire and Chairman/CEO of NantHealth and Reed Tuckson, ATA’s president elect. Click here to investigate the concurrent sessions. Speaker abstracts are helpfully compiled in Telemedicine & e-Health (PDF). There are also pre-meeting professional development certificate courses on Saturday and Sunday, a separate Telemedicine Investor & Strategic Summit on Monday and Industry Executive Sessions on Monday and Tuesday. TTA is a media partner of the 20th Annual Meeting ATA 2015.
58 percent of health data breaches due to simple theft, not hacking: JAMA
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/keep-calm-and-encrypt-your-data-5.png” thumb_width=”150″ /] Criminal activity is the cause of nearly 6 out of 10 data breaches, according to a study published in JAMA last week (subscription required). Cyberbreaches–the infamous hacking attacks–produce breaches in the millions, but the far more typical and frequent breach, if smaller, is caused by simple theft of records–electronic and paper. HealthLeaders We’ve reported previously that stolen records (over 500) have ranged from laptops to paper records as landfill and even old-style X-rays in dead storage sought after for mercury content. So if Hackermania is not always running wild, except when it is, how to keep those records secure? According to West Virginia United Health System’s assistant CIO interviewed by FierceHealthIT at HIMSS, it requires a policy change of staff education, expectations, understanding that protecting patient information is part of holistic care–and frequent audits. Trust, but verify. Encrypt–and keep passwords secure, multiple and frequently changed.
All about the fitness devices with Parks Associates, Juniper Research
Fitness trackers are hot, hot, hot.
So Parks Associates‘ latest study tells us, with 60 million US households expected to own at least one by 2019 (hey, only 4 years away!) with global revenues exceeding $5 billion. Of that, smartwatches will constitute 100 million units. Given that only 7 million Android-based watches have been sold to date, and that the Apple Watch is projected to be about 10 million (2.3 million sold to date, according to ZDNet which glows away), that may actually be–achievable. POLITICO Morning eHealth also reported from their interview that about one-fifth of smartphone and tablet owners use a health app on a monthly basis, and 19 percent of smartphone owners find a “master” health app that aggregates data from other health apps appealing. Parks release.
In the UK, of Juniper Research’s top five smart wireless devices, three have a relationship to health, with the Apple and Google-TAG Heuer smartwatches on the high end and GOQii Fitness using their or anyone’s watch or fitness band to keep you on track for the price of their subscription. Less karma than when we saw them last June at CEWeek, more coaching. The apps will be the primary generator of revenue in fitness-band land, with hardware margins declining in the next few years. (Speaking of revenue, Juniper’s full study will set you back a tidy £3970.)
CHF readmissions cut 53 percent with telehealth tablet
Favorable news for the growing area of tablet-based telehealth. A six-month trial of an tablet-based telehealth system for congestive heart failure (CHF) with patients at Philadelphia-area Penn Medicine’s (University of Pennsylvania) post-discharge program reduced readmissions from an already low 8 percent to 3.8 percent, a 53 percent positive change, versus the national average of 19.5 percent. The provided 4G tablet+app program through Health Recovery Systems is used by the patient for an average 85 days. He or she sends vital signs, symptoms, medication information (including side effects) to a nurse care coordinator; the app on the tablet provides coaching via patient education, instructional videos and individualized self-care plans coordinated with the telehealth nurse on the program. (more…)
Sometimes it takes a 90 year old designer….
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/barbara-ideo_custom-8b14c66bdec3b3322f0d91ec726cac4cd4ff389b-s1300-c85.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Barbara Beskind has a dream job at age 90. She is on staff as a designer for trendy design consultancy IDEO, which designed the Apple mouse. She was a US Army major who after retirement, designed and holds six patents on inflatable devices that assist children with balance issues. Major Beskind is still working on balance problems, in this case now for people in the senior community where she lives. She’s also working on glasses which would help with face-name recognition, and is a resource for other IDEO designers who check with her on hidden drawbacks, like too-small batteries on automated bifocals that can’t be changed by those with mobility problems. If your company is designing products, health tech, apps and more which will be used by an older market, bring on staff an older, perhaps retired, designer to help your team think it through–and get your own secret weapon. NPR AllTechConsidered (photo from NPR) Hat tip to Founder Steve.
