Who’s raising what! Babies to pets!

November 4, 2016 | by

Our takeoff on ace direct response guru Denny Hatch’s ‘Who’s Mailing What!’ has been slightly modified from ‘getting’ to ‘raising’–we do want to be proper ;-)

  • The first big raise happens to be an Editor favorite due to its high Cute Factor–the Owlet smart sock for monitoring your baby’s oxygen level and heart rate. This latest round is $15 million, bringing their funding to $25 million. Investors included Eclipse Ventures and Eniac Ventures, plus new investors Trilogy Equity Partners, the Amazon Alexa Fund, RTP-HC, Capital Integral and Broadway Angels. Owlet is now the commercialization partner on a $1.5 million grant from the NIH to further infant health research, in addition to an earlier equal grant. Plans include a connected care feature giving users access to their data and the ability to share that data with pediatricians, scheduled for a 2017 release; retail and international distribution; two new product lines and a large infant health study. Finsmes
  • Cohero Health closed a $9 million Series A financing for its BreatheSmart lung function platform, which actively engages respiratory patients by tracking medication adherence and measuring lung function. Funding was led by Three Leaf Ventures, an affiliate of the Broe Group, with participation from Zaffre Investments, the investment arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, BioAdvance, and new investors GIS Strategic Ventures, Heitkamp & Thumann Group, and P5 Health Ventures. A StartUp Health company, they develop care connected devices and mobile applications that measure lung function and tracking adherence through the BreatheSmart toolkit. Finsmes, Mobihealthnews
  • PlushCare, a California-based telemedicine (virtual visit) company, had an $8 million Series A raise funded through GGV Capital with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Exponent. Finsmes
  • And even pet health is getting funded. PetCoach, a Pennsylvania-based digital pet healthcare platform, secured $2m in seed funding from Comcast Ventures, in addition to earlier funding from DreamItVentures and Maveron. PetCoach provides an online pet care service combining personal advice and 24/7 access to certified pet professionals. Users can leverage the PetCoach website and the app in order to interact with certified veterinarians. Finsmes

The malware siege of Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS: a preview of more? (UK)

November 3, 2016 | by

By now our UK readers are well aware of the shutdown due to malware starting Sunday 30 Oct, only resolved today, of the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Trust hospitals: Diana, Princess of Wales; Goole and District; Scunthorpe General.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nhsalert-940×445.png” thumb_width=”300″ /] (NHS website via Krebsonsecurity.com, click to enlarge)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nhsalert2.png” thumb_width=”300″ /] (NHS website, click to enlarge)

It is estimated that it affected approximately 1,000 patients over the three shutdown days. Most patients were diverted to neighboring hospitals, according to The Guardian.

The Health Services Journal (paywalled) broke as an exclusive the NHS‘ high priority warning to providers around the country. Yet it seemed equivocal. According to The Sun, while NHS Digital marked the message as ‘severity: high’ and warned that “… we would like to remind all users of the need for proactive measures to reduce the likelihood of infection and minimise the impacts of any compromise.”, it was tempered with “We have no evidence that this is anything other than a local isolated incident but we will continue to keep health and care organisations informed.” Also according to The Sun, the Department of Health has noted that this has not been the first incident.

As our Readers know, US and Canadian hospitals and healthcare organizations have been subject of late to malware and its latest iteration, ransomware, with a large outbreak this summer. (more…)

Teaching Morse code via Google Glass passive haptic learning

November 3, 2016 | by

The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has been experimenting with several methods of passive haptic learning (PHL). In this test using Google Glass, they taught subjects Morse code in four hours. The method: having the subjects play a game while feeling vibration taps between their temple and ear that represented the dots and dashes of Morse code. This passively taught them code through their tactile senses, even while they were distracted by the game. The test group received a voice prompt for each corresponding letter, while the control group did not. When tested on the Morse alphabet, the test group was nearly perfect, while the control group was accurate only about half the time. The vibrations were generated in Google Glass through a lower than 15 Hz signal played very slowly and below hearing range through the bone-conduction transducer. “Does this new study mean that people will rush out to learn Morse code? Probably not,” said Georgia Tech professor Thad Starner. “It shows that PHL lowers the barrier to learn text-entry methods — something we need for smartwatches and any text-entry that doesn’t require you to look at your device or keyboard.” Georgia Tech News  Hat tip to former Northern Ireland Editor Toni Bunting

