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Breaking News from the CNet live coverage moving along in real time:

New iPhone 6 phones are both retina display. Phablet is 5.5″ screen (iPhone 6 Plus) and standard is 4.7″
Big play on NFC-driven mobile payments: Apple Pay at 220,000 locations, via 83 percent of US banks plus American Express (international?)
Security: Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet software and services–We’ve integrated security from software and hardware. We create a device only account number and put it in the Secure Element. No longer have the static code on the back of the card.
- One time only use and claim no tracking on your purchases, no card info shared with retailer (!!!) Implications for healthcare payments?

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Here comes the Apple Watch (not iWatch)—CNet commentator says it’s like iPod Nano with sexy design upgrade. Health implications to follow. (more…)

2015: mHealth’s breakout year–or more of the same sideways?

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-thinker-statue-flickr-satyakam-khadikar-480.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Adopting or Ditching It? We’re barely into September, yet the first 2015 prediction-of-a-sort is on the record from Center for Connected Health‘s Dr. Joseph Kvedar in The eHealth Blog. Does Apple HealthKit+Samsung‘s SHealth’s iterations+Google Fit+smartwatches everywhere (including LG’s G Watch R) equal $7.2 billion in wearables alone by 2018 as part of a mHealthy $49 billion by 2020? He’s optimistic, yet he hedges his bets with the caveat

“The challenge in health care is that, though we know what patients/consumers need to do to improve their health, most of them don’t want to hear about it.”

Which indicates that Dr. Kvedar has joined our small group of Thinkers puzzling out why health apps haven’t taken off beyond their Quantified Selfer early adopters and what Parks Associates termed ‘Healthy and Engaged’ [TTA 11 Aug]. With 1/3 of the purchasers of activity trackers putting them in the drawer after six months and the unstickiness of apps (80 percent are abandoned after a shocking two weeks), the winning combination isn’t obvious. But is it ‘focus on engagement’ and ‘personal, motivational and ubiquitous’? Certainly key factors, but how do we get the ‘Challenged but Mindful’ with a chronic condition–or two or three–to track and reward their real progress, even on a bad day–which an activity tracker which constantly presses you to exceed your performance has trouble gauging. (more…)

Bayer AG enters the healthcare accelerator game (DE)

Bayer HealthCare AG’s Grants4Apps program announced its support of five startups that, in their words, will support improved outcomes or pharmaceutical processes. Unlike companies like GE or Pfizer, Bayer is outright granting a substantial amount of cash to each–€ 50,000–and offering space plus 3 1/2 months of mentoring in their Berlin HQ in return for the usual small equity stake. Of 70 applications, five were granted to European companies which will have their Demo Day on 1 December:

Cortrium: their C3 device is a state-of-the-art wearable tech sensor for clinical-quality hospital wireless monitoring of health data including electrocardiogram (ECG), body surface temperature, respiratory rate, and body posture/physical activity. Blood oxygen and blood pressure to come in 2015. (Denmark, spun off from Nokia R&D)
PharmAssistant: self-management tool for chronic disease patients, consisting of a smart pill container and a remote cloud-based monitoring service (Portugal) (more…)

Fashion Week’s fickle fitness favorites

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Misfit-shine-wearable.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Last September during NYC Fashion Week, the must-have fashionista accessory for the wrist was a Jawbone, in hard-to-get colors like aqua [TTA 17 Nov 13]. This year, Misfit Shine hit the runways with a vengeance (so to speak) with some…er, interesting…wearables with hard-core appeal. Courtesy of Chromat, it was incorporated into this interestingly air-conditioned evening look. We doubt we’ll see it at Connected Health Symposium in Boston at the end of October…but maybe at CES Unveiled on 11 November in New York.

But Jawbone is the one that’s scoring big funding–they’ve ‘jawboned’ another $100 million, the same amount they received in financing last year at this time. It’s a chunk of the $250 million they were raising earlier this year. According to Re/Code, new investors include Rizvi Traverse Management. The round puts the company valuation north of $3.3 billion. Like Misfit, it is also opening up its UP software API to be used by developers on other smartphones, watches and wearables.

Is digital health neglecting The Big Preventable–medical errors?

