In this edition there are examples of how telehealth, telecare, mobile and digital health are producing benefits. There is an updated telecare map and a new telecare and dementia evaluation from East Renfrewshire. PDF. News listings/links supplement.
Telehealth gives patients the chance to take more control over their care
More often than not Professor Stanton Newman has been the bearer of bad tidings…the Whole Systems Demonstrator Program (WSD) hasn’t delivered the hoped-for, definitive, glowing results and he has had to see them used for telehealth-bashing by some doctors and the GP press. In an article in the GP online magazine Pulse Today, he gets the chance to bust a few myths and to reaffirm his belief that there are good reasons why GPs should consider telehealth positively. Telehealth gives patients the chance to take more control over their care. (Requires free sign up to view if you have not done previously. Worth doing.) His comments are apt in view of the remote care monitoring directed enhanced service (DES) conditions (PDF) recently published by the Department of Health. Heads-up thanks to Mike Clark.
Philips to help health services get their act together on telehealth (EU)
Philips today announced a new Advancing Care Coordination and Telehealth Deployment (ACT) program which, over the course of two years and across five European regions, will assess and implement telemedicine systems to help manage patient care in three of the largest chronic disease areas, heart failure, COPD and diabetes patients. The aim is to establish a collection of actionable best practice case studies that can be rolled out across Europe. The aim is to realise the potential to save billions of euros for healthcare systems and, as part of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Aging (EIP-AHA), to help increase the average healthy lifespan by two years, by 2020. The five European regions involved are the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain, Groningen in the Netherlands, Lombardy in Italy and Scotland in the UK. Full details in the press release: EU-funded program to develop first “cookbook” for coordinated care and telehealth deployment.
Report: RSM event ‘Using apps to transform healthcare delivery’
Many thanks to independent consultant Charles Lowe, President-elect of the Royal Society of Medicine’s (RSM) Telemedicine & eHealth Section for the following report on the one-day conference Using apps to transform healthcare delivery at the RSM, London, 18 April 2013.
Reflecting the importance of the topic, this one-day RSM conference sold out weeks in advance. The audience confirmed the growing trend for RSM Telemedicine Section-organised events to be attended principally by clinicians, in this case mainly hospital-based.
The general themes that emerged from the event included:
The need for greater connectedness among app overseers – the different players in the UK, notably NICE, MHRA, NHS Apps Library and NIHR each have different, often overlapping, concerns about apps before they are able to recommend or approve them for use. There emerged during the day a case to be made for tighter coordination among these bodies and, doubtless, others not represented at the meeting.
Big data doesn’t respond to professional users’ or patients’ needs well – apps are a great way to make big data acceptable to users. The Consent app (ascendinnovations.co.uk) demonstrated was quoted as an excellent example.
Not everyone has to produce apps – by opening up, publishing the APIs to your data, others with the appropriate skill might be able to do the job better than the data owner.
The day began with a presentation by (more…)
Supporting People funding reductions – telecare panic (UK)
The situation described in the following article in the Liverpool Echo can be looked at in a number of ways and we wonder what other takes readers will have…
One has to wonder, given that the reduction in the Supporting People funding from April has been known about for a long time, what planning has been done between the council, the housing providers and the telecare service provider to prevent this situation arising. One could also wonder what alternative, less expensive, systems have been investigated and ponder the ethics of removing from people’s homes something which is potentially life saving (and cost saving further down the line). Ultimately, if substantial numbers of people are saying they will not pay an extra £2.99 per week [interesting number] then perhaps they are saying that the service and the much-trumpeted reassurance it provides is not, in reality, so important to them. Liverpool elderly could be at risk from loss of £500,000 funding for emergency care alarms. Check out the comments too.
Readers may want to compare that with the ongoing publicity in nearby Trafford which is encouraging people over 80 to take up a year’s free telecare trial. Events held to promote free telecare for Trafford’s over 80s.
MOBISERV and Kompaï (Video from Dutch TV)
A 5 minute clip of a Dutch TV programme for people over 50 where someone is talking about care robots and Kompaï in particular. (Also clips from the film Robot and Frank) Even if you do not speak Dutch you will probably get the gist. The interviewee, Corien Van Berlo of Smart Homes, appears to be dispelling some misconceptions about robots in the home. Video thanks to Vincent Dupourque of Robosoft.
[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]Free whitepaper about the current smartphone app market
research2guidance is offering a free 27-page report on the current smartphone app market (the ninth edition). Entitled Building And Marketing A Mobile App Will Have Bigger Impact Than Commercialization Of Internet it highlights how:
- App publishers and companies will be forced to keep track of at least the most important distribution channels for their most important target groups. Building and marketing an app is therefore becoming an important part of businesses. It will even have a bigger impact than the commercialization of the internet economy at the beginning of the century.