Carephone calling for beta tester partners

November 3, 2016 | by

From reader Stephen Westley, the sales director of The Carephone, well-known in the UK as one of the long-time telecare companies supporting carers via technology that enables older adults and the disabled to live more independently, is a call for beta tester partners (UK and Ireland only) of the new home sensor kit (see photo below, click to enlarge) Smart Sense.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/carephonekit.jpg” thumb_width=”300″ /]

Stephen may be reached at 0800 849 9254, email swestley@thecarephone.com  More on Twitter @thecarephone

 

Avizia over-subscribes its Series A by $6 million

November 2, 2016 | by

Telemedicine startup Avizia announced an unusual bonus on what was thought to be a closed Series A with a $6 million additional investment. There was also an unusual investor–the New York-Presbyterian health system. The add-on was led by HealthQuest Capital. Also reported was an extension of Silicon Valley Bank’s agreement for $3 million in debt financing and a $1.5 million line of credit. In July, the first part of the Series A had $11 million from Blue Heron Capital, HealthQuest Capital and five other investors. Total investment is over $22.7 million. From a start in telemedicine carts using Cisco Telepresence, Avizia developed software and apps for mobile devices, including secure messaging for doctors within hospitals. The new funds will be used to upgrade its engineering capabilities to build new capabilities into its telehealth platform, integration with electronic health records and the ability to monitor the battery life of remote diagnostic devices. Also unusual is that they market in the US, UK and Australia covering 400 health systems, including 1,000 hospitals. MedCityNews, Crunchbase

Tender Alert: Simulation for Digital Health (SimDH) and A2i needs CRM supplier (UK)

November 2, 2016 | by

London South Bank University (LSBU) is seeking a supplier for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for its A2i and SimDH initiatives. This will house “reporting functions that can measure progress, achievement of target outputs/results and both intended and unintended impacts….The CRM system will provide end-to-end management for all SMEs participating in the projects.” The contract is valued up to £20,000. More information on the contract tender is here on the Gov.UK site. Act quickly–it closes 10 November. Hat tip to reader Susanne Woodman.

Virtual care stops germs dead in their tracks! (Who would have thought it?)

November 2, 2016 | by

Here at TTA we do receive and read a lot of press releases, and most are pretty meh. (We work very hard to avoid subjecting our readers to meh, as we don’t much like it either.) Now this one takes a different tack. It backs up telemedicine and telehealth technology that enables the patient to avoid the germ-filled doctor’s office and ED. According to Zipnosis citing the Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology journal, after the standard well-child visit, there is a 3.17 percent increase in influenza-like illnesses among children and their family members within two weeks. Extrapolated, this results in more than 766,000 additional office visits for flu-like symptoms each year and nearly $492 million in annual costs. Now here is a simple, proactive improvement in outcomes that achieves savings (hear that, HHS and NHS?) facilitated by healthcare technology. (See previous article on ‘A tricorder one step closer‘)

The remainder of the release concentrates on what a bad idea it is to subject the rest of the world to your germs when down with a cold or flu. Even the CDC wants patients to stay home from work, school and errands. (That is, if you can.) The point is made that virtual care can unjam doctor offices and EDs for those less dangerous who need hands on care. The light touch of the product message is that Zipnosis provides a white-labeled virtual care platform to health systems that first uses an online adaptive interview with a patient to document the condition, provides a diagnosis and treatment plan within an hour, directing the patient to an appropriate level of care. Release.

A tricorder one step closer: Tyto Care gains FDA clearance for its digital stethoscope (US)

November 2, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Mom_using_on_child_ear.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Only a few years ago, the Star of the Future of Digital Health was the ‘tricorder’–that all-in-one vital signs device that Bones on Star Trek wielded with such élan (when he wasn’t uttering ‘He’s dead, Jim’). We haven’t heard much from Scanadu since early last year when it raised $35 million for its Series B and when it teamed with with Northern Ireland’s Intelesens as a finalist for the seemingly never-ending Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE. (Seven finalists are now in consumer testing with awards in early 2017.)

