Robot greeter on the job at Ostend, Belgium hospital–and those killer robots

June 21, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Robot-Belgique-1.png” thumb_width=”250″ /]This humanoid (but not Terminator-like, its developers are careful to say!) robot is currently on the job as a receptionist at Ostend, Belgium hospital AZ Damiaan. Equipped with healthcare-oriented software developed by local company Zora Robotics, the Aldebaran/SoftBank Robotics’ demure Pepper robot stands 1.2 meters (just under 4 feet), speaks 19 languages and works for about 20 hours on a single charge. Pepper communicates via its tablet interface but also is responsive to actions and emotions in what SoftBank calls a natural and intuitive way. The Pepper robot was first deployed in the hospital’s maternity area. The video has an awwwww…. illustration of a newborn grasping Pepper’s fingers. Previously, the toddler sized Nao robot worked with patients at AZ Damiaan for physical therapy. (Nao robots have also been featured in modern dance and as greeters at Japanese hotels and banks.) Reuters (video 1:51)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This is a far more benign take on robots than the Daily Mail‘s recent screamer that “Killer robots are ‘quickly moving toward reality’ and humanity only has a YEAR to ban them” which conflates drone weaponry (human guided) with ground robots (human guided). As of now, They’re Still Puppets (more…)

Unintended consequences: American Well loses, loses patent, to Teladoc

June 18, 2016 | by

On Tuesday, the Federal District Court of Massachusetts not only dismissed the American Well patent infringement lawsuit against Teladoc, but also invalidated American Well‘s patent, held by co-founder Dr. Roy Schoenberg since 2009. It was invalidated on the grounds that the claims in the patent were “too abstract” to be patentable and do not “amount to an inventive concept.” American Well is appealing the court decision.

Teladoc started this call-and-response in March 2015 by petitioning the USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) to invalidate several American Well patents. (AW claims to hold 28 patents and 22 pending applications). Shortly before Teladoc’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange last June, American Well sued Teladoc on patent infringement. Those in the industry saw an effort to scupper the IPO. Our Editor Chrys at the time took a decidedly jaundiced view of American Well’s grounds for infringement:
This author is wondering who thought this was such a novel technology as to warrant a patent? What were they thinking? Having worked on developing unified messaging systems for a mobile phone operator at the turn of the century (now that’s a scary 15 years ago) I am just picking myself off the floor after reading this.
Surely all these functions are no more than what is in every instant messaging program, dating back to 1990s? Replace the words “medical service provider” by “friends” or “contacts” and “consultation” by “chat” or “call” it seems to me you get … Skype and Face Time and more! [TTA 9 June 15]
No matter, the result was yesterday’s double shot of a decision. In addition, three Teladoc complaints against American Well‘s patents to invalidate them are still in progress with the USPTO. A triple, anyone? MedCityNews, Teladoc press release, American Well press release
All this is despite the sobering facts that telemedicine has been unprofitable to date–and that IP wars have unintended consequences. (more…)

Your weekly robot fix: ingestible robot fetches swallowed button batteries, more

June 15, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/mit-microsurgeon-2.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A research team drawn from MIT, the University of Sheffield and the Tokyo Institute of Technology has developed an ‘origami’ robot to aid in the location and fetching the result of a common and potentially fatal incident–swallowed button batteries or other foreign objects. The robot is swallowed in a capsule which dissolves. It then unfolds its dried pig intestine appendages and is directed by external magnetic fields towards the battery, attaches to it and safely moves through the digestive system. Another potential use is to patch wounds or deliver medicine to a specific location. Unlike other robots, it is untethered and moves freely, propelling itself through a ‘stick-slip’ motion, and is resistant to acidic gastric fluids. Next steps for the team are to equip it with sensors and to perform animal and human in vivo testing. ZDNet

Nosocomial hospital infections may also get a good zapping by disinfecting robots. In an 18 month test at Lowell (Massachusetts) General Hospital, robots with pulsing xenon high-dose ultraviolet light from Xenex Disinfection Services disinfected the Lowell Hospital ORs nightly in addition to routine chemical disinfection. The study estimated that they avoided an estimated 23 infections at a cost savings of one life and $478,000. MedCityNews.