- Diversity of mobile operating systems will increase, offering new opportunities, especially for 2nd tier device manufacturers.
- App development will become more complex. For developers the pressure to reach out to new target groups who are demanding innovation is rising.
Wooden this come to life for telecare/telehealth?
Electric Imp, Mindings and Twine have both been flagged up previously as ‘small’ developments having the potential to disrupt established telecare/telehealth offerings…read the Electric Imp comments. It now looks as though we might be able to add Udoo and Pinoccio to those. Gizmag items.
Audiology Online (UK)
http://www.audiology-online.co.uk Innovative online hearing testing
Two major telehealth and telecare programmes officially launched in Scotland
Two major Telehealth and Telecare programmes worth £2.8 million were officially launched yesterday by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing Alex Neil MSP when he visited a local monitoring station within East Ayrshire Council. The Minister heard via video link from a patient who told the minister how the technology has made a difference to how she has been able to manage her COPD. More info: East Ayrshire pioneers new digital health system Cumnock Chronicle.
eHealth Week: Dublin, Ireland
13-15 May, 2013
The event is co-hosted by the European Commission and the EU Presidency (Ireland currently holds the EU Presidency). The ECHAlliance is supporting the events. The eHealth Week will bring together industry partners and providers with government representatives and decision makers from across Europe. Events taking place during the week will highlight the role of technology in improving healthcare and health service efficiency and reinforce Ireland’s place as a leader and innovator in the Health ICT sector. Includes the 2nd EU-US eHealth Business Marketplace on Tuesday 14 May. eHealth Week website.
Wiltshire Medical Services rebrands as Medvivo (UK)
As anticipated in our item in January, the coming together of Wiltshire Medical Services (WMS) and Telehealth Solutions (THSL) has indeed created a new brand under which both sides of the company’s activities can grow. They have sidestepped both the local name and ‘solutions’ name traps and have cleverly found an unused ‘Med-‘ combination and have arrived at ‘Medvivo’. Of course, for the moment Google thinks you may have wanted US health monitoring company Medivo, but that will soon sort itself out. Medvivo press release.
Four reasons doctors worry about social media
David Shaywitz, in Forbes, synthesises his observations of doctors’ concerns about doctors and patients’ use of the internet and social media in particular. He focuses not just on the usual worries but puts them into a broader social and professional context. “Predictably, medicine seems to be reacting to change the way it often does…by issuing well-intentioned (albeit largely unreadable) guidelines”. However, he ends on a positive note: “Rather than isolating doctors, the new technology promises to be fundamentally enabling…The result: a new sense of connection and meaning. Medicine could be fun again.” Four Reasons Doctors Worry About Social Media – #GetOverIt (Forbes has an intrusive adverts business model.) Heads-up thanks to Charles Lowe.
Eric Dishman: Health care should be a team sport
It’s great to see Intel’s Eric Dishman back in good form after his kidney transplant. Heads-up thanks to Matan Czaczkes.
Editor Donna comments 12 April: Dishman (@ 03:30) demonstrates the MobiSante hand held scanner to check his kidney–online and real time with his doctor–and eloquently speaks on the marvelous care coordination he received before/during/after the transplant at Legacy Good Samaritan in Portland, Oregon. It’s contrasted with the sheer craziness of care he received as a child for a broken arm (where he was caught in the ‘longer you stay in the hospital, the sicker you get’ syndrome), his diagnosis with kidney disease as a university student, and a health scare due to multiple and mistaken dosing. Care coordination is the answer. How can we in health tech work this in to our broken health systems–and work to fix and truly re-form, not paper over?
Isansys Lifecare ready to scale up in-hospital wireless patient monitoring (UK)
Isansys Lifecare has closed a major funding round with Isle of Man investors and has been awarded a grant from the Technology Strategy Board’s Smart awards programme. The funds will accelerate the roll-out timetable into UK hospitals of the company’s CE-marked clinical surveillance and early warning platform – the Patient Status Engine – and enable its use to be extended across the entire patient population, from children to older adults. Press release. Perhaps doctors need to become used to remote vital signs monitoring in hospitals before they see the advantages of extending it into people’s homes.
TSA confirms integrated code of practice will be open to non-members (UK)
The Telecare Services Association (TSA) has confirmed in a press release (PDF) that when it launches its Telehealth Code of Practice in May that it will be integrated with its Telecare Code of Practice and that accreditation to its standards will be opened up to non TSA members. [Excellent news – this will help service commissioners by levelling the playing field for member and non-member suppliers. Ed. Steve].
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