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.
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:
- Travel the world
- See my family settled
- Live to 100
- Write a bestselling novel
- Win the lottery
- Buy a house
- Learn a language
- Be financially secure (more…)
Medical informatics in dermatology course (NY)
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
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
[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…)
Another great free event – come to DHACA-day on 7th October in Liverpool! (UK)
DHACA, the Digital Health and Care Alliance, formed earlier this year and already past the 250 members level, is holding its second DHACA-day on 7th October, at Anfield Stadium (yes free tours will be available during the day for those interested).
DHACA, currently part of the TSB-funded dallas programme, was established to grow the use of digital technology in the delivery of health & social care through promoting interoperability and scale. DHACA will be the space where members collaborate on requirements and on solution development, resulting in things being done once, and shared. to achieve this, DHACA is developing a range of member-driven Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that will (more…)
A trio of September meetings
AAL/Bucharest, The Guardian and Kings Fund
As previously highlighted on Telehealth & Telecare Aware, last week was indeed the week of connected health events. This editor made it to three:
AAL/Bucharest
As very much of a supporting act – presenting to researchers on how to do business with the different health organisations across Europe – my principal challenge was getting to the city after the ‘information’ kiosk in the airport told me the hotel I was booked into didn’t exist. Thankfully they were wrong. What I saw of the conference looked good, though there were some bizarre rules on who could have free WiFi.
The Guardian
Wednesday evening brought the Guardian information sharing event which proved especially interesting. (more…)
A few observations from September’s Health Technology Forum London
On Wednesday 17th September, Health Technology Forum members gathered at Baker Botts’ office in London for a couple of key presentations on legal aspects of medical software.
The first, by Joe Hagan-Brown, Regulatory Affairs Specialist at the MHRA, covered the EU’s medical device-specific regulation. The second, by Alex Denoon of Lawford Davies Denoon, was a presentation on the EU’s data protection regulation.
Readers with long memories will recall that I summarised medical device-specific regulation a while back; much of what Joe said added colour to that summary. A few comments he made are perhaps worthy of repetition (more…)
What’s the big thing behind the Cognizant acquisition of TriZetto?
The $2.7 billion acquisition of HIT payer-provider services company TriZetto by IT/BPO outsourcer Cognizant indicates the value that large, largely offshored companies are seeing in health data. According to Fortune, “The combined company has more than $3 billion in healthcare revenue, as well as about $1.5 billion of potential revenue synergies over the next five years from which Cognizant can cull further gains.” Cognizant’s healthcare and life sciences sector is about 26 percent of their $8.84 billion total annual revenue, but what they haven’t had is the provider-payer software and TriZetto’s IP.
So why the big number (which exits the investors quite nicely) which nearly equals the value of the combined companies in healthcare? The trend this Editor has spotted (more…)
A five-point rebuttal to ‘Accelerometers, false positives/negatives and fall detection’
One of our most popular articles ever on TTA has been Tom Doris’ analysis of accelerometers in fall detection. His point of view is as a developer in digital health technology. For your consideration, we are posting this extended response from an executive experienced in deployment of both traditional PERS and now PERS with accelerometer-based fall detection in older adult populations.
Andy Schoonover is President of VRI, a leading provider of PERS, MPERS, and telehealth monitoring services founded in 1989. VRI currently actively monitors approximately 110,000 clients in the US–and a long-time TTA reader.
Tom Doris wrote a post on September 17th, laying out the problems with the use of accelerometers and fall detection devices especially in regards to PERS. After reading Tom’s post I felt compelled to respond with the following five points on why it’s important to continue to promote fall detection within PERS and MPERS.
1) In the 1 out of 100 case that my grandma falls and can’t physically press a button (sudden fainting due to hypoglycemia for example) would I prefer she have a regular PERS, which definitely won’t indicate a fall, or a PERS with fall detector which will more than likely indicate a fall? If it were my grandma I’d go with the “more than likely” option.
2) If my grandma had too many false positives then I’d ask her: you can use regular PERS with no fall detection or you can use PERS with fall detection where you will get called a couple more times per month. Which would you prefer? Hint: she’ll say fall detection. About 5 percent of our customers are annoyed by the false positives. (more…)
Dependability Telecare Assessment tool released
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/DTA-manual.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]From gdewsbury, a joint endeavor of independent consultants Guy Dewsbury PhD and Debbie Ballard, both well-known figures in UK telecare circles, is their development of a unique tool to determine the best telecare support for a person. The Dependability Telecare Assessment (DTA) tool is available in manual form for practitioners and professionals who assess, provide or install telecare, including assistive technology. The DTA is also relevant to the academic sector as a learning resource; currently it is core reading for the postgraduate telecare course at University of Edinburgh. Dr Dewsbury states that it is the “culmination of many years of academic ethnographic research with older and disabled people in the design of telecare technology to support them.” It also advocates the right amount of telecare, and not more: “Only install sufficient telecare to enable a person. Excessive use of telecare could disable a person.” It’s available in spiral-bound form for what seems to be to this Editor a pittance at £19.99 (free shipping in the UK plus postage for international). Order link here; see PDF or Dr Dewsbury’s website above for additional information.