Robotics in healthcare will also be part of the five tracks centered on informatics available to attendees of HEALTHINFO 2016, August 21 – 25, 2016 in Rome’s H10 ROMA CITTA,  organized by IARIA (International Academy, Research, and Industry Association). More information here.

And if you wonder if humans will be able to find work when robots take over everything (maybe we just go to conferences and have a guaranteed income?), take comfort (or not) in this interview with one of the two authors of Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines, a new book by Thomas Hayes Davenport and Julia Kirby. “One is to work alongside smart machines, and complement their activity. The other is to dip into what smart machines are unlikely to be able to do any time soon.” The emphasis on STEM education may be misplaced as many of these jobs will be replaced by AI. In healthcare, they predict that automation will displace specialists and empower GPs, leaving room for ultra specialization in combinations not thought of today. Robots beware: Humans will still be bosses of machines (TechRepublic)

The difficulty in differentiating telemedicine and telehealth

June 15, 2016 | by

Our Editors have always tried to cleanly define the differences between telemedicine, telehealth and telecare, even as they blur in industry use. (See our Definitions sidebar for the latter two.) But telemedicine, at least on this side of the Atlantic, has lost linguistic ground to telehealth, which has become the umbrella term that eHealth wanted to be only two or three years ago. Similarly, digital health, connected health and mHealth have lost ground to health tech, since most devices now connect and incorporate mobility. And there are sub-genres, such as wearables, fitness trackers and aging tech.

Poor telehealth grows ever fuzzier emanations and penumbra! Now bearing the burden of virtual visits between doctor and patient, doctor-to-doctor professional consults, video conferencing (synchronous and asynchronous), remote patient monitoring of vital signs and qualitative information (ditto), and distance health monitoring to treat patients, it also begins to embrace its data: outcome-based analytics, population health and care modeling. Eric Wicklund accumulates a pile of studies from initial-heavy organizations: WHO, HIMSS, HHS, Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP), ATA, TRC Network. All of which shows, perhaps contrary to Mr Wicklund’s intentions, how confusing simple concepts have become. mHealth Intelligence

Unhappy endings? HealthSpot’s remains to Rite Aid, Theranos’ story to Hollywood

June 14, 2016 | by

HealthSpot Station’s assets to Rite Aid, minus the ‘froth’. On Monday, drug store chain Rite Aid won the US Bankruptcy Court in Columbus, Ohio’s mandated auction for the inventory, most assets and IP for its entry bid of $1.15 million. According to Columbus Business First (subscription only), a touted second bid by a central Ohio investor group was $1 million–and stayed right there with no second bid. This group had invested $650,000 before HealthSpot entered Chapter 7. A dark horse third bidder, which came in at the last minute, never put money on the line.

The Ohio business group leader, local assisted living facility owner Paul Gross, interestingly maintained his faith in the kiosk concept to Columbus Business First in an earlier interview, rapping the prior management for squandering approximately $47 million (more, given Xerox‘s never-disclosed investment) on office furniture, lavish executive salaries and misbegotten marketing (quoted in MedCityNews). 25 of the kiosks were in Rite Aid locations in Ohio and others with Cleveland Clinic, but there are 137 still ‘in the box’. Perhaps ‘misbegotten’ should be applied to the concept (kiosks too big, expensive) and not the marketing communications, which in this Editor’s professional judgment were strong and appealing, but ran into the ‘lipstick on a pig’ wall.

One wonders what Rite Aid, in the throes of its own difficult merger with Walgreen Boots Alliance, will do with the assets. TTA’s earlier stories on HealthSpot.

