Additional views on the mHealth Summit

December 21, 2013 | by

HISTalk: “I’ve been at the conference for two days and it still doesn’t have a clear identity in my mind. Others told me the same thing – it’s unfocused and hard to describe, much like “mHealth” itself.” The anonymous editor of this hospital HIT-oriented blog scores the conference for lack of provider-oriented content and participants, being a ‘speed-dating’ event for companies and investors (the original governmental/NGO/non-profit focus utterly swamped by the commercial), and the event management (which is largely out of the organizers’ hands and in the site’s). Part of the confusion may well be the fact that mHealth is 1) exploding and 2) transitioning (‘m’ going the way of ‘e’ in Health). A second article underneath the main from an anonymous CIO criticizes many of the sessions for being mislabeled, the Executive Breakfast for being underserved–and Tuesday was an improvement over Monday. Food a major complaint!

You do have to wonder if the GSMA writer attended a different conference because he resolutely focuses on wireless and NGO/social organization mHealth frameworks. An interesting but limited perspective. And the article includes a major error: Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm did not deliver the opening keynote as originally listed, but Rick Valencia of Qualcomm Life. One Qualcomm as good as another? Commercial Models to the Forefront: Key trends at mHealth Summit 2013 (GSMA.com)

Sunday’s WIPJam (Wireless Industry Partnership) with 20+ speakers seems to have been the in place for the mobile developer crowd, with Mobile Development 101, mobile trends, 10 ways to fail in first-time app development and more. Seventeen of these presentations are available to view at a Dropbox link here.

NIH-NFL research grants on brain injury awarded (US)

December 19, 2013 | by

In September 2012, the National Football League (NFL) donated $30 million to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) to focus on brain injury. The Sports and Health Research Program (SHRP) now has a somewhat wider scope inclusive of joint diseases, sudden cardiac arrest, sickle cell anemia and hydration/heat injury. Last week they announced eight projects to be supported. Two ($6 million each) are cooperative agreements focusing on brain injury and after multiple concussions. These research projects are:  Boston University, which has pioneered major CTE research [TTA 5 June], and the VA on CTE; the pathology of CTE and delayed TBI from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The six other studies are ‘pilots’ totalling about $2 million over two years and range from cortical GABA in pediatric sports concussion, the Spot Light concussion management app developed by Inlightened, LLC, and eye movement tracking for concussion detection. FNIH release

Wearables more than trackers…family communicators

December 19, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Zoomed.jpg” thumb_width=”180″ /]This article from Connected World, despite the title of Will your kid wear wearables?, is a look at Revolutionary Tracker, which has developed two products from a GPS-enabled tracker to a simplified smartwatch. Both read to a smartphone for GPS tracking and communication. Where it differs is that the company broadly, not narrowly targets, ‘family tracking and communications’ as a modish wearable–infants, children, special needs children and adults (the autism market which most trackers have concentrated on), older adults and pets. Lone workers are another market, and a newer market: groups such as in camps, school trips and residential communities. It is also unusually made in USA, and the founders already have in the works a more sophisticated-looking design with multiple buttons and text functionality.

Our related recent coverage: KeepUS (UK only), Mindme (also UK),  We’ve covered Lok8U (UK/US) in the past and buddi (UK) as far back as 2009.

DARPA Robotics Challenge field competition

December 17, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Mettle-and-Metal.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]This weekend (20-21 Dec) in far-south (and warm) Homestead Raceway, Florida the outdoor ‘field’ round of the DARPA Robotics Challenge [TTA 2 July, 22 June] will take place. Robots will win on their performance in disaster response situations–both man-made and natural. Robots will be measured on eight tasks to measure 1) performance in ‘human’ environments, especially degraded ones; 2) ability to use human tools from small to large and 3) usable by those skilled in disaster response who aren’t robotics experts. From the article, the observers will be ‘watching paint dry’ as robots currently perform at the level of a one-year-old, at best moving rather slowly as 30 minutes is allowed for each task, at worst falling a lot. But it’s understood that this establishes a Robot Baseline. Wonder if the researchers and brass will be taking bets on Chiron, Kaist, Valkerie, SCHAFT, THOR, and Robosimian. Final will be in 2014. Mettle and Metal (Armed With Science) Attendance is free and public–and also livestreamed. Information at the Robotics Challenge website.

Making robotics news is Google’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics, designer of one of the competitors, Atlas.  Atlas’ well-publicized stable mates largely mimic animals–BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat, Sand Flea–along with Atlas’ older human-form brother, PETMAN. NBC News wonders what Google’s intense and somewhat covert interest in robotics (nary a peep heard lately from past purchases Meka and Redwood Robotics) really means, but hasn’t answers. Why does search giant want to be ‘BigDog’ of automation?