Update: Barbara Beskind is also a featured speaker at Aging 2.0’s Global Innovation Summit in San Francisco, 18-19 May. More information.
‘Separating the wheat from the chaff’ in medical apps daunting: JAMA
Medical apps may not be strangers to doctors’ offices anymore but they also realize that apps are difficult to recommend responsibly to patients or even to find, because there is no real guidance or validation. This current article in JAMA online confirms the perception and the need for care integration that both Editors Charles especially and Donna have pointed out lo these many years. However this Editor is quite disillusioned at the attempts to date to ‘curate’ apps with the Happtique failure and the relatively low profile to date of IMS Health’s AppScript and professional review site iMedical Apps and the stated intentions of SocialWellth which purchased Happtique. The reality is that the numbers are against it–IMS Health in their study estimated 40,000 medical apps–in 2013. For apps that want to take the high road, it’s economically difficult, but could be rewarding in the long term. The WellDoc BlueStar diabetes tracking and management support app did with FDA clearance and prescription-only use, but few so far can see a revenue model there. Also MedCityNews.
Intended use determines degree of health app regulation–and also how you communicate your attributes and performance claims. Bradley Merrill Thompson, who performs an invaluable service by advising our field on regulation, compliance and interacting with FDA, demonstrates how a developer can determine where the intended use of an app might fall (more…)
Weekend Must Read: How an EHR in a teaching hospital gave a patient a 39X overdose
Weekend reading and a banquet for your consideration.
Though computers can and do improve patient safety in many ways, the case of Pablo Garcia vividly illustrates that, even in one of the world’s best hospitals, filled with well-trained, careful and caring doctors, nurses and pharmacists, technology can cause breathtaking errors.
This one began when a young physician went to an electronic health record and set a process in motion that never could have happened in the age of paper.
From The Overdose: Harm in a Wired Hospital by Robert Wachter, MD (Medium.com Backchannel), Part 1 of 4
The situation is a pediatric patient with a severe chronic illness, with multiple symptoms requiring multiple medications to control, admitted to University of California San Francisco (UCSF). The article is a case history of the chain of events, both technological and human, that led to an severe overdose of a routine antibiotic medication, which the patient had already been maintained on for years, nearly killing the child. You will see, with horror, how every check-and-balance failed in the prescribing and dispensing procedure, and why.
Dr Wachter is not only chief of the medical service and chief (more…)
HIMSS’ last full day highlights company partnerships
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/himss_chicago_2015-588×337.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]It’s almost time to Say Goodbye to Sinatra’s ‘My Kind of Town’, but there’s still news: Samsung+Partners Healthcare, IMS Health, AliveCor, Interoperability≠Humana, Panasonic+Cisco
- Samsung and Partners HealthCare announced a direct-to-mobile partnership to develop chronic care management mobile software that monitors vital signs such as blood pressure, blood glucose and weight, as well as delivers mobile patient engagement, medication adherence and wellness self-management. Clinical trial is scheduled for June. Partners has always been a pioneer in the mHealth area, but playing with Samsung, Partners is flying at a slightly higher level than with Wellocracy and certainly the late Healthrageous. Partners release, Mobihealthnews (more…)
Scanadu, Intelesens team for Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE (US/UK)
Does it seem that the run-up to the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE has been going on forever? Perception is reality since its various stages have been taking place since 2013 and the $10 million award won’t be until early 2016. This past August, the finalists were narrowed to 10. Now two are teaming up: the best known, California-based Scanadu and (known to our Readers) Belfast-based Intelesens zensor in what will now be known as Team Scanadu/Intelesens. Team zensor also includes Northern Ireland-based Randox clinical diagnostics, CHIC (Connected Health Innovation Centre) as facilitator and CIGA Healthcare for self-test products. Scanadu shipped the Scout as a non-FDA-cleared working prototype (more…)
Tunstall to demo mHealth Down Under at Connect Expo
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /]Breaking from our HIMSS coverage, Australia takes its turn in technology mega-events with the Connect Expo next week, 21-22 April, in Melbourne. It features one expo and 11 conferences, including the Future Health Summit covering telehealth, big data, analytics, wearables and robotics. Featured are speakers Tim Kelsey from NHS England and Dr George Margelis. Reports indicate that sponsor Tunstall will be debuting its mymobile telehealth app, which ties into their Integrated Care Platform, and the myCareTrack app, a mobile safety solution meant for lone workers, including health professionals on in-home patient care visits. The Tunstall website in its release also has presentation times. Pulse+IT (Australasia) (Returning to the US, we note that Tunstall was absent from HIMSS, and will also be from ATA2015 where they have been a major sponsor in the past. And we wonder how things are developing with mHealth platform designer Tactio.) Hat tip to Guy Dewsbury via Twitter
GE moving out of the hospital EHR business–and healthcare lending?
