Courtesy of mHealth Insight/3G Doctor, David Doherty takes the LIFE magazine approach and delightfully, you feel like you are there. He hosted a get-together at his booth on Monday (many pics), stops by AliveCor, Alere Connect (hello Kent Dicks), the Venture+ Forum (see Lois Drapin’s earlier article; hello Richard Scarfo, director of the Summit and Pat Salber of HealthTechHatch crowdfunder and the DoctorWeighsIn), VNA Health Group, investor in many things Esther Dyson, Google Glass Explorers, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch and the ‘panini generation’ courtesy of AT&T ForHealth. But you’ll have to page all the way down to see the last shot of an ‘wild, wooly and yo-ho-ho’ AliveCor demo in My thoughts on the 2013 mHealth Summit as it happens…
3D printing for medical uses spotlighted
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Heart-blood-volume_0.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A newcomer to the health tech blog scene, InternetMedicine from John Bennett MD of Miami, Florida, presents an overview on 3D printing plus videos: printing tissue (including the cartilage of a human ear), customized prosthetic limbs, customized exoskeletons (see Editor Charles’ bionic arm article), a personalized airway splint (caught at the NYeC DHC), bone scaffolds and cardiac models. 2014 may be the year of 3D printing for medical. 6 Promising Medical Applications of 3-D Printing
“Ageing Well – how can technology help?” – RSM conference report
The Royal Society of Medicine’s Telemedicine & eHealth Section held its annual conference at the end of November, on the topic of how technology can help people age well. As the organiser I was not able to be in every session, so the following are the highlights of what I was present for. Many people commented that the quality of presentations was extremely high; feedback was very good.
Baroness Masham of Ilton opened the conference describing loneliness as one of the challenges of ageing well.
Jon Rouse, Director General for Social Care, Local Government & Care Partnerships, Dept. of Health, continued the theme explaining that older people will increasingly want to continue earning money and play a full role in society: the antidote to loneliness. (more…)
Wearables: from the bionic to the bizarre
Following on from our recent item on wearables for new-borns comes a recent item on a “bionic arm” to assist people with muscle weakness or whose job requires them to (more…)
Telefonica and Capita to partner on eHealth
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Telefonica-logojpg.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Five months after pulling out of the telehealth market in the UK, Spain’s Telefonica has struck a partnership to develop eHealth solutions. In a recent press release Telefonica announced a “global partnership agreement” with Capita “to deploy innovative communications and telehealth technologies”. According to the release Telefonica is set to enhance its portfolio of eHealth services with clinical content.
One of the three criteria for choosing Capita as its partner is stated as Capita’s NHS Direct website for the UK Department of Health. However, the same NHS Direct service was said by a Department of Health spokesman earlier this year to have “struggled to meet the standards required” (more…)
Is the ‘last mile’ of app certification efficacy metrics?
News and announcements around app certification definitely were hot topics in the past week or so, but are they more heat than light? Do these certifications adequately address efficacy? Stephanie Baum, in her follow-up to the Happtique kerfuffle in MedCityNews, opens up the discussion with the proposition: “It seems like there needs to be some way to prove that apps actually help people.” Bradley Merrill Thompson of Epstein Becker & Green points out “It’s certainly useful to know that an app works from a software perspective reliably, but it is even more valuable to know that the app can actually improve health.” While Happtique certification standards have a gap here, this Editor would point out that they were evolved nearly two years ago when the reporting/analysis needed for this was largely not available. Newer programs such as Johns Hopkins’ mHealth Evidence and the new IMS Health AppScript [TTA 15 Dec] can dip into the ‘big data’ pool far more effectively. Will Happtique be able to address this, or leave the ‘last mile’ to others? And what is the real and quantifiable demand for app certification anyway? Health app prescribing by physicians is a question mark in this Editor’s observation; the larger market may be health plans and programs such as Partners HealthCare’s Wellocracy, Cigna’s GoYou and Aetna’s CarePass.