Around the mHealth Summit in 70 pictures

December 17, 2013 | by

Courtesy of mHealth Insight/3G Doctor, David Doherty takes the LIFE magazine approach and delightfully, you feel like you are there. He hosted a get-together at his booth on Monday (many pics), stops by AliveCor, Alere Connect (hello Kent Dicks), the Venture+ Forum (see Lois Drapin’s earlier article; hello Richard Scarfo, director of the Summit and Pat Salber of HealthTechHatch crowdfunder and the DoctorWeighsIn), VNA Health Group, investor in many things Esther Dyson, Google Glass Explorers, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch and the ‘panini generation’ courtesy of AT&T ForHealth. But you’ll have to page all the way down to see the last shot of an ‘wild, wooly and yo-ho-ho’ AliveCor demo in My thoughts on the 2013 mHealth Summit as it happens…

3D printing for medical uses spotlighted

December 17, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Heart-blood-volume_0.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A newcomer to the health tech blog scene, InternetMedicine from John Bennett MD of Miami, Florida, presents an overview on 3D printing plus videos:  printing tissue (including the cartilage of a human ear), customized prosthetic limbs, customized exoskeletons (see Editor Charles’ bionic arm article), a personalized airway splint (caught at the NYeC DHC), bone scaffolds and cardiac models. 2014 may be the year of 3D printing for medical. 6 Promising Medical Applications of 3-D Printing

Is the ‘last mile’ of app certification efficacy metrics?

December 15, 2013 | by

News and announcements around app certification definitely were hot topics in the past week or so, but are they more heat than light? Do these certifications adequately address efficacy? Stephanie Baum, in her follow-up to the Happtique kerfuffle in MedCityNews, opens up the discussion with the proposition: “It seems like there needs to be some way to prove that apps actually help people.” Bradley Merrill Thompson of Epstein Becker & Green points out “It’s certainly useful to know that an app works from a software perspective reliably, but it is even more valuable to know that the app can actually improve health.” While Happtique certification standards have a gap here, this Editor would point out that they were evolved nearly two years ago when the reporting/analysis needed for this was largely not available. Newer programs such as Johns Hopkins’ mHealth Evidence and the new IMS Health AppScript [TTA 15 Dec] can dip into the ‘big data’ pool far more effectively. Will Happtique be able to address this, or leave the ‘last mile’ to others? And what is the real and quantifiable demand for app certification anyway? Health app prescribing by physicians is a question mark in this Editor’s observation; the larger market may be health plans and programs such as Partners HealthCare’s Wellocracy, Cigna’s GoYou  and Aetna’s CarePass.

EHR interoperability redux for VA, Department of Defense (US)

December 15, 2013 | by

Back in late February, the US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs announced that they would not achieve their goal of a single EHR by 2017, and would stick with their creaky AHLTA and VistA systems for the foreseeable future [TTA 3 April]–along with the general lack of interoperability–eyes rolled at the $1 billion down the drain, but seemingly not much else budged. (And this does not include the $4 billion spent on failed updates and fixes in both systems–TTA’s ‘Pondering the Squandering’, 27 July) To this Editor’s utter shock, the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), agreed to by the House and Senate this week, mandates a plan for either interoperability or a single system by 31 January–about 6 weeks from now–and to adopt it by 2016. Moreover, both systems must be interoperable with private providers based on national standards by 1 October 2014. A close reading of the NextGov article indicates that the bill adds levels of complexity and perhaps unworkability. Getthereitis, anyone?–or does this sound like Healthcare.gov, redux? FierceMobileHealthcare

And it takes a grad student to find a major info security flaw in VistA.  (more…)

Further evidence of brain affect of sub-concussive blows

December 15, 2013 | by

The body of research on the effect of sub-concussive blows to the brain is still developing. This recent study published this month in Neurology (abstract only) of  80 nonconcussed varsity football and ice hockey players and 79 non–contact sport athletes in a Division I NCAA athletic program concluded that head impact exposure negatively affected verbal learning and memory plus changed white matter by the end of the season. The subjects were evaluated before and after the season with brain scans plus learning and memory tests. All wore instrumented helmets that recorded the acceleration-time history of the head following impact. “A total of 20 percent (more…)

IMS Health enters health app ranking, prescribing

December 15, 2013 | by

Global healthcare informatics provider IMS Health during mHealth Summit announced its entry into mHealth prescribing and evaluation with AppScript. They also are getting into the development standards business with AppNucleus, a hosting platform that from the description, will guide developers in designing secure, HIPAA and HITECH Act compliant apps using IMS Health information and data analytics. AppScript uses a proprietary methodology called AppScore to classify and evaluate apps based on functionality, peer and patient reviews, certifications, and their potential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care. According to Information Week Healthcare, AppScore includes 25 criteria developed by IMS and its physician advisors (more…)

23andMe as Rorschach test

December 14, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/rorschach1.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Just like the good doctor’s ink blot, there’s a lot of ‘reading into’ the travails of genomic ‘spit test’ 23andMe. Blogger PF Anderson, the Emerging Technologies Librarian for the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries, has collected them in pithy quotes and citations. For your weekend or holiday exploration: Collecting Thoughts on the FDA vs. 23andMe

Happtique halts app certification on data security concerns

December 13, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Health app industry self-policing and ‘trusted sourcing’ credibility at stake?