September 6, 2014 | by Donna Cusano | 1 Comment

Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the US – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.
(US Senate hearing, cited in HealthcareITNews 18 July 2014)

At the end of last month, this Editor questioned the efficacy of our current state of ‘consumer engagement’ in Patients should be less engaged, not more. The ‘less engaged’ was a call for simplification: regimens and devices which were easier to use, less complicated and far easier to fit in everyday life. (Aesthetics helps too.) Back in 2013, HeartSister/Ethical Nag (and Canadian) Carolyn Thomas called for health app (and by inference consumer engagement) designers to ‘skate to where the puck is going’–as in “For Pete’s sake, go find some Real Live Patients to talk (and listen) to first before you decide where you’re going!” Often it seems like these apps and platforms are designed in a vacuum of the entrepreneur’s making. The proof is the low uptake (Pew, Parks, IMS) and the apps’/programs’ lack of stickiness after all this time (Kvedar 8 Sep blog post).

Now Laurie Orlov tells us we were looking at the wrong puck, as analysts do. First, all that ‘nudging’ and all those apps haven’t moved the needle on diabetes and obesity. Second, why are app developers neglecting that third largest killer, preventable medical errors? Add to that 400,000 yearly–over 1,000 per day–the 10,000 estimated patients every day who suffer serious complications. (more…)

International Digital Health and Care Congress–reminder

If you have not yet reserved for the Congress taking place next Wednesday-Friday 10-12 September in London, there’s still time. For information, click on the advert to the right–but for the 10% discount for TTA readers (including the dinner), you must click here.

Data breaches and ‘hackermania’ running wild

Data breaches remain in the news–and the debate around how best to secure data rages.

Everything old is new again. UK website Computing reported that East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust lost a data cartridge containing 42,000 records from its divisional headquarters in Nottingham. It was a small but deadly cartridge containing scanned handwritten copies of Patient Report Forms from September to November 2012. However, it can only be read on a now-obsolete cartridge reader, one of which is on the Trust’s premises. An interesting project for a ‘cracker’? Perhaps someone thought it was an old paperweight? Is this the virtue of old tech?

Wakey, wakey Hermann! Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, Texas had an unauthorized employee nosing around patient records for seven years up to July, affecting at last count 10,604 patients. Compromised were health insurance information, Social Security (SSI) numbers, names, addresses and dates of birth (DOB). Obviously they weren’t firewalled and easy to access. No motive cited. According to HealthITSecurity, this person has been suspended, not fired. Also iHealthBeat.

Nothing to see here…move on. Breaking News. Healthcare.gov was breached in July by a hacker uploading malicious software to a server used to test code. No evidence that personal information was compromised. HHS maintains this was the first successful intrusion. We’ll see. MarketWatch (excerpt of WSJ paywalled story)

Is any system hackerproof? Reader Joanne Chiocchi cited this Editor’s first article on the massive CHS breach (from the reprint in HITECH Answers–thank you, Roberta Mullin) and posed this question on LinkedIn’s Ellen’s Ethical Lens group. 48 comments later, (more…)

‘Hackermania running wild,’ part 2

Apple flying around the iCloud for Apple HealthKit. Making headlines this week was a few overly personal celebrity photos (foolishly) stored on iCloud accounts going public online. According to Apple, the accounts were hacked probably by ‘brute force’ password attack and not through an iCloud flaw. TechRepublic But more of concern to digital health developers eager to get all that health and fitness data integrated via the Apple HealthKit API is that Apple is saying ‘nein’ to anyone using the iCloud to store data. Why the concern? Mobihealthnews lays down Apple’s eight ground rules.

Is CyberRX 2.0 a prescription for HIT? HITRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance), with participation from (US) HHS, will be hosting an October cyber attack simulation exercise with over 750 healthcare organizations participating. Exercises are at three levels depending on organization size and will include targeting information systems, medical devices and other technology resources of government and healthcare organizations. Press release. Website.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ESD-America.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]And the weakest point may be ‘over the air’. ‘Interceptor’ fake cell towers can defeat smartphone encryption to ‘over the air’ eavesdrop on calls, read texts and possibly push spyware onto Android phones. According to the CEO of ESD America, they have detected at least 17 powerful towers, likely more, scattered around the US–many near military bases. (more…)

Samsung vs Apple: Go big or go home

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gear-s-hands-on.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Implications for mobile health abound in the fight for the innovation throne. Kicking off the autumn intro season was Samsung’s big reveal Wednesday at IFA Berlin and NYC of their new phablets (Note 4, the oddly curved/fallaway screen Note Edge), the big ‘n’ curvy almost-phone Gear S smartwatch and the virtual reality headset Gear VR for the Note 4. Clearly Samsung is pushing the boundaries on size and innovation leadership–as well as the sheer number of phones/phablets/wearables in market with something for everyone. Its health developer platform SAMI and the Simband hardware [TTA 30 May] plus joint research with UCSF on ‘novel vital signs’ [TTA 2 June] positions it in the health tech area as the alternative to Apple. ZDNet, Gizmag (Gear S), CNet (Gear VR) which may have some health uses.