Theranos the Movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence. Co-starring Walgreens? ‘Hunger Games’ star Jennifer Lawrence has reportedly agreed to star in ‘The Big Short’ director Adam McKay’s adaptation of the story. (Fortune) Certainly there is a resemblance to CEO Elizabeth Holmes Frogeyed Sprite (‘Bugeyed’ to us Yanks–Ed.) crossed with Steve Jobs. Ms Lawrence has already played a young, aggressive, come-from-nada inventor of household gadgets in ‘Joy’. The Theranos story is appearing to be the ‘Joy’ story in reverse. Suggested title: ‘The Royal Scam’? (credit Steely Dan, circa 1974). ‘Less Than Zero’ (Bret Easton Ellis) is taken, now describing Ms Holmes’ net worth according to Forbes.

Mr McKay will be ripping from the headlines in progress, should the movie actually be made. (more…)

Philips publishes new report on connected tech

June 8, 2016 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Future-health-index-e1465426741815.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A report published by Philips today claims that 78% of healthcare professionals believe their patients need to take a more active role in managing their health while 20% of UK patients admit to not managing their health, according to a press release. The report suggests that the result of people not paying attention to their health is increased illnesses (or “lifestyle related conditions” as the report calls them) such as heart failure and type 2 diabetes. The report then goes on to suggest that the use of “connected technology” to help manage their health should be made mandatory for some patients. Connected technology is defined as technology that enables sharing of information throughout all parts of the health system (e.g. doctors, nurses, community nurses, patients, hospitals, specialists, insurers and government) that can range from computer software that allows secure communication between doctors and hospitals, to a watch that tracks a person’s heartbeat. However, the connected technology in a case study highlighted in the press release is home based monitoring systems supplied by Philips for a classic UK telehealth trial for COPD, diabetes and heart failure.

Philips say they commissioned the Future Health Index (FHI) report to globally gauge (more…)

Tunstall’s Innovation Centre virtual tour

June 8, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /]Tunstall Healthcare Group’s release for 1 June’s Telecare Awareness Day was a virtual tour of their Innovation Centre physically located at their Whitley, Yorkshire head office. It’s divided into five TECS-related ‘zones’: integrated care, connected home, development room, app bar and workshop. There are explanatory comments below, which help because the virtual tour has a measure of clunkiness. The marketing purpose of the Innovation Centre? It “provides a unique, dedicated space to define the challenge and help accelerate the development and design process to evolve the next generation of digital connected healthcare, create new innovations and service models that genuinely meet the needs of commissioners and consumers.” (Whew!) It’s also kind of a cool space to get feedback from customers, users and partners, which this Editor suspects is the real reason why it was developed. But overall, both the Centre and the virtual tour are good ‘showcase’ ideas that demonstrate both product and thought leadership.

Worthing MarketPlace Wednesday 8th June 2016 (UK)

June 8, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Worthing-Marketplace-flyer-712×1024.png” thumb_width=”120″ /]Fresh from last week’s National Telecare Awareness Day on 1 June, UK Telehealthcare is sponsoring a bonus MarketPlace today (8 June) in conjunction with the West Sussex County Council at the Charmandian in Worthing, West Sussex. 36 companies including Tynetec, CAIR, Doro, Tunstall and others we mention are listed for five hours of exhibition and activities starting at 10 am. UK Telehealthcare information and flyer at left above.

Chris Lewis – the hyper-connected individual meets the healthcare system (guest blog)

June 6, 2016 | by

Chris Lewis, a world-renowned telecoms expert and regular presenter on disability issues has kindly offered to share some further thoughts with readers. 

At the Great Telco Debate last year, one of the biggest laughs was when my co-host Graham Wilde was attacked for buying his wife a FitBit, implying she needed to lose weight! The success of these so-called health tracking devices, and their associated apps, is an indication of how wearables, combined with smart phones and tablets, are beginning to change our behaviour and our lives.

Outside the healthcare industry, these devices with their life-changing outputs are seen as wondrous. However, inside the healthcare sector, they are often dismissed as being toys providing inaccurate and misleading information.