Updated below. Last week, after Happtique announced its ‘Inaugural Class’ of 19 certified apps [TTA 2 Dec]–certified on their standards of operability, privacy, security and content–a young HIT software developer, Harold Smith III, discovered some major security flaws in two of them: MyNetDiary’s Diabetes Tracker and TactioHealth5. User names and passwords were stored in plain text files–not encrypted–and Mr. Smith then subjected them to a ‘man in the middle attack’ (MITM) which he explains as “…where a nefarious source intercepts your communication from the App to the server. They decrypt the SSL connection, pull out your data, and send the data on to the server.” Both failed. Worse, the ePHI (ePersonal Health Information) of both were not sent in a secured way and not stored in secure, encrypted files. After advising both companies of the problems (including one of these companies in person at the mHealth Summit), as well as Happtique, and receiving no satisfactory response after days passed, Mr. Smith went public Tuesday and Wednesday on his blog mHealth and Mobile Development. Both articles deserve careful reading. Our readers with software development background will appreciate 1) his meticulousness and 2) his ire not only at Happtique but their validator, Intertek, at the poor technical quality of their vetting; the non-techies like your Editor will appreciate the clarity of his writing.

Small blog, big impact today. Happtique has suspended its certification program (website notice) and on its website now has revised certification standards. Regarding the credibility of Mr. Smith, (more…)

Pediatric obesity patients like telehealth support: UCLA study

December 12, 2013 | by

Some positive directional results were obtained by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles trialling a pediatric telehealth/telemedicine check-up program integrating telemedicine virtual consults at clinic sites. From the 45 young (average age 10), obese patients enrolled in ‘Fit for Healthy Weight’, the 25 patients who were followed after their appointment series had overall positive outcomes and opinions: 86 percent either stabilized or decreased their BMI scores and three of the four patients with high blood pressure normalized their blood pressure; 80 percent were satisfied with the virtual consult system and would do it again. Health check-ins were onsite (more…)

Is ‘mobile health for seniors’ obsolete?

December 12, 2013 | by

Perhaps it should be. At the ‘mHealth & Boomers:  Reinventing the Dynamics of the Healthcare System’ panel discusssion at the mHealth Summit Monday afternoon, Stephen Johnston, cofounder of Aging 2.0 (and parent of the GENerator accelerator TTA 12 Dec below), and Laurie Orlov, founder of Aging in Place Technology Watch speculated on the future of technology for older adults in an aging market. The most interesting and unique conclusion arrives at the end of the Mobihealthnews article, with Ms. Orlov flatly stating that the category will disappear by 2020. “There will be no aging in place technology market by 2020,” she said. “All technology will be customizable and usable by all categories of people, and we will not have to have technologies that are marketed for seniors.” Hat tips to readers Mike Clark and Luca Sergio via LinkedIn

Accelerator (at last) for older adult supportive tech

December 12, 2013 | by

Supportive technologies for older adults is perhaps the least buzzy area of health tech. The Aging 2.0 GENerator accelerator is bucking that conventional wisdom. Its initial class of 11 early-stage companies span telecare (Lively, TTA 27 Sep), cognitive assistance (BrainAid), transportation (LiftAid) and product design (Sabi). It also connects companies to an impressive list of 75 mentors including LeadingAge/CAST, Mary Furlong Associates, the OnLok PACE community and Pfizer. Founder Katy Pike of Aging 2.0 has embedded it into San Francisco’s Institute of the Aging, which houses independent living facilities, adult day centers, and a geriatric clinic–ideal places for these startups to field test their approaches directly with their potentially 40 million 65+ market. For this the GENerator takes a not-more-than 2 percent equity stake in these companies; unlike the larger StartUp Health and Blueprint Health, it is right now too small to offer seed capital. MedCityNews

MediSafe extends med reminder tech, signs major pharma

December 12, 2013 | by

MediSafe Project, a mobile med reminder app developed in Israel [TTA 4 Jan], is partnering with Wealth Taxi’s (!) iReminder pill caps to create a reminder system which can be used without a smartphone. The MediSafe Virtual Pillbox can use a NFC (near field communication) tag or alternatively, a Bluetooth version for web users, to create a ‘lighter’ reminder for over-the-counter or generic drugs. The more sophisticated iReminder pill caps would be used for higher-end prescription drugs. The MedCityNews article from the mHealth Summit also officially confirms Omri ‘Bob’ Shor’s ongoing discussions with New York-based AdhereTech’s [TTA 27 Aug] high-end pill reminder/dose confirmer. MediSafe is also partnering with Swiss pharmaceutical company Tillotts Pharma in “UC and ME”, a program for ulcerative colitis patients using their drug and HealthiNation on videos for Lipitor and Metformin users. While MediSafe on its own has had 170,000 downloads of its free app and ‘tens of thousands’ active (Ed.–data from Bob Shor), its real potential is in the partnerships–and the data generated by them–which now seem to be well underway.