Here’s a rather odd article that was published in the UK’s Financial Times’s weekend supplement: High-tech devices to meet housing and care needs of older people. It is odd because it’s an eclectic compilation of examples of tech and a ‘granny pod’ for older people to live in (from the ‘States). As a result, the article lacks a coherent vision based on current trends for living independently with tech support. Heads-up thanks to Charles Lowe.
WebRTC may revolutionise communications for older people – quietly and soon
Real time communications over the internet (WebRTC) already happens via applications like Skype and other messaging services but what if anyone using a web browser could just switch on their microphone and webcam and talk to someone else? The proposition that setting up the applications with their accounts and quirky interfaces is a barrier for non-techie people, particularly older ones, is quietly demolished. Care-related communications and the reduction of social isolation becomes a whole lot easier. Well, those readers using Chrome and the latest Firefox beta browsers already have that capability and a long article (6 web pages) in CIO.com speculates that other browsers (with the exception of Apple’s?) will not be far behind. With WebRTC, Real-Time Communications Come to the Browser. The article gets very techie half way through but, for the context of care, there is an important point towards the end – the WebRTC protocol requires the user to give permission for the browser to access the microphone and webcam, which will allay concerns about breaches of privacy. Hat tip to Sande Olson.
Telekinesis to help paralysed people – gets closer
Happy to add another ‘tele-‘ to our range of interests when it’s as interesting as this…a relatively untrained volunteer controls a flying model helicopter drone my means of thought via an electrode cap, a computer, and wifi. Article about it here. Heads up thanks to Toni Bunting, TANN Ireland.
[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]Related item, also thanks to Toni: Use Universal Gesture Control From Any Room In Your House.
100,000+ and counting: 3millionlives (UK)
In 2012 an estimated 100,000+ new users were connected to telecare and telehealth systems according to a 3millionlives (3ML) press release today. The figure, 3.3% of the five-year 3ML target, is based on a Telecare Services Association (TSA) survey of 80 organisations. The increase does not take into account the number of new telecare connections one might have expected without the 3ML initiative or the net change owing to ‘user churn’. But at least someone is trying to assess what is happening, which is good. Press release (PDF)
Contact sports, long term effects and CTE
The effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) are likely far more widespread than the National Football League (NFL) and thousands of combat soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. That evidence was presented this past Monday at the German Center for Research and Innovation (GCRI) by two leading researchers in the field: Robert A. Stern, MD of Boston University and Inga Koerte, MD of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). The panel was moderated by Alan Schwarz of The New York Times, a freelance sportswriter/baseball stats expert-turned-concussion investigator/writer whose articles on sports concussions and long term effects are helping to change US sports safety. Update 10 June: video (1:38:00), event summary. (more…)
A selective look at health tech startups, toys and keeping it clean
Joan Justice, as Curator-in-Chief of HealthWorks Collective, always provides a quirky look at cool stuff in health tech. Her second round goes a bit afield of health, but what’s interesting: ClearMD (DIY provider videos for patients), Picmonic (medical student education audio-picture mnemonics), Cobalt Research (web-based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)) and Accessible Home Living (designing/remodeling for older adults/disabled needs). Health Start-Ups!: Another Round And what motivates serial healthcare entrepreneurs to be..serial? Check out her video interview with John Deutsch, current CEO of New Wave Enterprises, LLC who has been part of several EMR startups.
Ready to DIY? MIT Little Devices Laboratory is now developing MEDIkits (Medical Education Design Invention Kits) in diagnostics and therapeutics: drug delivery, diagnostics, microfluidics, prosthetics, vital signs and surgical devices. And the devices are built from–Lego parts, the internal workings of other toys with electronic parts, LEDs, and more–all to enable creative thinking in device development from a wide number of people outside traditional labs. The Little Devices Lab also has a collection of videos and press on their blog here. Can Toys Decrease the Cost of Health Care Devices? (HealthWorks Collective)
And ready to get clean? In the US, it is estimated that 100,000 people yearly die because of hospital-originating infections, largely due to poor hand hygiene. IntelligentM, a bracelet for hospital staff who are in contact with patients, reminds and checks for cleanliness. The device determines through its built-in accelerometer that hand washing and sanitizer are being used–and correctly. In communicating with RFID sensors at hygiene stations, it also reports compliance. Currently being tested at a hospital in Sarasota, Florida with two other locations shortly to adopt, and with potential uses in food service and with children. MIT Technology Review. Gizmag.
Is Silicon Valley-style thinking right for healthcare?
The always thoughtful David Shaywitz writes about coming out on the other side of the Gartner hype curve (ever so familiar to this Editor) into the ‘plateau of productivity’. He provides some anecdotal evidence from his Silicon Valley experience that you could possibly take the good parts of Hope and Hype and make them work for Health. His qualifiers lead this Editor to the following takeaways, with which Dr. Shaywitz might not necessarily agree:
- You the entrepreneur may well be thinking about changing the world with your service or device, but you might be better off focusing on solving a specific problem (or in Clayton Christensen’s terms ‘a job to be done’) and then being gratified when you do, actually, find a way to change the world and yes, you make some money for your investors. The Epic EHR started quite modestly.
- Silicon Valley observers are onto the hype cycle there– “the contrast between grandiose ambitions and disappointing delivery.” You should be too. If you’re in health tech, steer clear of the hypesters and the cocktail parties. In fact, be more like Dr. Shaywitz’s colleagues at MIT, understanding “the limitations of your work and the enormity of the unanswered questions remaining.”
