TSA’s annual International Telecare and Telehealth Conference

October 7, 2014 | by

17 – 18 November 2014, Celtic Manor Resort, South Wales

“Solutions for 21st Century Care” is the theme of the TSA’s annual two-day interactive conference which will look closely at these five key areas: Service Integration, Standards, Innovation and Technology, Business Modeling and Leadership, Education and Training. There will be industry-focused breakout sessions as well as exhibition and showcase zones featuring the latest technology innovations. The chair for the conference will be Nick Goodwin, CEO, International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC). Confirmed speakers include: Mark Drakeford AM, Minister for Health and Social Services, Welsh Government; Esther Rantzen CBE, Founder of The Silver Line; Helena Herklots, Chief Executive, Carers UK; – Professor George Crooks OBE, Medical Director, NHS 24; Trevor Single, Chief Executive, Telecare Services Association; Michael Seres, Patient Entrepreneur and special guest speaker Colin Jackson CBE, Olympic Medalist. For more information, see the TSA Conference website here and register online here (booking forms are also downloadable on the earlier page).

Cigna, Care Innovations expand Tennessee CHF care management pilot

October 7, 2014 | by

Healthcare payer Cigna’s Healthspring Medicare plan unit has been piloting a congestive heart failure (CHF) care management program with Intel-GE Care Innovations in Tennessee to reduce same-cause hospital  readmissions. The initial year-long 50-patient program is being expanded to 250 patients who have had a CHF diagnosis plus a previous ER visit or hospital admission. Patients are supplied at no cost a blood pressure cuff, a scale and the Care Innovations Guide on a tablet platform. Daily biometrics are sent to Cigna-HealthSpring nurse practitioners, and also complete an educational program to help them manage their CHF at home. After a 90-day minimum, once certain goals (e.g. weight loss, blood pressure and heart rate) are met, the patients stay in the program, the tablet is withdrawn but they continue to monitor and log their vitals with a case manager. What is curious about this seemingly anodyne (more…)

NYeC Digital Health Conference (New York City)

October 6, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nyec_dhc_2014_logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]17-18 November 2014, Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, New York

The New York eHealth Collaborative will hold its fourth annual Digital Health Conference with two full days of meetings and presentations. They are returning to Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River which will have ample room for the more than 850 attendees expected.

  • Keynote speakers include Eric J. Topol, MD, Director, Scripps Translational Science Institute and the controversial
    Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives & Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania.
  • The agenda includes ‘Big Data in Healthcare: Hype and Hope on the Path to Personalized Medicine’ to ‘Designing Wearables for the Long Run’ with a stop at Xanadu…no, Scanadu courtesy of their chief medical officer Alan Greene MD speaking on ‘Science, Sensors, and Superpowers—From Sci-Fi to Reality’.

Important: TTA readers receive a 10% registration discount. Use code TTA when registering at DigitalHealthConference.com  TTA is a media partner of the 2014 Digital Health Conference.

Tunstall secures additional £20 million from Charterhouse: implications?

October 6, 2014 | by

Breaking News  Tunstall Healthcare Group quietly announced on 25 September an additional investment of £20 million from its private equity owner, Charterhouse Capital Partners. Our readers know from our May and July articles the business challenges Tunstall has faced. We have particularly focused on–as have Bloomberg in May, this Editor and our Founder/EIC Emeritus Steve Hards over the years–on the heavy burden of Tunstall’s debt service, multiple management changes on both sides of the Atlantic, and a decided ‘failure to launch’ in the US market.

Readers of the Sunday Times woke up to this headline and lede (what news writers use to introduce the topic and entice you to read on):

Headline: £20m to steady ship at Tunstall

Lede: CHARTERHOUSE Capital Partners, one of the City’s oldest and most secretive private equity firms, has been forced to provide a multimillion-pound lifeline to another of its investments. A fortnight ago, Charterhouse ploughed £20m into Tunstall, a healthcare technology company that makes equipment to monitor the elderly and sick at home.

Insider Media Limited (business news review) had a more measured take in its ‘Yorkshire News’ section:

Headline: BACKERS PUMP £20M INTO HEALTHCARE FIRM (more…)

The King’s Fund videos, presentations online

October 4, 2014 | by

The King’s Fund has posted video highlights from last month’s International Digital Health and Care Congress. Talks include those from futurist Ray Hammond, Kathleen Hammond (US Department of Veterans Affairs), Dr Ali Parsa (Babylon), Paul Rice (NHS England) and Sian Jones (NHS Bristol). Click on the tabs at top for presentation decks and posters. TTA was a media partner of the Congress. Hat tip to Mike Clark via Twitter (@clarkmike).

Facebooking health: good for communities, not for privacy?