The consumer electronics industry, with its dynamic gadget crazy geeks, coming up against the established healthcare profession, with its hospitals and insurance organisations, represents a key battleground for us all. Regulation in the medical area is rife, and so it should be. Consumer electronics is a considerably more liberal environment. So we have the challenge of making money and identifying new markets on the one hand, whilst accurately treating people with illness and disabilities on the other.

In previous articles (and here)  (more…)

Stop the Internet of Things Monster!

June 1, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A cry from the heart (or aching head) indeed! The overhyped, overheated and overblown Internet of Things (IoT) gets a good and deserved lampooning from tech writer Joanna Stern. If you take seriously a egg tray that tells you when the hen ova are getting few or old, an umbrella that signals you when it’s left home, a connected toilet seat and a juicer that only works when it’s on Wi-Fi, you’ll think the writer is a Luddite. But if you think 95 percent of IoT is ridiculous (save a Few Good Apps) and Overload Reigns in Solving Problems Which Aren’t, you’ll enjoy The Internet of Every Single Thing Must Be Stopped (Wall Street Journal). (Ms Stern would be undoubtedly appreciative of the ‘‘Uninvited Guests’ that nag and spy. And she doesn’t even get into the hackable dangers of Interconnected Everything.)

Falling Walls Lab NY–application deadline June 22

June 1, 2016 | by

Falling Walls Lab New York, German Center for Research and Innovation, August 30, 6 PM

The New York City edition of the international Falling Walls Lab, which invites scientists and innovators to present research that answers the question, “Which are the next walls to fall?”, this year is hosted by GCRI.

Each year, the Falling Walls Lab Finale is held in Berlin, this year on November 8, and is closely connected to the annual and internationally renowned Falling Walls Conference the next day. The Conference hosts 20 top-class scientists from around the world to present their current breakthrough research.

The New York deadline is June 22. To submit an application, go to the Falling Walls website. Separately, a 3-minute video preview of the presentation must be sent to events@germaninnovation.org. Apart from their round-trip travel to the Falling Walls Lab New York, participants will not incur additional travel costs. According to the event listing on the website, the most intriguing presenter will qualify directly for the Falling Walls Lab Finale in Berlin. The Falling Walls Foundation will cover accommodation costs for November 8-9 in Berlin. All participants in the Finale will receive a ticket for the Falling Walls Conference.

The Falling Walls Lab is a non-profit series of scientific conferences, which aims to build and foster interdisciplinary connections between scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Contact the Falling Walls Foundation at labs@falling-walls.com. Also coming up: Falling Walls Tokyo 29 August, Falling Walls Lab UAlberta 29 September. Main website. Hat tip to GCRI (listing here)

Telemedicine device wins Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation

June 1, 2016 | by

A telemedicine invention called Cardio Pad developed by an engineer from Cameroon has been selected as the winning entry for [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Cardio-Pad-2.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]the 2016 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, according to news reports  (BBC, Forbes, TechTrends, Business in Cameroon).

The winner, 24-year-old Arthur Zang (pictured with a Cardio Pad), who won the £25,000 ($37,000) on offer from the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK,  was awarded his prize at a ceremony in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the 26th of May, 2016. Zang previously won a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2014 for the device. (more…)

Guest blog: Health and Social Care Innovation – are we really learning our lessons?

May 31, 2016 | by | 2 Comments

Hazel Harper, Programme Manager, Health & Care, at Innovate UK has kindly offered readers this guest blog (which is also available on the Innovate UK website).

Delivering Assisted Living Lifestyles at Scale (dallas) is the largest innovation programme in Health and Care to date. With an ambitious target of touching the lives of over 160,000 people, just exactly what can we learn from this ambitious programme?

 It was no mean feat. With no blueprint combined with delivering business as usual and only 3 years to deliver there are plenty of lessons but the question is how many of them will we really learn or will our incessant need to do things our way or no way remain the longest running barrier to progress we’ve known in this space?

lessons learnt

Insight in to some of the lessons learnt (in no particular order)

(more…)

Telecare Awareness Day (UK) – June 1st 2016

May 30, 2016 | by

This Wednesday, June 1st, is National Telecare Awareness Day in the UK for 2016. This is promoted by the industry body [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/UKTelehealthcare-Awareness.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]UK Telehealthcare.