In the meantime, others have been proceeding in bringing their devices into reality far sooner, for real people with everyday health problems who want to examine a child, another family member or even themselves at home. One of these companies is Israel’s Tyto Care (picture above at left), which received FDA 510(k) Class II clearance for its digital stethoscope snap-on to the main device to monitor heart and lung sounds. The device also includes a digital imaging otoscope for ear exams, a throat scope, a skin camera and thermometer swipe. The Tyto home device includes video guidance instructions as part of the smartphone or tablet platform to enable a correct reading. It connects to an online platform to send the information, either in real time or store-and-forward, to a primary care physician the user selects. Tyto Care has been in investigational marketing in the US as well as Israel, bolstered by over $18 million in international investment. They are targeting home DTC as well as professional markets through practices, payers, virtual visit providers and possibly retail (one of their investors is Walgreens Boots). Release If you are attending MEDICA 2017 in Düsseldorf on 16 November, you can see Tyto Care demonstrated at the 5th Annual MEDICA App Competition.

Another all-in-one device is Las Vegas-based MedWand, which is still in pre-marketing. MedWand seems to feature clinic and ‘group’ packages as well as the individual device which includes a pulse oximeter. They received another round of undisclosed financing from Maxim Ventures, the venture arm for semi-conductor developer Maxim Integrated Products at end of September. Release.

Using telehealth to improve night-time ICU care

November 1, 2016 | by

Intensive Care Units treat the most sick people in a hospital and requires round-the-clock staffing by doctors and nurses. 24-hour staffing, however, means shift working and an inevitable night shift. To make it fair on all staff the shifts are usually rotated so any doctor or nurse would do a period on one shift and then move to the next shift.

It is not surprising that the more senior staff manage to have less night work than newer, less experienced ones. On the other hand night shifts may have attractions such as extra pay and this may be more important to the lower paid less experienced staff than to the higher paid senior ones. Also, the cost of staffing nights with less experienced staff may prove cheaper for the hospital. Nevertheless, the patients’ needs are no less important at night than during the day. Another aspect of night-time care is the possibility that a doctor or nurse may not be as alert at night as they would be in the day-time.

Looking at these downsides of night-time ICU care staffing, an hospital in the US has come up with a novel idea – move the doctors and nurses to a zone where it is day-time when it is night-time at the hospital and use telehealth to connect them. This is counter intuitive and has its own drawbacks.

Georgia’s largest healthcare provider Emory Healthcare is sending some ICU doctors and nurses to Sydney, Australia, for tours of six to nine weeks at a time, in a trial to staff ICU at night with health staff in a daylight zone using telehealth. The six month trial in collaboration with Philips and Australia’s Maquarie Health has been underway for 3 months.

The reason this is counter-intuitive is that telehealth was invented to overcome the problems associated with healthcare professionals and patients not being at the same location and here the two are being artificially removed to two ends of the world. While telehealth is a good solution to the diagnosis and treatment from afar, most professionals are likey to agree that it is inferior to being face to face with the patient. So it will be good to see the conclusions reached by this trial on how any drawbacks of distance balances out with having more alert doctors and nurses.

See also mHealth Intelligence article here.

Touch and feeling through a bionic prosthetic arm (DARPA-Univ. Pittsburgh)

November 1, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/bionic-arm.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]A robotic arm with a neural interface that allows the user to experience touch has been developed by the University of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  The Revolutionizing Prosthetics program since 2006 has been developing advanced upper-limb prosthetics. Their first was the Gen-3 Arm System by DEKA Integrated Solutions Corporation, submitted for 510(k) in 2012. The subject for the test of the touch interface, Nathan, has been a quadriplegic from the chest down since 2004. He permitted four microelectrode arrays, each about half the size of a shirt button, to be placed in his brain: two in the motor cortex and two in the sensory cortex regions that correspond to feeling in his fingers and palm. Wires run from the arrays to the robotic arm, which has torque sensors that detect when pressure is applied to its fingers. These physical “sensations” are converted into electrical signals back to the arrays in Nathan’s brain so that he has the sensation of feeling and touch.  The sensation of touch in the bionic arm is near 100 percent natural and accurate. This research has great potential both for prosthetics and for other neurological conditions. Armed With Science.  Video

eTELEMED/MATH 2017: call for contributions deadline extended

November 1, 2016 | by

19-23 March 2017,  Nice, France

eTELEMED, the Ninth International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine, and the co-located MATH (Mobile and Assistive Technology for Healthcare), are both calling for submissions of original scientific results. These contributions and presentations can take any one of these forms:

