Telehealth and telecare: 45 minutes on BBC Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ (UK)

August 26, 2014 | by

‘You and Yours’ is a long-running BBC UK consumer affairs programme that is regular listening for many people at home at midday on weekdays. Its estimated audience is three and a half million, many of whom will be of an ‘older’ age. Yesterday, 25 August 2014, they devoted a whole programme to telecare and teleheath and a good job they made of it too, thanks to their guests Dave Horsfield who runs the Mi Liverpool DALLAS project, Claire Medd, Clinical Director for Care Innovations and Professor Trisha Greenhalgh. If you want to get a sense of what is happening in the UK, listen to it.

Towards the end there is some discussion of the WSD RCT and we are reminded that the 3millionlives (3ML) initiative has been quietly shelved as projects like Mi Liverpool move on.

The whole programme can be heard again for up to one year from today on BBC iPlayer, here. Listening is restricted to the UK – others will need to spoof their location using a UK-based proxy server – try this VPN Freedome app from F-Secure (free six-day trial) to listen on your mobile device.

Patients should be less engaged, not more

August 26, 2014 | by | 4 Comments

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Thomas.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]What, the very premise of ‘increasing consumer engagement’ doesn’t work? Whatever will all the (startups, websites, gamification, personalized health, behavior modification, Quantified Selfing) do?

What the chronically ill really want is less engagement with, less time spent on their particular condition or disease–certainly not to be forced into Sisyphean tasks. What this Editor has termed the ‘perpetual Battle of Stalingrad’ of self-monitoring (especially apparent in diabetes) means extra effort with minimal/no reward, never achieving ‘normal’ and never catching a break. Glen Tullman, former CEO of Allscripts and currently a healthcare investor with 7WireVentures, points out that the endless promotion of ‘consumer engagement’ is not only patronizing, but also wrong-headed in blaming the patient for not managing their illness their way. People want simply to live their lives, not their problems.

  • “What if we ask patients—or “health consumers” as I call them—to do less rather than more?” (more…)

Testing the ‘blast response’ of synthetic bone

August 26, 2014 | by

While protection against concussive and sub-concussive head blows that lead to brain trauma (TBI) and may lead long-term to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is being developed in several areas, by DARPA, US Army research, universities and the NFL‘s helmet providers, the final test has to involve cranial bone similar to those belonging to 20-30 year olds. Testing on humans is out of the question, deceased animal and older human crania are dissimilar and surgical implants do not react like real bone.  The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) along with university partners are developing synthetic cranial bone that behaves like real 20-30 year old bone when subjected to combat-intensity blasts, for testing devices to mitigate the adverse effects and/or track the effects of those blasts.  Armed With Science

CHS data breach estimated price tag: $150 million

August 26, 2014 | by

Huge price tag, is the solution more ‘white hat hacker/crackers’, get a clue, C-Suite and why China leads in hacking (important updates!)

Dan Munro in Forbes got out his calculator and estimated that the cost to Community Health Services, based on prior incidents, may be as high as $150 million. He bases it on recent poster children Columbia-NY Presbyterian and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. The message to healthcare business executives: pay now–by beefing up HIT and data security–or pay later in rush remediation of data breaches like identity theft protection, Office of Civil Rights-HHS fines, potential insurance fraud,  legal charges and damages awarded. On the latter, it took only hours after the announcement for the first class action to be filed in Alabama.

Of course cybersecurity experts, particularly the ‘white hat’ or ‘cracker’ variety, are in increasingly high demand across all business areas and internationally–and there aren’t many at that exalted level or even a rung or two below. Their commensurate compensation is one factor, but calls to hire less expensively overseas as explored in this article are, in this Editor’s estimation, a two-edged sword: much hacking, many sleeper bugs and ‘backdooring’ are engineered overseas (China, Russia, the Balkans, India); what is to say that these ‘former hackers’ aren’t playing both games? Cybersecurity’s hiring crisis: A troubling trajectory (ZDNet)

The C-Suite Must Care…The Workforce Must Be Aware

Since data security and data breaches threaten to swamp many sectors (universities and colleges, even more than healthcare, rank as the most vulnerable), the solution may not be wholly in the code. (more…)

European celebrity, cash and consultation: any interest?