EHR interoperability redux for VA, Department of Defense (US)
Back in late February, the US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs announced that they would not achieve their goal of a single EHR by 2017, and would stick with their creaky AHLTA and VistA systems for the foreseeable future [TTA 3 April]–along with the general lack of interoperability–eyes rolled at the $1 billion down the drain, but seemingly not much else budged. (And this does not include the $4 billion spent on failed updates and fixes in both systems–TTA’s ‘Pondering the Squandering’, 27 July) To this Editor’s utter shock, the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), agreed to by the House and Senate this week, mandates a plan for either interoperability or a single system by 31 January–about 6 weeks from now–and to adopt it by 2016. Moreover, both systems must be interoperable with private providers based on national standards by 1 October 2014. A close reading of the NextGov article indicates that the bill adds levels of complexity and perhaps unworkability. Getthereitis, anyone?–or does this sound like Healthcare.gov, redux? FierceMobileHealthcare
And it takes a grad student to find a major info security flaw in VistA. (more…)
Further evidence of brain affect of sub-concussive blows
The body of research on the effect of sub-concussive blows to the brain is still developing. This recent study published this month in Neurology (abstract only) of 80 nonconcussed varsity football and ice hockey players and 79 non–contact sport athletes in a Division I NCAA athletic program concluded that head impact exposure negatively affected verbal learning and memory plus changed white matter by the end of the season. The subjects were evaluated before and after the season with brain scans plus learning and memory tests. All wore instrumented helmets that recorded the acceleration-time history of the head following impact. “A total of 20 percent (more…)
IMS Health enters health app ranking, prescribing
Global healthcare informatics provider IMS Health during mHealth Summit announced its entry into mHealth prescribing and evaluation with AppScript. They also are getting into the development standards business with AppNucleus, a hosting platform that from the description, will guide developers in designing secure, HIPAA and HITECH Act compliant apps using IMS Health information and data analytics. AppScript uses a proprietary methodology called AppScore to classify and evaluate apps based on functionality, peer and patient reviews, certifications, and their potential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care. According to Information Week Healthcare, AppScore includes 25 criteria developed by IMS and its physician advisors (more…)
23andMe as Rorschach test
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/rorschach1.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Just like the good doctor’s ink blot, there’s a lot of ‘reading into’ the travails of genomic ‘spit test’ 23andMe. Blogger PF Anderson, the Emerging Technologies Librarian for the University of Michigan Health Sciences Libraries, has collected them in pithy quotes and citations. For your weekend or holiday exploration: Collecting Thoughts on the FDA vs. 23andMe
Happtique halts app certification on data security concerns
Health app industry self-policing and ‘trusted sourcing’ credibility at stake?
Updated below. Last week, after Happtique announced its ‘Inaugural Class’ of 19 certified apps [TTA 2 Dec]–certified on their standards of operability, privacy, security and content–a young HIT software developer, Harold Smith III, discovered some major security flaws in two of them: MyNetDiary’s Diabetes Tracker and TactioHealth5. User names and passwords were stored in plain text files–not encrypted–and Mr. Smith then subjected them to a ‘man in the middle attack’ (MITM) which he explains as “…where a nefarious source intercepts your communication from the App to the server. They decrypt the SSL connection, pull out your data, and send the data on to the server.” Both failed. Worse, the ePHI (ePersonal Health Information) of both were not sent in a secured way and not stored in secure, encrypted files. After advising both companies of the problems (including one of these companies in person at the mHealth Summit), as well as Happtique, and receiving no satisfactory response after days passed, Mr. Smith went public Tuesday and Wednesday on his blog mHealth and Mobile Development. Both articles deserve careful reading. Our readers with software development background will appreciate 1) his meticulousness and 2) his ire not only at Happtique but their validator, Intertek, at the poor technical quality of their vetting; the non-techies like your Editor will appreciate the clarity of his writing.
