US Goverment encouraged to allow more telehealth in Medicare

March 19, 2014 | by

For those unfamiliar with the US Medicare programme, which provides healthcare benefits for over-65s, it is a tale of two halves. The first, or original, half provides funding for hospitals directly through Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”). The second half of the tale is funding provided to insurance companies (known as Medicare Advantage Organisations or MAOs) to provide healthcare insurance cover. The details are complex and available on the official government site here.

Each year CMS sets the rates which the government will pay the MAOs and the proposed rates were published for consultation last month with the final decision being published next month. One of the respondents to the consultation was the Telecommunications Industry Association which strongly advised the CMS to support the use of telehealth within any MA plans as a means to reducing the cost of healthcare. While the TIA support is good news, and claims to be in the spirit of “long-time supporters of enhanced telehealth and remote monitoring services” I suspect the reasons are not entirely altruistic.

CMS says in its consultation document that some MAOs have asked CMS to include “remote access technology-furnished” services as part of MA plan basic benefits. However, as basic benefits can’t include anything not in the “original half”  (Parts A &B) CMS proposes to continue to include these as “mandatory supplemental services” in the coming year.

In this context remote access technologies are defined as Telemonitoring, Web- and Phone-based Technologies, Nurse Hotlines and other similar services. For 2015, CMS is also to allow MAOs to furnish medical services to beneficiaries via real-time interactive audio and video technologies as a mandatory supplemental benefit.

RSM apps conference – save over 90%…and a day! (UK)

March 18, 2014 | by

I try not to abuse my position as a contributing editor to TTA by pushing the Royal Society of Medicine’s conferences too hard.  However, having just received an email encouraging me to attend a commercial health apps event in London at the end of April which would cost me £1698 to attend (on an earlybird rate!), I feel that loyal TTA readers should be reminded that the RSM is also running an event on the same topic – entitled Playing games, using apps, promoting wellbeing – on 10th April.

As the RSM is a charity dedicated to medical education and the advancement of medical care, we try to keep prices as low as possible whilst getting the most prestigious speakers. The charges therefore – starting at just £45 for the day – are not expected to cover the cost of running the event….and many of the speakers are the same. A further plus is that we have crammed everything into a single day.

Last year’s apps event sold out before the event, as did our recent digital health held in February, so I’m glad to be able to report that there are still just a few places left for those fast movers keen to save money, and time.

Another UKTelehealthcare Marketplace event (UK)

March 17, 2014 | by

UKTelehealthcare have announced that their next Marketplace event will be held on Wednesday 9th April 2014 at The Oculus, The Gateway Conference Centre, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP19 8FF.

The event begins at 10.30am and ends at 3pm. Refreshments and snacks will be available all day at the central café. Entry is completely free to visitors – it’s a great opportunity to see all the latest telehealth & telecare kit available. For exhibitors it’s one of the great benefits of membership.

UKTelehealthcare suggest that all Health & Social Care professionals, Telecare & Telehealth providers and commissioners, CCGs, supporting carers and care agencies, the voluntary sector, those involved in dementia care and Housing Associations should attend.

There doesn’t seem to be any information on this event on the UKTelehealthcare website quite yet, so keep checking back. Although there is no need to book, do please let UKTelehealthcare know if you are going to attend. To do that, or for further information, contact Doug Miles on 07712 626 348, email: doug@londontelecare.com

Digital health attracting small–and very big–investment action (US)

March 17, 2014 | by

Last week Validic, a data integrator for payers, providers, preventive wellness companies and pharma, received $1.25M in convertible note funding from SJF Ventures. Recently profiled by guest columnist Lois Drapin [TTA 27 Jan], in August 2013 they received $760,000 in seed funding and are bridging with this to their Series A. According to Mobihealthnews, they are building out their team and adding three senior executives in marketing, business development and operations. They are also presently registered as a Class 1 MDDS device with the FDA. Styling as a mobile health conduit for payers, providers and preventive wellness seems to be a persuasive position. Also CrunchBase.