To mark the day, CAIR, the UK based telecare products supply company, is holding an event at their headquarters in West Yorkshire. According to information available from the Telecare Services Association, twelve of the region’s leading voices in Telecare will gather to “tackle some of the challenges facing the industry”.

Last year several activities took place to mark the day, then called National Telehealthcare Awareness Day, with events being held by CAIR, University of East Anglia’s Norwich Electronic Assistive Technology Centre (NEAT), Welbeing (an independent-living service provider) and many others.

A summary of last year’s events is available via the UK Telehealthcare website here.

TSA Conference – dates for your diary

May 28, 2016 | by

The TSA’s 2016 Technology Enabled Care (TEC) and digital health sector conference will be taking place on 18 & 19 October in the ICC in Birmingham. It will be chaired for the second year by former Minister of State for Care Services, the Rt Hon Paul Burstow.

It will focus on the theme ‘Connected Care, Connected Homes and Connected Communities’ bringing together organisational leaders and audiences across government, health, social care, housing, home care, industry, third sector and more.

A “packed programme” is apparently being developed with “challenging debates, thought-provoking presentations, interactive workshops and brand new exhibition zones to inspire, inform and drive forward sector collaboration”.

Earlybird booking here.

Congressional investigation confirms NFL attempted to influence concussion, CTE research

May 25, 2016 | by

Not shocking to our Readers. In December, sports network ESPN reported that the National Football League (NFL) refused to fund research on detecting in vivo chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from a long-term $30 million unrestricted grant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [TTA 23 Dec 15]. A 91-page report by Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which started after the December reports, confirmed that the NFL improperly attempted to shape the research after the grant, violating NIH peer-review process policies that stipulated no grantor interference. The NFL specifically objected to the objectivity of Boston University’s Robert Stern, MD heading up the $16 million project before the award in 2015, then tried to redirect the money, so to speak, in-house–to a group including Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, a member of the league’s panel on brain injuries and their bid for the project. Ultimately, the NFL withdrew the funding from the NIH, which went ahead with it. The project was awarded to BU, the Cleveland Clinic, Banner Alzheimer’s Institute (Arizona) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The Congressional report’s six major conclusions were highly critical of the NFL in several ways and also scored the Foundation for the NIH for not acting as a ‘buffer’:

  1. The NFL improperly attempted to influence the grant selection process at NIH.
  2. The NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee members played an inappropriate role in attempting to influence the outcome of the grant selection process.
  3. The NFL’s rationalization that the Boston University study did not match their request for a longitudinal study is unfounded.
  4. FNIH (Foundation for the NIH) did not adequately fulfill its role of serving as an intermediary betweenNIH and the NFL.
  5. NIH leadership maintained the integrity of the science and the grant review process.
  6. The NFL did not carry out its commitment to respect the science and prioritize health and safety.

When the grants were announced in September 2012 [TTA 7 Sept 12], there was great cheer that finally the NFL had decided that denial was, to use the old joke, a river in Egypt, and to do something about it. This also followed Army research on TBI being supported by the NFL. The first indicator that the funds were going elsewhere, as we noted a year later, was that a year later the Sports and Health Research Program (SHRP) funds were going to other medical problems like joint diseases and sickle cell anemia. While worthy, it had not been the prime publicized objective of the funds. The Congressional committee report also details how the NFL tried to steer the research away from Dr Stern, one of the leading researchers in the field, citing his support of players who refused to accept the CTE settlement in 2014. Beyond the NFL, research on CTE and concussion will impact any contact sports as well as the military and other head traumas. This Editor has previously reported on Dr Stern’s CTE research presentations in NYC and from other researchers in the field; search on NFL and Dr Stern both in current index and the back file. Congressional report, ESPN.com, New York Times.