Next Tuesday is Apple’s premiere of two new iPhone 6 models with 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch screens to go on sale this month, plus an announcement for a yet-unnamed Apple wearable, but a rumored price of $400 for on-sale next year. Their developments with (more…)

It’s official! mHealth in the ‘trough of disillusionment’

August 28, 2014 | by Donna Cusano | 4 Comments

Gartner annually issues its Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies in the Dog Days of August, perhaps not to burst too many bubbles, derail too many fundings?

Lo and behold, ‘mobile health monitoring ‘ is heading towards the bottom of the Trough of Disillusionment. Moreover, its recovery is projected at 5-10 years to move out of the Trough, whip through the Slope of Enlightenment and enter the sunny uplands of the Plateau of Productivity. See Gartner chart below.
- Our readers knew, from their own and our observations, that mHealth hit the top of the Peak of Inflated Expectations over four years ago [TTA 29 June 2010, 22 Apr 2011]. In January, we predicted that 2014 would be ‘the year of reckoning’ (more…)

Forced to wear a fitness tracker for insurance? (US)

For those covered by corporate health policies, the day is not far away where employee health insurance programs will require wearing a fitness tracker and meeting certain metrics, such as walking a million steps or sleep quality. Already some programs have the employee log food, exercise, blood glucose, heart rate and other vital signs to qualify for a discount. The trajectory is much like BYOD–once unheard of, now it is expected to be the norm in 50 percent of US companies by 2017, with a concomitant loss of personal security and privacy. CVS Caremark and other companies have already made the stick, not the carrot, the norm of employee wellness programs [TTA 12 April 2013]. Writer Adrian Kingsley-Hughes asks: “How much access do we want our employers to have to our medical data? How much access to our daily activities do we want our employers and insurers having?” And what about spoofing those Fitbits and Jawbones? His ZDNet article notes the interest that Apple (plus Samsung and Google, despite Sergey’s and Larry’s vapors–Ed.) has in health, then takes it out a few more yards with Wearables and health insurance: A health bar over everyone’s head (and do check out the comments.)

Philips Lifeline introduces a mPERS app

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/philips-lifeline-app.jpg” thumb_width=”120″ /]Philips Lifeline has debuted in the US an unbranded mPERS-like app which allows the user from a smartphone (iPhone/Android only) to access the Philips Lifeline call center. The app is free but the service to voice connect to their call center, according to their customer center, is a (bargain compared to standard PERS) $13.95. The phone’s GPS geo-locates the person in need. The fact that the introduction is in the ‘dog days of August’ is one indicator that they are readying well ahead of the late fall (autumn) bump in demand. (Both this Editor and Mobihealthnews see a back and fill for the much-touted GoSafe introduction which 18 months later is still not in market.)

But walk with your Editor through this scenario:

Smartphone-equipped older person takes a fall, has an accident or is a crime victim
Despite the fact that all smartphones have accelerometers, the app does not tie in to this data, (more…)

Telecare helping Alzheimer’s patients live in the ‘connected home’

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/140825141047-lively-pillbox-sensor-story-top.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]There’s life in telecare–it’s (finally) morphing into ‘connected home’. Is this ‘slope of enlightenment’ and ‘plateau of productivity’ time? We haven’t had a spotlight on the part of telecare which is sensor-based behavioral monitoring, but here’s one that shines on not just one but four systems which indicates a big change in focus, long developing: SmartThings, Lively, BeClose and certified Grizzled Pioneer GrandCare Systems. CNN.com crafted an article out of a fairly obvious placement by the Alzheimer’s Association, but all to a good end.

Notably SmartThings by Physical Graph (just purchased by Samsung for a reported $200 million after raising $15.5 million through Series A, undoubtedly for their algorithms and in its health reach strategy versus Apple Health) pitches itself on its website as simple home automation, yet this article is all about older adult safety. Lively, which is depicted with an interesting connected pill dispenser (above) and BeClose carve their approaches close to caregivers. All three are DIY systems. GrandCare remains the anomaly, with the highest (custom) home install price ($699 and up) but with a home tablet that engages the older person with virtual visits, music, pictures, daily updates and family/clinician connectivity. They were also first to move in this direction; this Editor recalls their pioneering in the home automation area with CEDIA, the home electronic design association.

After years, are we finally seeing a shift in consumer perception? (more…)

34 to 22 to 10: the Tricorder XPrize finalists