August 23, 2014 | by

Some interesting opportunities!

Firstly, how about nominating your favourite European Web Entrepreneur for a Europioneers Award? There are four categories including ‘youth’ and ‘gazelle’, so plenty of scope there.

Secondly perhaps you might like to participate in an EU health & wellbeing Horizon 2020 project bid? The 2014-2015 work program is here. More details on the Healthtech and Medicines KTN site.

Thirdly and finally (more…)

Aetna’s CarePass passing into history

August 22, 2014 | by

Another Aetna Healthagen initiative is shutting its virtual doors–the much-touted CarePass aggregator for mobile health apps. Available to both Aetna and non-Aetna members, it incorporated leading apps such as Fitbit, Jawbone, Withings, MapMyFitness and BodyMedia. A dimming of its consumer/mobile health star which burned so brightly from late 2012 through last year was evident at this year’s HIMSS. CarePass was nowhere to be seen, and the iTriage patient engagement tool was off in the shadows [TTA 28 Feb]. From its redone website, Healthagen is increasingly concentrated on core areas for payers: ACOs, clinical decision support, data management and health information exchanges. MobiHealthNews broke the exclusive including Aetna’s confirmation and also the quiet departure of two CarePass executives from the company which took place earlier this summer. (more…)

The smartphone as great healthcare leveler: Eric Topol

August 22, 2014 | by

Eric Topol MD, cardiologist, Chief Medical Advisor for the rebooted (but so far quiet) AT&T ForHealth and Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health, is no stranger to the ‘big statement’ and is well known as an advocate for all things mHealthy. For at least two years, he has been promoting the smartphone’s ‘equalizer’ capabilities in health not only via apps and ‘add ons’ but also as a storehouse or central repository for individual health information, including genetic screening, which can be transmitted onward to a practitioner, lab or PHR. Dr Topol’s ‘big statements’ were fully on display in his keynote at HealthLeaders’ CFO Exchange conference. A promoter of the ‘creative destruction of medicine’ (the title of his most recent book, WSJ article), he believes that everything from the office visit (virtualized) (more…)

Five ‘Wellvilles’ found for five year experiment (US)

August 22, 2014 | by

Tech angel investor, philanthropist and astronaut-in-training Esther Dyson and her HICCup (Health Initiative Coordinating Council) team have picked the five model communities with populations less than 100,000 on what is now dubbed ‘The Way to Wellville’. They are:  Muskegon, Michigan; Lake County, California; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Clatsop County, Oregon; and Niagara Falls, New York. Each of the towns will spend between (more…)

Ding! Telecare developer Healthsense raises $10 million in 8th round

August 22, 2014 | by

Sensor-based remote monitoring company and certified Grizzled Pioneer Healthsense has completed a raise of $10 million, its eighth round of funding since its founding in 2003. This round was led by new investor Mansa Capital with previous investors Radius Ventures and Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. Mansa has current investments in only two other companies–smartphone med adherence platform HealthPrize Technologies ($3 million from Mansa just yesterday) and employer behavioral health risk manager E4 Health (CrunchBase) with a third, Independent Living Systems, listed on its website, but was a prior investor in well-known Athenahealth. Earlier investors Ziegler HealthVest Management (2007) and West Health did not join in this round. The VentureBeat article alludes to home monitoring pilots with home health providers Humana Cares/Senior Bridge and Fallon Health–odd since Healthsense has always had units in home health. Last year Healthsense bought rival telecare company WellAWARE [TTA 2 July 2013] after the latter experienced difficulty (more…)

FBI ‘Flash Alerts’ health organizations about hacker attacks (US)

August 22, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/keep-calm-and-encrypt-your-data-5.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Late yesterday Reuters reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a ‘flash alert’ to healthcare organizations, warning they are being targeted by “…malicious actors targeting healthcare related systems, perhaps for the purpose of obtaining Protected Healthcare Information (PHI) and/or Personally Identifiable Information (PII),” and that “These actors have also been seen targeting multiple companies in the healthcare and medical device industry typically targeting valuable intellectual property, such as medical device and equipment development data.” These alerts are sent to businesses by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to help prevent cyberattacks. This follows an April FBI alert warning healthcare companies that their security systems were lax compared to other sectors, making them highly vulnerable to hacker attacks. Our Monday report on the Community Health System attack on 4.5 million records at the the #2 US publicly traded hospital operator  (more…)

Annual SIHI conference “Informatics to deliver integrated care” 10th September

August 21, 2014 | by

If perchance in spite of our previous set of suggestions, you still aren’t booked for an event on the 10th September, why not whizz down to the University of Portsmouth’s annual SIHI conference, this year entitled “Informatics to deliver integrated care”?