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2000px-General_Electric_logo.svg_.png” thumb_width=”100″ /]Updated. Spring cleaning at GE continues that may affect healthcare more than EHRs. Neil Versel catches at HIMSS, if not an exclusive, close to it, by finally getting a GE exec to admit the awful truth–that they are phasing out their Centricity Enterprise (hospital) EHR. Versel: “It’s now helping customers with a “graceful transition over a number of years,” said Jon Zimmerman, general manager of clinical business solutions at GE Healthcare.” Even more remarkable, that decision was made three years ago. MedCityNews also updated their article to highlight some of their recent problems with Intermountain Health; we’ve also noted that UCSF converted to Epic after 12 years (see our Weekend Must Read).
The GE Capital exit may affect healthcare too. The other and more major part of the spring cleaning–their exit from GE Capital with the sale/spinoff of assets over the next two years–was announced over the weekend (Bloomberg). Their Healthcare Financial Services lends to healthcare entities including hospitals, life science and in senior housing/health facilities. It also houses the Healthymagination Fund, the capital source for GE Ventures, its early stage developmental arm for healthcare, software and energy. According to The Wall Street Journal, GE will retain healthcare financing to support what it makes in its GE Healthcare unit: ultrasound, imaging, patient monitoring and diagnostics industrial equipment, down to the Vscan (yes! it’s still there). We would bet that GE Ventures is safe. But does this mean that its healthcare real estate unit within Healthcare Financial Services, which lends to senior housing, skilled nursing and other medical properties, is on the block, especially as GE this weekend completed the sale of its real estate holdings? What else, we wonder, will GE sell at the right price to pull up share price–and in the longer term, the future of its manufacturing in areas like major healthcare equipment which have been facing a declining and heavily competitive US market?
Exiting the hospital EHR business makes sense for GE, but what else will it entail? While it retained a solid footprint of vendor loyalty and satisfaction (more…)
IBM Watson Health adds 2 companies, three partners, moves to Boston and into the cloud
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IBM-Watson-Announcement.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]A Day with a Big Exclamation Point for Healthcare Data and Analytics. In a series of press releases late NY time on Monday and a spectacular announcement at HIMSS (photo hat tip to Sandeep Pulim via Twitter), the recently quiet-on-the-healthcare-front IBM Watson has announced multiple major moves that re-position it squarely into the healthcare arena as the 90,000 lb. Elephant.
- IBM Watson Health is now a separate business unit headquartered in Boston. The Watson New York headquarters will be expanded, but that may be for their other businesses: travel, retail, veterinary care, cognitive computing, and IT security and support. IBM claims that Watson Health will be hiring up to 2,000 healthcare consultants, clinicians and researchers, folding in existing units such as Smarter Care and Social Programs.
- The IBM Watson Health Cloud is now their secure, open and HIPAA compliant platform for health-related data: physicians, researchers, insurers and health and wellness companies.
- Three new partnerships were announced, designed to bolster IBM in different aspects of what is to be done with All That Data being generated from health and fitness devices. IBM Watson Health Cloud will be the secure platform, storage and analytics for Apple’s HealthKit and ResearchKit. Johnson & Johnson will be working with Watson on pre/post-operative coaching and education and Medtronic on diabetes management using data from Medtronic devices. (more…)
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