Telehealth & Telecare Aware has largely moved on from individual reporting of incidents. However once in a while it is perhaps worth sitting back to review the recent past, and look to the future. In telecare, the world of environmental sensing has developed so fast recently that it takes an incident like that reported in Harlow last month where it appears as if (more…)
Practical use of big data in analysing the Mexican pandemic
Further to my write-up of the SIHI big data conference in Portsmouth, Wired has just published an excellent summary of Nuria Oliver’s presentation on how analysing anonymised mobile phone information made a significant contribution to understanding the dynamics of the recent H1N1 flu outbreak in Mexico in 2009.
Worth a read.
UK Comparative Healthcare Costs
OECD have recently updated their useful summary of comparative healthcare costs, with pointers to further detail if required.
It poses a bit of a puzzle by pointing out that the UK’s healthcare expenditure as a proportion of GDP is marginally higher than the OECD average, even though the number of physicians/unit of population is below the OECD average, the number of hospital beds on the same measure is significantly below the OECD average and MRI & CT scanners per million population are both less than half the OECD average. Although it’s not hard to guess the cause, no explanation is offered as to why costs are not therefore lower than the OECD average. (The number of nurses/unit of population is similar to the OECD average.)
Hat tip to Prof Mike Short.
Telehealth round-up: the good, the bad, and the future
Getting the bad news out of the way first, the seemingly-eternal researchers have thrown their grappling iron into the ancient store of data from the now-only-historically-relevant Whole System Demonstrator data pool and dragged out yet another unexploded bomb that they have then endeavoured to detonate, in the form of a short research article.
Thankfully the explosive has deteriorated with age so (more…)
Bosch Update (UK)
Further to our previous post on the topic, we have now heard from Bill Broderick, Acting Divisional Head of Bosch Healthcare in the UK, clarifying Bosch’s position re the UK market:
1. Bosch Healthcare is not exiting the UK market. Telecare is business as usual and we will continue to sell our entire line of telecare products in the foreseeable future. We have placed all new telehealth activities on hold for now as we spend the next few months re-evaluating the business strategy based on current market dynamics in the UK.
2. We are not exiting the Health Buddy device business. We will continue to offer Health Buddys to patients who need them. The Remedy partnership press release announced an expansion of our patient interface portfolio to more mobile and internet-based solutions, not a replacement of existing Health Buddy devices.
An Alzheimer’s diagnosis test that could have profound telecare implications
Significant progress on early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is reported today by Fierce Diagnostics. The Cognoptix test involves a laser eye-scanning device and an ophthalmic ointment, according to their website, designed to spot telltale beta-amyloid proteins in the lens of the eye.
The excitement in the article is about the possibility of increasing drug sales; the ability to deploy drugs to delay progression of the disease would clearly be very important. However, whilst perhaps less commercially significant, there would be some huge benefits (more…)
All seven of Supra’s 18th Birthday Golden Keys now active – get ready to vote!
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/gold_key.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]With the last of SupraUK’s golden keys located, all the recipients have now contributed community project proposals in preparation for voting which begins on 14th October (ends 31st October) for the recipient of the £18,000 prize from SupraUK.
See the key recipients and their proposals here…
…and spare a though for the keysafe, which comes well down the exciting-technology ranking and so is often overlooked in discussions and presentations on telemonitoring, although it is a critical element in providing an emergency response to alerts raised by that technology.
An encouraging Australian RCT combining self-care and telemonitoring
A paper just published in the Journal of Telemedicine & eHealth (Volume: 19 Issue 9) entitled “Telehealth Remote Monitoring for Community-Dwelling Older Adults with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease” makes refreshing reading for those of us who still believe that a well-designed implementation of telehealth brings immense health benefit to those with chronic long-term conditions.
The authors, Kristen De San Miguel, Joanna Smith, and Gill Lewin, all from Western Australia describe a small RCT using Docobo kit that involved (more…)
Google Glass-assisted operation: another first?