Small blog, big impact today. Happtique has suspended its certification program (website notice) and on its website now has revised certification standards. Regarding the credibility of Mr. Smith, (more…)
Feros Care ponders what is beyond the telehealth pilot
The trouble with trials and pilots is they come to end. As the two-year pilot in Coffs Harbour, Australia, looms ahead Glen Payne, CIO of Feros Care has told iTnews that he is not looking forward to the day he has to go back to his elderly participants to uninstall the equipment.
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ferros-Care-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Under the service, participants are equipped with and trained to use technology such as a digital thermometer, blood pressure monitor, weight scale, pulse oximeter and glucometer according to Your Life Choices. (more…)Pediatric obesity patients like telehealth support: UCLA study
Some positive directional results were obtained by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles trialling a pediatric telehealth/telemedicine check-up program integrating telemedicine virtual consults at clinic sites. From the 45 young (average age 10), obese patients enrolled in ‘Fit for Healthy Weight’, the 25 patients who were followed after their appointment series had overall positive outcomes and opinions: 86 percent either stabilized or decreased their BMI scores and three of the four patients with high blood pressure normalized their blood pressure; 80 percent were satisfied with the virtual consult system and would do it again. Health check-ins were onsite (more…)
Is ‘mobile health for seniors’ obsolete?
Perhaps it should be. At the ‘mHealth & Boomers: Reinventing the Dynamics of the Healthcare System’ panel discusssion at the mHealth Summit Monday afternoon, Stephen Johnston, cofounder of Aging 2.0 (and parent of the GENerator accelerator TTA 12 Dec below), and Laurie Orlov, founder of Aging in Place Technology Watch speculated on the future of technology for older adults in an aging market. The most interesting and unique conclusion arrives at the end of the Mobihealthnews article, with Ms. Orlov flatly stating that the category will disappear by 2020. “There will be no aging in place technology market by 2020,” she said. “All technology will be customizable and usable by all categories of people, and we will not have to have technologies that are marketed for seniors.” Hat tips to readers Mike Clark and Luca Sergio via LinkedIn
Accelerator (at last) for older adult supportive tech
Supportive technologies for older adults is perhaps the least buzzy area of health tech. The Aging 2.0 GENerator accelerator is bucking that conventional wisdom. Its initial class of 11 early-stage companies span telecare (Lively, TTA 27 Sep), cognitive assistance (BrainAid), transportation (LiftAid) and product design (Sabi). It also connects companies to an impressive list of 75 mentors including LeadingAge/CAST, Mary Furlong Associates, the OnLok PACE community and Pfizer. Founder Katy Pike of Aging 2.0 has embedded it into San Francisco’s Institute of the Aging, which houses independent living facilities, adult day centers, and a geriatric clinic–ideal places for these startups to field test their approaches directly with their potentially 40 million 65+ market. For this the GENerator takes a not-more-than 2 percent equity stake in these companies; unlike the larger StartUp Health and Blueprint Health, it is right now too small to offer seed capital. MedCityNews
MediSafe extends med reminder tech, signs major pharma
MediSafe Project, a mobile med reminder app developed in Israel [TTA 4 Jan], is partnering with Wealth Taxi’s (!) iReminder pill caps to create a reminder system which can be used without a smartphone. The MediSafe Virtual Pillbox can use a NFC (near field communication) tag or alternatively, a Bluetooth version for web users, to create a ‘lighter’ reminder for over-the-counter or generic drugs. The more sophisticated iReminder pill caps would be used for higher-end prescription drugs. The MedCityNews article from the mHealth Summit also officially confirms Omri ‘Bob’ Shor’s ongoing discussions with New York-based AdhereTech’s [TTA 27 Aug] high-end pill reminder/dose confirmer. MediSafe is also partnering with Swiss pharmaceutical company Tillotts Pharma in “UC and ME”, a program for ulcerative colitis patients using their drug and HealthiNation on videos for Lipitor and Metformin users. While MediSafe on its own has had 170,000 downloads of its free app and ‘tens of thousands’ active (Ed.–data from Bob Shor), its real potential is in the partnerships–and the data generated by them–which now seem to be well underway.
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