Booking costs a mere £95 and is here. Last year’s event, on Big Data was exceptionally good; looking at the array of excellent speakers, it will clearly be another brilliant event.

I am just so sorry I am already committed for that date.

The NICE way to a long and healthy life

August 21, 2014 | by

The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) has produced truly excellent draft guidance entitled Dementia, disability and frailty in later life – mid-life approaches to prevention.

As pointed out by David Oliver’s Kings Fund blog, which alerted this Editor to the NICE document, what is particularly exciting about these guidelines are “the principles and linking themes behind them, and the fact that, instead of just advising clinicians, the guidelines include direct advice to the government on health and wider social policy”.

Put another way, this document represents a holistic approach to coordinating the principal health drivers for a long and healthy old age: a major step to helping people achieve the vision of looking forward to old age. The table on page 15 of the draft emphasises just how wide (more…)

The drip of data breaches now a flood: 4.5 million records hacked–update

August 18, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/keep-calm-and-encrypt-your-data-5.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Breaking News–updated at end  Earlier this year [TTA 23 Apr] this Editor commented on the fourth annual update from the Ponemon Institute plus a qualitative study from IS Solutions that contained mostly unwelcome news for healthcare IT departments in the US. Ponemon’s new estimate of data breaches’ cost per year: $5.6 billion. While making some progress in the existential threat that data breaches present to institutional and personal security, both reports also outlined the disconnect between HIT professionals busy dealing with and sealing off the mice of internal causes versus the looming, huge menace of the external criminal threat. We now know that Godzilla has arrived and he’s stomping ‘n’ chomping. Community Health Systems of Franklin, Tennessee claimed today as part of a SEC regulatory filing that hackers originating in China breached sensitive information in 4.5 million patient records accumulated over five years during April and June using cyberattacks and sophisticated malware.  (more…)

More (much more) on tDCS brain stimulation research

August 18, 2014 | by

Prepare to be shocked! Can brain enhancing techniques via  transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) be the future of performance enhancement? Will it be the future basis of recovery from some mental illnesses, stroke and other neurological diseases? It’s a hot research area, according to this Atlantic article. Researchers at DARPA, University of New Mexico, George Mason University, Stanford University, Oxford University, University of Göttingen and this Editor’s local City College of New York (CCNY) are hot on the trail. Four areas being investigated are (more…)

Now a sensor for healthier necks and spines (TW/CN)

August 18, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fineck.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Would you like to monitor your neck and spine as an aid to fitness, better posture and to avoid strain? This Editor, who has a history of both neck and back problems, surely would–and it’s an area not covered by current fitness monitors. Fineck, developed by the China/Taiwan company VEARI with central Taiwan’s Sport and Health Research Center at National Chung Hsing University of Taiwan, claims to have developed a waterproof, reasonably presentable (left) necklace sensor along with analytics. It will send alerts via smartphone when it determines bad body posture or too much inactivity. ‘Neck-Health’ pictures demonstrate what you should do. While not clinical grade like devices such as those from Australia’s dorsaVi, it opens a whole new pursuit for QSers! Fineck website. VentureBeat

All that Quantified Self data? Drowning doctors don’t want to see it.

August 18, 2014 | by | 3 Comments
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/reduce-documentation1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Our long-time readers will remember Questions # 3, 4 and 5 of The Five Big Questions (FBQ*). They have not lost their salience as doctors are rejecting the not-terribly-accurate ‘telehealth’ data [TTA 10 May] generated by popular fitness trackers such as Fitbit, Misfit Shine and Jawbone. We do note that Apple’s Health/HealthKit has trotted out alliances with Mayo Clinic and Epic Systems (EHR) on apps and integrating data into an PHR [TTA 3 June], as well as Samsung’s SAMI [2 June] funding a University of California (UCSF) research center and (of course) Google. But this article confirms (more…)