Although we previously reported on the first operation performed using Google Glass, Solar News claims this week that Spain hosted the first Google Glass assisted operation, in Madrid.
Dr. Pedro Guillen performed a chondrocyte transplant (a procedure used to treat cartilage injuries) in the knee of a 49-year-old male. The entire procedure was streamed live via the glasses, to an audience of 150 doctors in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Apart from providing videoconference capability, Julian Beltran, CEO of Droiders, the company that built the software, says Google Glass opens a world of new tools to surgeons as they work. “You can see in the prism the arthroscopy and perform the surgery without having to move the head to the right. For example you can see pictures, educational videos, remember how to perform a surgery, see an x-ray, consult the interaction of medicines or information you need. Everything connected to the internet,” he said.
Droiders say they have plans to build new software which will also help doctors to check the patient´s heart rate just by looking to their faces.
Thanks to Prof Mike Short for alerting me to this.
Tynetec sale?
Following our earlier post about Bosch ending sales of their Health Buddy and (temporarily?) exiting the telehealth market in the UK, comes another unattributable suggestion that Tynetec have been purchased by Legrand whose website proclaims them to be “The world’s leading manufacturer of wiring devices and cable management systems.”
There’s some clear and fascinating synergy there which looks potentially very exciting for the world of remote monitoring…however as yet there is nothing confirmed in the media, so watch this space.
Bosch to can Health Buddy, withdraw from telehealth in UK – temporarily?
On September 6th, Bosch announced a tie up with Remedy Health Media [TTA 10 Sep] “to launch remote patient monitoring products designed for tablets and smartphones”, which suggested that it would not be long before they stopped selling their purpose-built telehealth hardware.
Now TTA has heard from a reliable source that they are telling their customer organisations that they are going to withdraw (more…)
Worcestershire 3ML Pathfinder procurement canned
It seems that the much-vaunted Worcestershire 3ML pathfinder tender, already the subject of a critical TTA post on 5th July due to delays, has now been cancelled.
Tenderers apparently received letters late last week informing them that no offers had been received that met the combined risk sharing requirements of the original tender. As a result, the telecare part of the tender is to be retendered on a standalone basis (more…)
Ageing Well – how can technology help?
This year’s Telemedicine & eHealth conference, on 25th & 26th November, at the Royal Society of Medicine at 1 Wimpole St, London will focus on how technology can help people to age well. It will cover a wide palette of issues relating to technology and ageing, including both physical & mental conditions, and the importance of social & spiritual considerations too.
Keynote speakers include Jon Rouse (more…)
From ‘Big Data’ to Collective Wisdom – SIHI conference report
This year’s Southern Institute for Health Informatics (SIHI) conference, in Portsmouth on September 11th, was a hugely impressive event featuring a well-chosen array of excellent speakers. As one who has often struggled to get excited about the finer points of coding, this was a revelation: I was converted.
Just what can be achieved in the NHS when technology, culture and organisation are in harmony was breathtaking (more…)
Poll shows why we need to promote assistive technology
A survey of 2069 adults in the UK by YouGov, commissioned by charity Carers UK and supported by Tunstall Healthcare (UK), makes a strong case for the better promotion of telehealth & telecare, as we argued for in our recent post on the future of 3millionlives.
The Carers UK report, Potential for Change: Transforming public awareness and demand for health and care technology, draws an intriguing contrast between (more…)
An infographic that tackles medication adherence well
This Vitaphone item does a most creditable job of getting behind the common misperception, covered in previous posts, that people don’t take medicines because they forget.
For me it doesn’t however address the issue of beliefs quite strongly enough though. To give an extreme example, when I worked in Newham there were people who believed that illnesses were supernaturally visited on them because of things their forefathers had done. To expiate those things, they had to suffer stoically. The end result was that, even when diagnosed, medication prescribed and lifestyle advice given, some patients allowed eminently treatable conditions such as diabetes to deteriorate rapidly, unless those beliefs were addressed effectively.
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