On the other side of the continuum is Castlight Health with a Friday IPO that raised $180 million and eventually created a valuation for the company at a blindingly bright $3 billion. Not bad for a company with but $13 million in 2013 revenues and $100 million in forward customer contracts. Castlight’s tech platform enables employers to manage healthcare costs better and for employees provides better information for making decisions based on quality, pricing and convenience. Here at the top of the market is another attractive position–drive down big enterprise healthcare cost. Mobihealthnews

LeadingAge/CAST telehealth comparison tools; Independa whitepaper (US)

March 17, 2014 | by

A release from telehealth/TV + internet-based remote care services developer Independa drew this Editor’s attention to several useful new tools from non-profit aging services provider/supplier association LeadingAge‘s Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST). If you are outside the US, the technologies may not apply, but it’s a useful model for comparing and evaluating telehealth technology and services in long-term care:

  1. The Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Selection Tool helps the user identify needs and provides choices of available products and the functionalities they offer.
  2. “Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring for Long-Term and Post-Acute Care” is a whitepaper which explains their methodology and defining telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) technologies, uses and benefits.
  3. The Telehealth and RPM Selection Matrix has an extensive comparison of technologies with features detailed by business line (e.g. acute care), system type, embodiment (type of unit), program development and support, hardware and software (front-end and ancillary).

Independa in their release (PDF) highlights their inclusion in the CAST tools. The Independa TV with embedded remote care services, developed in partnership with LG, was also reviewed in a recent whitepaper written by aging services researcher Laurie Orlov, focusing on its potential utilization in post-acute care transitions to the home and skilled nursing.

Encouraging signs of change

March 17, 2014 | by

A couple of recent articles have given me hope, after a really depressing session at my local surgery today for an NHS Health Check.  It began when I spotted two adjacent notices in the waiting room, the first encouraging patients to access the surgery’s online facilities, and the second banning the use of mobile devices. It descended further when after producing the form I’d been asked to complete about height, weight, alcohol consumption, family history of disease etc., I was asked every question all over. When I protested, I was told that as most patients don’t fill in the form, or forget it, they ask patients anyway. (Discretion suggested it probably wasn’t the right time to suggest that perhaps that was why people don’t fill in forms…)

However the first article, by Zahid Latif, who heads up healthcare for the Technology Strategy Board, indicates a restlessness with the current use of patient data that appeals to me.  He goes on to explain how the projects in the TSB’s dallas programme (more…)

One in Four Lives: the Australian 3ML

March 17, 2014 | by

Australia was delivering personal healthcare at a distance (by radio and plane) long before ‘telehealth’ and, indeed ‘telecare’ were coined. One therefore wonders in what way a consortium of Australian companies were inspired by England’s 3millionlives (3ML) in developing their own version: One in Four Lives. Perhaps they thought they could do better.

10 months after the One in Four Lives launch in May 2013, they have produced a white paper (PDF download) which is, in effect, a manifesto calling for government support. It has some well-respected authors who accurately opine that the real challenge is not technological but is in “…creating sustainable, profitable business models that can meet the needs of governments, services operators, clinical practice and patients.”

The telehealth-world politics of this consortium might make an interesting study. We can only scratch the surface and wonder… According to the UK’s Telecare Services Association, its chief executive Trevor Single attended the original kick-off meeting in Australia. Who is not ‘in’ is quite interesting. Tunstall, the instigator of 3ML in England and which has a strong presence in Australia, is notable by its absence. Also missing are significant providers such as Silver Cross and OzCare, and the leading Australian universities and institutions in telehealth research. The dominant partner appears to be BT which, as our UK readers will  be aware, led by its Clinical Director, Global Market Development at BT Global Services, Angela Single, has ambitions to dominate the telehealth world.

Related media items:
The Australian, May 2013: BT leads big push to roll out national telehealth services
 ARN, March 2014: Telehealth could save “unsustainable” federal health budget, according to a white paper

Age UK publishes its 3rd Care in Crisis report

March 14, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

“Care in Crisis 2014“, the third edition of their Care in Crisis report was published by Age UK last [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Age-UK-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]week.  This is the first update since the 2012 report and and contains the details of funding for social care in the UK.

Age UK say that the Care Bill which is currently progressing though Parliament and has just completed all its stages in the House of Commons, has addressed some of the concerns about the framework for care and support for older people. Also, the government’s commitment to transfer £3.8 billion from the NHS (Better Care Fund) for joint NHS and local council decisions about funding for health and care services from 2015 is seen as a positive move.