Change needed in ‘Keeping the NHS Great’
Technology enabled care services (TECS) are the key, according to this study headed by the Good Governance Institute (GGI) and supported by Tunstall Healthcare. Whatever your thoughts are about the latter, the problem pointed out in the study is valid; that TECS (another acronym to be added to the arsenal encompassing both telecare and telehealth; not a ‘telehealthcare’ in sight) is thought of as ‘too difficult’ and because the system has not changed, people are being denied life-changing support and technology. GGI surveyed healthcare professionals in its networks plus organized a workshop with the Tunstall Clinical Advisory Group for more qualitative information.
According to the report, 85 percent of respondents said that telehealth was “very important” (50 percent) or “important” (35 percent) in developing pathways for patients with long-term conditions and better management of their care in the community. The overwhelming majority (79 percent) responded by saying they would be prepared to contribute to some or all of the costs, or introducing telehealth from their own budgets. (more…)
Lively telecare system adds smartwatch-flavored PERS
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Lively_safetywatch_captioned_June-2014.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Lively home telecare system, which uses a series of passive activity sensors wirelessly connected to a cellular monitoring hub, announced a ‘safety watch’ addition to its system. The wristband has a watch form factor, is waterproof and contains an emergency button with analog/digital option on its time/date watch face. The smartwatch-ish features are medication reminders and a pedometer for step tracking. When out of home, the wristband tethers to an Android (only) smartphone. Battery is good for about six months. If the button is pushed, there is a ‘countdown’ during which a call center attempts to reach the user by phone (watch is not two-way voice) prior to dispatching emergency (more…)
‘Soft’ exoskeleton gains $2.9 million in DARPA funding
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/warrior-web-award-1.png” thumb_width=”120″ /]The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering an additional $2.9 million in development funding for its Soft Exosuit currently in prototype. The Wyss exoskeleton concept uses sensors, fabric that mimics muscles and tendons in addition to intuitive controls and a power supply. DARPA has been supporting several levels of research for some years as part of Warrior Web and other initiatives, which your Editors have been following. Exoskeletons in use right now are designed to assist humans in heavy lifting, or (more…)
Accelerometers, false positives/negatives and fall detection
Tom Doris, KeepUs project founder and technical lead, responds to our recent post [TTA 28 Aug] critiquing Philips Lifeline with AutoAlert’s accelerometer and its possible failure to detect a fall which resulted in the death of a Massachusetts woman. His analysis concludes that accelerometers on their own are surprisingly inaccurate. The false positives/negatives may be minimal but they do exist, and they should not be the only indicator of a fall.
Mr Doris has a PhD in computer science and was formerly an R&D engineer at Intel. Earlier in TTA: 4 Oct 13, 22 July.
Falling Down is a Surprisingly Hard Problem
More than 250,000 people suffer a hip fracture in the US every year. More than 20 percent will die within 12 months as a consequence of their fall. One in three who lived independently before the fracture will need at least a year of rehabilitation in a nursing home. While rehabilitation methods are improving, the single most important factor influencing the long-term outcome is the length of time between the fall and getting medical attention at a hospital. A few hours more or less makes the difference between life and death.
People are living longer, and current projections make it clear that elderly people will have to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. You just can’t provide residential care for 20 percent of the population. Smartphones and wearable technology have the potential to dramatically improve eldercare. A relatively cheap smartphone can track activity and location. Modern platforms analyze the data in real-time over the internet and can, in theory, immediately spot when something is wrong and raise an alert.
The theory doesn’t always work however. (more…)
AARP/Intel’s simplified tablet–insulting to 50+?
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Earlier this month, AARP announced its marketing of the RealPad, a simplified 7.85″ tablet. Its positioning is clearly aiming at the less tech-savvy cohort over 50. With much fanfare, AARP is touting its partnership with Intel in this ” intuitive, easy-to-use software interface for RealPad” on Android KitKat 4.4. It will be available at Walmart this fall at $189 (preorder via AARP) and it has the requisite big icons, front and back cameras and free 24/7 customer service. Release.
The Eye Rolls. We know that the AARP bread ‘n’ butter is creating loyalty for their products by catering to those who pay for their association’s services, but a press release headline like this sounds tinny to many of the younger and not-so-young people in this age group:
AARP ANNOUNCES REALPAD, FIRST OF ITS KIND TABLET DESIGNED FOR AMERICANS 50+ APPREHENSIVE ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
Powered by Intel, RealPad to Serve as Digital Gateway to Over 70 Million Americans 50+ (more…)
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