October 3, 2014 | by

In a Reuters exclusive, Facebook is reportedly considering creating online communities which will support those with various medical conditions, as well as ‘preventative care’ applications for those minding their healthy lifestyle. According to Reuters’ sources, Facebook representatives have been meeting with medical industry experts and entrepreneurs. They are also starting a research and development unit to test new health apps. It is not a far reach to assume that Facebook, which is always seeking to maximize its profitability dependent on digital ad revenues (second only to Google), yet finding its younger audience on the decline, is attempting to grapple with the concerns of its older-skewing audience–and also seeking a way to monetize another slice of data. Yet the 55+ audience is wary of Facebook given (more…)

Data mining health records: the good, bad and ugly

October 2, 2014 | by

Take your time this weekend and read this article from the Washington Post on the ‘brave new world’ of data mining health records. While those with experience analyzing real-world health data snicker at Larry Page of Google’s inflated claims of ‘saving 10,000 lives in the first year’ if only he could get his hands on that identified data (of course, then there’s the opportunity to make $£€¥, which is what Larry and Sergey are really interested in–count your Editor as a cynic!), the Health Data Analytics Express rolls on. The promise lies in more precision in treatment areas such as brain tumor radiology where sizing is critical (BraTumIA) and individualized genomics for disease. Yet the author does not touch on healthcare decision support systems best exemplified by IBM Watson, (more…)

Wearables: the ‘comfy sensor patch’ changes color, a cushion nags on posture

October 2, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/skin_heart_monitor-1.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]Another sensor patch out of the John A. Rogers ‘skunk works’ at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign is designed to be continually worn (presumably in a discreet–not discrete–place) and is capable of monitoring temperature and moistness on the skin’s surface, relating to cardiovascular health and skin care. This ‘epidermal photonic sensor’  has 3,600 0.5mm squared “thermochromic liquid crystals patterned into large-scale, pixelated arrays on thin elastomeric substrates” (meaning a stretchy sensor). Based on this Editor’s reading of the research abstract, color changes with temperature; algorithms and a digital camera shot of the patch then turn temperature data into decipherable health information. What’s not known is how the sensor information transmits. Gizmag, Nature Communications (abstract) Rogers’ previously developed sensors: Biostamp and Reebok Checklight TTA 28 July, the original ‘comfy sensor patch’ 10 April and 8 April.

And watch how you sit. The Darma seat cushion adds 1mm fiberoptic sensors (more…)

House Bill introduced to improve Accountable Care Orgs (US)

October 1, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/file0001205588090-doctor.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A bill has been introduced in the US Congress with the aim of improving Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The cross-party bill HR 5558, to be known as the ACO improvement act of 2014, if passed, will amend the Medicare ACO Programs to permit the use of remote patient monitoring, deliver images to remote providers and improve the data sharing between ACOs and Medicare administration.

ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together voluntarily to give care to Medicare patients. The goal of the three ACO programs is to ensure patients, specially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time avoiding duplication and waste. When an ACO succeeds in achieving savings for Medicare, that saving is shared with the (more…)

A salmagundi of (mainly free) opportunities to learn more about health technology this autumn (UK)

September 27, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

UKTI Belgium is running an excellent webinar series on eHealth & the European Union. Dates/times are:

  1. Thu, Nov 13, 2014 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT
  2. Tue, Dec 2, 2014 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT

During these webinars they will discuss tools that will enable you and your organisation to react to EU opportunities and challenges. For more information and to register go here.

TechUK and the BCS are running another of their very successful Healthtech Startup Schools, starting on Monday 20 October, ending on Monday 08 December. It is at techUK London , 10 St Bride Street, London , EC4A 4AD. Registration is here.

The University of Bath’s Assisted Living Action Network (ALAN) is holding an evening meeting in Bristol on 22nd October entitled on the flyer “Digital Health Apps: Insider views on the Challenges and Opportunities”, and on the website “Understanding the new regulatory and information environment for health apps”. It is being addressed by many worthies including Rob Turpin of BSI and Graham Worsley, recently retired from the TSB and now assembling a portoflio of really interesting roles. Book here

The GSMA has announced a whole bunch of awards for 2015 – entries are now open. Don’t dismiss them without checking each one out first – for example the Best Connected Life Award has eight categories, each with an award, including Best Mobile Innovation for Health. (If you wonder why this is under opportunities to learn (more…)

Smartphones, wearables are the future says NHS England

September 27, 2014 | by

NHS England has sketched out the future of healthcare and it will be one using smartphones and wearable bio-sensors to monitor ourselves and alert clinicians. [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/NHS-England.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]NHS National Medical Director Sir Bruce Keogh has written to around 250 organisations across health, social care, industry and third sector asking them to support the Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS) programme which he says will take the NHS into this new technological era.

The TECS programme, born out of the Three Million Lives (3ML) initiative (which didn’t quite go anywhere after all the song and dance, including from Prime Minister David Cameron), was reviewed last year resulting in the change of focus to “address the demand for support and practical tools to commission, procure, implement and evaluate technology enabled care services” according to Sir Bruce’s letter as reported on the NHS England website.