However this funding can only mitigate and not solve the huge reduction in the availability of services caused by a combination of the recent real term cuts in spending and the increase in demand due to demographics. Between 2005/6 and 2010/11 public funding for older people’s social care stagnated and from 2010/11 to 2013/14 public funding for older people’s social care (including transfers from the NHS to councils) decreased by 10 per cent in real terms according to the government’s Health and Social Care Information Centre. This reduction in spending in the face of increasing demand has meant that more and more councils are only providing care for those in substantial or critical need.
Without substantial growth in the overall funding envelope, says Age UK, the Government’s aspirations to “transform the social care system to focus on prevention and the needs and goals of people requiring care” cannot be achieved.

This well researched report has some excellent data and an analysis of future funding requirements which would be invaluable for anyone trying to understand the current state of the UK care scene.

Doro opens first store, in Paris

March 14, 2014 | by

Swedish firm Doro, best known for its easy-to-use mobile phones has announced the opening of its first [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Doro-Secure-211.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]store. The company, which bought the small French telecare technology provider Birdy Technology in 2011, says that the store, in Paris, will enable them to “get closer to the end user”.

Doro say in their press release that the store will enable them to show the full range of their offerings which are listed as smart devices, mobile phones and telecare solutions. The Birdy Box telecare hub, from their acquisition of Birdy Technology, has now been fully rebranded as Doro Gateway, part of the Doro Care offering. In addition, according to a quote from CEO Jérôme Arnaud, the store will enable Doro to increase its direct sales.

“The store in Paris will be followed by a gradual launch of Doro’s own e-commerce, planned to be introduced in several key markets during 2014” concludes the release, but no information is available as to what Doro plans to offer in the e-commerce arena.

Tunstall Americas’ change at the top

March 14, 2014 | by

BREAKING NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Casey Pittock has been appointed the new President and CEO of Tunstall Americas, replacing Bradley Waugh. No official announcement yet by Tunstall, but there is a video on YouTube (below) from the Medical Alert Monitoring Association conference this past Wednesday (12 March) with Tunstall Healthcare Group CEO Paul Stobart (himself only about 100 days on the job–TTA’s exclusive in November) introducing his “three days in the job” Tunstall Americas CEO (at 03:41 to end). Mr. Pittock’s LinkedIn profile also reflects his new company and title.

Mr. Pittock’s prior positions were generally with smaller, entrepreneurial companies. He was previously VP Sales and Marketing with BAM Labs, developer of a ‘smart bed’ monitor partnering with Stanley Healthcare, acting President of BlueLibris digital health trackers (sold to Numera Health) and President-CEO of once-promising fall detector/alert Wellcore which formally closed down last year. He was a founder of alert company TelCARE, sold to Lifeline (now Philips Lifeline). Mr. Waugh had been President and CEO of NaviNet at the time of its purchase and joined Tunstall shortly thereafter in September 2012–a 19 month tenure. The Tunstall Americas leadership team webpage has not been changed as of Monday 17 March, 23:20 US-EDT. Tunstall is still officially headquartered in NYC (Long Island City), but while Mr. Waugh was from the Rhode Island area (and moved many Tunstall operations there), Mr. Pittock’s LinkedIn profile locates him in a posh section of Silicon Valley in California. It will be interesting to see if there’s also a HQ move in store for Tunstall.

[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]

Tunstall, CATCH, HMA Digital developing mobile platform

March 14, 2014 | by

Tunstall is making the news again, this time in developing a mobile platform for healthcare management, information and to support independent living for people with long-term conditions. The mHealth Assist concept is being designed in collaboration with two parties:  the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) at the University of Sheffield, and HMA Digital Marketing. CATCH’s contribution focuses on needs of vulnerable people–dementia, visual and communication impairments–and will be defining what is most useful. HMA is the lead digital developer for the working mobile prototype to be tested with various user groups. The marketer and project is also supported by investment from the Creative England NHS Digital Fund. Beyond this the release is unfortunately vague on specifics for the mobile platform, with no mention of Tunstall’s tablet-based ‘my world’ [TTA 21 Feb].

3D printed iPhone stethoscope–by 15 year old

March 14, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/product-img1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Give a 15 year old with a cardiologist father a 3D printer and voilá, you get a stethoscope that snaps on to the back of an iPhone. The diaphragm on the back of the Steth IO channels the low frequency sound of a heartbeat through a network of tubes leading to the microphone, and an app visualizes and records heartbeat. Data can then be sent to EMRs and telemedicine consults. Suman Mulumudi, the designer from Seattle, designed the first version of the case in two weeks and has now formed his own company, Stratoscientific. According to Digital Trends, the Steth IO is now going through FDA approval.