Contributions:
– regular papers [in the proceedings, digital library] – short papers (work in progress) [in the proceedings, digital library] – ideas: two pages [in the proceedings, digital library] – extended abstracts: two pages [in the proceedings, digital library] – posters: two pages [in the proceedings, digital library] – posters: slide only [slide-deck posted at www.iaria.org] – presentations: slide only [slide-deck posted at www.iaria.org] – demos: two pages [posted at www.iaria.org] – doctoral forum submissions: [in the proceedings, digital library]

Proposals for:
– mini symposia: see http://www.iaria.org/symposium.html
– workshops: see http://www.iaria.org/workshop.html
– tutorials: [slide-deck posed on www.iaria.org] – panels: [slide-deck posed on www.iaria.org]

Submission deadline is 19 November. The general information pages have more information on the conference tracks and topics. Links:  eTELEMED: General information, submission page; MATH: General information, submission page

Who’s hiring? Project manager-Simulation for Digital Health (SimDH) (UK)

October 31, 2016 | by

From the listing posted by London South Bank University, applications close 13 November:

South Bank University Enterprise Ltd, the enterprise company of London South Bank University, is looking for a Project Manager (PM) within its Research, Enterprise and Innovation Department (REI). REI activities cover a range of income generating activities and also support wider entrepreneurial activity and external engagement between business, staff and students.

The current post provides an exciting opportunity to join the newly developed Institute of Health and Wellbeing, an interdisciplinary and inter-professional centre of excellence working towards improving the health and wellbeing status of individuals, communities and regions. The Institute combines a number of expert disciplines across LSBU in a single unit, helping foster novel collaborations, partnerships and innovative research and enterprise activities. The focus of the Institute is to improve the health and wellbeing of populations through impactful interventions, research and policy guidance.

The PM will be responsible for the successful delivery of REI’s recently won European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project, Simulation for Digital Health (SimDH). The role will require close working with Business Development Managers, academic Schools and external organisations to ensure projects are delivered to contract and achieve all desired objectives.

Complete information on the LSBU website.  SimDH website–this program is intended to assist health SMEs to develop and deliver novel products, processes or services. It will start in January but applications are being taken now here. Hat tip to reader Susanne Woodman

US: Telemedicine to be used during disasters

October 29, 2016 | by

The American Red Cross has entered into a partnership to pilot the use of telemedicine during periods of disasters in the US. During the pilot a nationwide network of physicians will be available for consultation via video calls.

Through this pilot collaboration, physicians working with Red Cross partner Teladoc will be available to people helped by the Red Cross whose access to health care providers has been limited or is unavailable after large-scale disasters. Teladoc’s virtual physician visit services will be made available via web, Teladoc’s mobile app and phone to address the primary health care needs of individuals affected by disasters.

Teladoc is reported to have donated remote medical care during the recent Hurricane Matthew. This partnership is positioned as an expansion of such disaster relief efforts rather than an expansion of its commercial activities.

Use of telemedicine in disaster relief has been implemented previously in the US by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In 2014 the Office of Emergency Management of the VA awarded a contract to use the JEMS Technology disaster relief telehealth system. Going back much earlier, following the December 1988 earthquake in Armenia and the June 1989 gas explosion near Ufa, a satellite based audio, video and fax link, known as the Telemedicine Spacebridge, between four US and two Armenian and Russian medical centres,  permitted remote American consultants to assist Armenian and Russian physicians in the management of medical problems. Last year NATO tested use of telemedicine in disaster situations in a simulated disaster scenario in Ukraine.

Another system, Emergency Telehealth and Navigation, is deployed in Houston for helping with 911 calls. The Houston Fire Department has agreements with doctors so they have access to a doctor at any time to take calls from crew at emergency sites. They find that this avoids having to take some people to hospital when a doctor is able to determine that a condition is non-emergency where a paramedic may well have taken the patient to an Emergency Department.

The cybersecurity black hole–and bad flashback–that is the Internet of Things

October 29, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/blackhole_596.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]One week after the Dyn DDoS attack, the post-mortems get more alarming. Our Readers knew they were coming in 2014-2015 (our ‘Is IoT really necessary–and dangerous?)