The TECS Stakeholder Forum‘s views and proposals now form the TECS Improvement Plan for 2014-17. This is a broader group following the failure of the 3ML Stakeholder Forum, which consisted mainly big industry organisations, to achieve anything of substance.

According to the NHS England website posting, Sir Bruce explains: “To ensure continued progress, we have brought together a TECS Implementation Group consisting of experts and leaders from across these sectors whose remit is to support the strategic development and delivery of the proposals within the Improvement Plan. In addition, we have formed the TECS Executive Steering Group which meets regularly to provide clinical, technological and strategic leadership for the programme at a director level in NHS England.”

This all sounds like a lot of bureaucracy and a drawn out attempt to rescue what remains of the 3ML programme. I started thinking of the Titanic and deck chairs.

MediSafe, Frame Health and ‘compliance’ winners in Health 2.0 competition

September 24, 2014 | by

Compliance ruled at Health 2.0’s Traction: Startup Championship at their annual meeting in Santa Clara, California. Mobile med reminder app MediSafe won the consumer-facing company ‘bakeoff’ and Frame Health, a big data analytics company which uses psychology to predict non-compliance, the provider-facing competition. Both competed in their class against four other companies and were judged by big-money VCs and mentors from ED Ventures, HealthTech Capital, Merck, AARP, Ziegler and others. The action also seems to be moving away from startups, as this competition was for Series A level companies with clients and real business, positioned for next round funding in the $2-12 million range. (more…)

What do 65+ really want? Travel the world.

September 24, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

For those of us who develop and implement technologies to assist–and marketers who appeal to–the 65+ market (and in reality those 55+), the aspirations spotlighted in this ‘bucket list’ illustrate this age group’s current mindset a lot better than the usual picture sketched in much of the consumer and healthcare press of the obese, bundle o’ chronic conditions and chronically ‘needy’ older adult. Centra Pulse, the telecare arm of non-profit Circle Housing with 125,000 customers, surveyed over 2,000 65+ UK adults and came up with a ‘top 40’ (just like the old radio hit lists) must-do list. Some are ambitious (#1, 3, 4) and others are prosaic (#2, 9, 11). Listing top 15 here:

  1. Travel the world
  2. See my family settled
  3. Live to 100
  4. Write a bestselling novel
  5. Win the lottery
  6. Buy a house
  7. Learn a language
  8. Be financially secure (more…)

Medical informatics in dermatology course (NY)

September 23, 2014 | by

Thursday 13 November (all day), Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller Research Laboratories Auditorium, New York City

‘Envisioning the Future of Dermatology Through the Lens of Medical Informatics’  will enable the clinician to better understand:

  • the novel approaches to diagnose skin cancers with computer informatics
  • the benefits, limitations and integration of photography and electronic medical record in dermatology
  • the benefits, limitations and legal barriers in teledermatology
  • the factors related to privacy issues for images

6.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Early registration savings before 1 October: $50 MDs, PhDs and DOs; $25 Fellows, Residents, and RNs. After 1 October add $25. More information and registration. Hat tip to Peter Brodhead of MSKCC and Howard Reis of HealthePractices.

Integrated care – how can technology help? Royal Society of Medicine 24 & 25 November

September 23, 2014 | by

This year the Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine & eHealth Section’s conference, on 24th & 25th November, is on how technology can support integrated care.

The conference will be opened by Cathy Hassell, Deputy Director, Quality Programmes, NHS England, who manages the NHS Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS) programme

Other keynote speakers include:

Tim Kelsey, National Director for Patients and Information, NHS

Dr Robert Wah, President, American Medical Association

Adam Darkins, Chief Consultant in Care Coordination Services, Department of Veterans Affairs, US

There is a superb line-up of speakers to inform you about the many aspects of using technology to support the effective and efficient delivery of care services. These range from practical integrated care implementations such as that underway in Bradford (presented by Cath Doman) and Airedale (presented by Anne Wagner), through the use of innovative technology such as (more…)

Telecare Soapbox: Falling outside the box

September 22, 2014 | by | 4 Comments

[Editor Donna’s note: Even if you have already read this great article by Steve, read on to the first comment as to ‘what happened’.]

Before you read the rest of this item, read or re-read the following two popular recent falls-related articles:

Accelerometers, false positives/negatives and fall detection (Tom Doris)

A five-point rebuttal to ‘Accelerometers, false positives/negatives and fall detection’ (Andy Schoonover)

The acceptability of false positive fall alerts and the risk of false negatives has dogged fall detection ever since the first detector was invented. It is great to see this fundamental matter still being debated on this website by experienced practitioners!

However, given that calibration of devices has, as Tom Doris points out, inherent problems however sophisticated they become, I see no one putting their finger on what I consider to be the ‘real’ issue. That is: where in the system is the intelligence that judges whether a fall is problematic or not?

Current systems place the intelligence either with (more…)