Looking at the future of ‘aging services’

March 14, 2014 | by

In the US aging services is defined as the combination of public and private support older adults need as they age, encompassing healthcare, housing, transportation, nutrition etc. What will they be like in the future? Joseph Coughlin, director of MIT AgeLab, spoke on a panel at the American Society on Aging’s recent General Session on the Future of Aging on how aging services will change to meet the four points of ‘new’ summarized in his BigThink article: the new consumer (quite different than the present old), new technology (robot companions, proactive sensing of health changes, connective communications), new strategic partnerships (public-private, retailers, senior housing providers, financial services) and the new aging services professional (a blend of technologist, gerontologist, social worker, clinician, business person and holistic care provider.)  For those with institutional or library access, the Oxford Journals Public Policy & Aging Report has two additional articles by Mr. Coughlin expanding on these points.

Yecco Update (UK)

March 13, 2014 | by

Having previously covered Yecco on this site, we thought readers might be interested to know that the service has been completely updated, with additional features to come. What follows are extracts from their press release, appropriately adapted; we have not checked out any of these features ourselves.

Yecco is a free private network that stores all users’ vital information in one safe place. Aimed at older and disabled people and those who care for them, it’s a social media platform, connecting friends, families and professionals

It is free to download from the app store to any mobile or tablet device.  (more…)

Medtronic and Aetna: the good and bad implications

March 12, 2014 | by

A break in the ‘Perpetual Battle of Stalingrad’ that is also a Pointer to the Big2Big Future

Last week US insurance giant Aetna announced a partnership with medical device Gargantua Medtronic to pilot a program for uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes. Aetna will use claims data to identify 300 members who meet candidate standards for insulin pump therapy, Medtronic will reach out to them through their physicians to enroll them in the Getting2Goal program–as long as the insulin pump is Medtronic’s. The two-year program’s metrics will evaluate overall health outcomes and medical costs such as reduced ER and hospital stays. This is a fairly solid, albeit small N program for both. Other Aetna/Medtronic partnerships are a program for congestive heart failure (CHF) detection announced at HIMSS14, where Aetna plans to monitor device data to track the extra water retention that is usually an indicator of progressing heart failure; and an implanted glucometer program to monitor insulin levels for diabetics to avoid hypoglycemia.

Is this a Pointer to a Limited Future for Small, Innovative Independent Companies? Is this now signalling the US’s Big Payers only want to deal with Big Medical Device? “Value-based arrangements with companies like Medtronic” (release) make it ‘one-stop shopping’ for payers when it comes to physician relationships, IT implementation, data sharing and analysis. Will the end result be that payers stifle the revenue opportunity for small to midsize innovators by saying ‘don’t bother to knock”? Are these financially and technologically the best solution for the patient and for outcomes? (It’s like specifying only one hip or knee implant for all, and may sound familiar to our UK readers who have been following our recent articles on a certain telecare provider.) Aetna release, MassDevice, MedCityNews

Proteus to build UK plant, work with NHS; PM’s 5G may save the day

March 11, 2014 | by

The Proteus smart pill, once found to be so ‘creepy’, is making its first significant international move by planning to build a UK plant ultimately capable of turning out 10 billion units annually, and also partnering with several NHS-affiliated groups: Eastern Academic Health Science Network (EAHSN), The Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) and Oxford University, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and Oxford Academic Health Science Network (OAHSN). According to their CEO Andrew Thompson (quoted in Mobihealthnews), this starts the long NHS tendering and commissioning process. Beyond the sensors in the Proteus pill, the signal is picked up by a disposable patch receiver which transmits via Bluetooth to a smartphone and a tracking app. The business model in their current and future projected digital health devices is based on delivering an outcome, providing vital information about medication-taking behaviors and how your body is responding, not selling the device. How this will blend with the NHS model is a good guess, but the article points out that this may take up some of the loss of pharmaceutical manufacturing business in the UK–a big plus.

And all the bandwidth that Proteus will take up will be no problem, since UK and Germany will be jointly developing 5G wireless networks in the next two years which verily will gulp down all that data, along with having all your devices share the IOT (Internet of Things) chat line while you fast forward that 800 MB movie. The team consists of the University of Dresden, King’s College University in London and the University of Surrey. Note PM David Cameron’s writing pad versus Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tablet/folder combo at the photo taken at the CeBIT 2014 announcement. Daily Mail. Hat tip on both items to reader Mike Short and our own Editor Charles Lowe.