IoT devices, and a lot of older networked medical devices, have been proven to be easy to hack, as even this non-ITer, non-codegeek realized then. But those in tech have been to this movie before–with Bluetooth circa 2002! Now shouldn’t designers have learned? From ZDNet:

“It’s almost like we’ve learned nothing from Bluetooth” says Justin Dolly, CISO at cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes.

“Seeing what these IoT vendors are doing, it just blows me away because they haven’t learned from history,” says Steve Manzuik, director of security research at Duo Security’s Duo Labs. “They’ve completely ignored everything that’s ever had bad vulnerabilities”.

Many of these devices, according to these experts, have default log in credentials, if they have them at all. IoT devices are also allegedly findable on a snoop site called Shodan. Reason why: the financial and market need to get products out fast and cheaply.

Over at data security company Varonis’ blog, with the great title in part, “Revenge of the Internet of Things”, another succinct and telling quote:

Once upon a time in early 2016, we were talking with pen tester Ken Munro about the security of IoT gadgetry — everything from wireless doorbells to coffee makers and other household appliances. I remember his answer when I asked about basic security in these devices. His reply: “You’re making a big step there, which is assuming that the manufacturer gave any thought to an attack from a hacker at all.”

Privacy by Design is not part of the vocabulary of the makers of these IoT gadgets

Varonis also gives a how-to on changing settings in your router so you don’t become a victim, and how to secure your gadgets.

Bottom line: when Hackermania is Running Wild, do you, or anyone, really need to be an early adopter of an internet- connected coffee maker or fridge? And if you need internet-connected home security, telemedicine virtual consults, telehealth/remote patient monitoring or telecare….best heed Varonis and secure it!

Earlier in TTA: Friday’s cyberattack is a shot-over-bow for healthcare 

Zimmer Biomet acquires telehealth company RespondWell

October 28, 2016 | by

Orthopedic device maker Zimmer Biomet today (27 Oct) announced the acquisition of St Louis-based telerehabilitation + telehealth company RespondWell. RespondWell provides several facets of post-surgical physical therapy: telerehabilitation with clinically prescribed exercise routines, virtual doctor-patient consults, tablet-based personalized care plan delivery and data collection/RPM, and ‘gamified’ patient engagement tools. Up to the acquisition, according to Xconomy, RespondWell had raised $2 million from investors and had been seeking another raise of $8 million. Zimmer’s purchase price was not disclosed, but the changeover was swift, with the RespondWell website already copyrighted and top-bar tagged with Zimmer’s information.

Based on the release, RespondWell will be integrated into Zimmer Biomet Signature Solutions, using the brands Therapy@Home and presumably their original Fitness@Home. RespondWell’s former CEO Ted Spooner has been named VP of Connected Health at Zimmer Biomet; in his interview with MedCityNews, he was pleased at the exit and the acquisition by a company which wants to scale his solution.

Signature Solutions was formed from related Zimmer programs a few months ago as essentially a specialized value-based care consultancy and service provider. The combination of the two–VBC consultancy integrating with a health tech service provider–appears to be a nascent trend–and perhaps finally a path for telehealth providers. Hat tip to reader David Lee Scher MD via Twitter

Care Innovations gets into the behavior change training business

October 28, 2016 | by | 3 Comments

An under-the-radar move by Intel-owned Care Innovations, which markets the Health Harmony telehealth and the QuietCare behavioral telemonitoring systems, is their entrance in the behavior change training business.

Care Innovations developed an accredited (CE eligible) training course for nurses to effect behavior change in patient beyond what may be a limited telehealth engagement. According to their release, the training will help them with coaching patients to increase their engagement with their health and identifying areas for improvement, along with the appropriate technology.

The three-hour course work, designed primarily for telehealth nurses but open to all, has three key learning sections:

  1. Six steps to take to achieve behavior change in healthcare
  2. Learning four coaching skills: crafting open-ended questions, sharing words of affirmation, demonstrating reflective listening and crafting summary statements
  3. Discussing the most common challenges associated with acting as the coach, which are avoidance, ambivalence, resistance and compliance.

There are three sessions before the end of the year, priced at a relatively modest below $300 rate, with group discounts. Information is on their website here.

It’s an interesting move in that the training seemingly is not exclusive to CI clients, although this Editor would expect that 1) it would fit best with CI’s system and 2) is a way of cultivating prospective clients in an academic, value-added way.

For CI, it is another association with the ‘intersection of behavior change and technology’ (more…)