- Aim for more than tweaking something existing–the incessant efficiency innovations so attractive to VCs in this ‘stuck on stupid’ economy–and “learn how to develop profoundly improved therapies, that cure – or better yet, prevent – disease and disability. ” Break out of what Dr. Christensen’s ‘broken circle.’ [TTA 9 Nov 12]
- Most startups fail, and to date there are far fewer successful exits in healthcare than in social media, which is why VCs like them ever so much more and they get the billion-dollar exits. More realistic is a modest return and a long development curve. So when seeking funding, be conservative and find alternate means.
QS’ing, Google Glass and other wearable tech on BBC’s Newsnight (UK)
Here’s one for UK-residents only owing to tech restrictions – unless other readers know how to access it via a UK proxy server – it’s an item on the BBC’s Newsnight programme yesterday (available via the BBC iPlayer for six more days) and it covers various forms of wearable technology. The 15 minute slot beginning at 34 minutes includes a report to demonstrate forms of the technology and a discussion about the associated ethics. The staggering conclusion is that it is awesome technology but we should worry about how the companies that collect data from it will use the information. Newsnight 3 June 2013. Heads up thanks to Mike Clark.
Saypage Telehealth introduced at West Suffolk Hospital (UK)
When this editor worked for the NHS in West Suffolk – long, long ago – my colleagues and I always denied the saying that West Suffolk was ‘the graveyard of ambition’, and we pointed to numerous innovations that we introduced without fanfare into our various fields. So it is pleasing to see that the tradition appears to be continuing. The following press release describes the introduction of a hospital-to-home internet-based video link system to reduce the need for some orthopaedic patients to attend hospital to receive post-operative follow-up consultations. Significantly, it appears to be a development championed by an enthusiastic hospital consultant. We have seen over and over again that technological solutions to care pathway problems work best when they are adopted from the ground up. West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust Launches Virtual Orthopaedics Outpatients Clinic Built On Saypage Telemedicine Platform. (Saypage press release) [Will the people who use the system be counted towards the 3millionlives (3ML) target? Oh! Silly me! No one is counting anything, and it’s an aspiration, not a target!]
Related links: What is Saypage Telehealth? and Saypage User Guide.
Health data advances from England that will be “bigger than the Internet”
MedCityNews reports a speech yesterday by the UK’s Secretary of State for Health at the Health Datapalooza IV conference in Washington DC. If the hype in the headline is enough to make you suspicious, the rest will leave you wondering if Jeremy Hunt is not floating free of reality: Six health data advances from England that will be “bigger than the Internet”.
Instead of pharmaceuticals, electroceuticals?
Electroceuticals–using electrical impulses to modulate the body’s neural circuits as an alternative to drugs–are gaining momentum, and probably a lot closer to being realized than say, genomics. According to the article, if you can map how a disease affects the neural circuitry, then ‘remapping’ through stimulating or inhibiting the malfunctioning pathways via tiny electrodes may show a way to health without biological drugs. For instance, stimulating the vagus nerve seems to reduce the production of cytokines — immune system mediators — and blocks inflammation through boosting the immune system. It has been successfully used on a preliminary basis in treating inflammatory disease with rheumatoid arthritis. Multiple research teams have experimented with additional conditions such as respiratory diseases, asthma and diabetes–and possibly neuro-psychiatric disorders like Parkinson’s and epilepsy. It’s been successful enough to date to warrant a small investment from pharma giant Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK). Wired.co.uk
Health tech growing fast in Brazil and Asia-Pacific
Brazil’s strong growth in mHealth and medical apps is detailed in three recent studies from PwC, PwC-GSMA, Research2Guidance and the New Cities Foundation. PwC is pegging mobile health apps at $46.6 million by 2015, with PwC-GSMA projecting that 43.9 million additional patients could be treated with mobile health technology in Brazil and Mexico by 2017. Research2Guidance confirms that Brazil’s an Android market, outselling iOS in the 10 most downloaded health and fitness apps by 17 times. The Geneva/Paris-based New Cities Foundation equipped doctors and nurses at a family clinic in Santa Marta, Rio de Janiero, Brazil with a $42,000 ‘backpack’ for home care, containing a GE Vscan portable ultrasound, a TuffSat pulse oximeter, an Accutrend blood monitor, an EKG machine, a blood pressure monitor, a weight scale, a digital thermometer, tape measure and stethoscope. Savings were about $200,000 per 100 patients/year. Mobihealthnews.
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /] The Gimlet Eye, having read this, just sent a message to your Editor. Could it be The Eye’s undisclosed location? Perhaps we should be… ‘Flying Down to Rio’?
In Asia-Pacific, the $55 billion APAC medical devices market–nearly 25 percent of the world market– is expected to grow over 10 percent per year over the next three years, outstripping rest-of-world growth by 4 points. Growth in China and India is especially striking, with India’s medical device growth at 16 percent per year for three years. Healthcare is improving in less developed areas, and the age 65+ population in greater developed countries is increasing as a proportion of the population as birth rates fall (in Japan, 24 percent–with Japan also the overwhelming leader in patents). While much broader than mobile health or telehealth, the overall category serves as a pointer to growth opportunities in the very near future. MD+DI Hat tip to reader George Margelis, MD via LinkedIn, who advocates Australia take a greater leadership position in developing ‘medtech’.
Avatars to help schizophrenics cope with ‘the voices’
One of the most common features of schizophrenia is the inability to control the voices that tell you what to do–at minimum annoying, but sometimes urge you to harm yourself or another. Anti-psychotic drugs do not silence them in 25 percent of cases. This approach from University College London researchers puts faces to the voices–and, by letting the patient create them, gives the patient control. With a therapist, each of the 16 patients in the study created an avatar with a computer-generated face and voice ‘matching’ the ‘voice in the head’.
In up to seven 30-minute sessions, each subject interacted with their entity’s avatar, and were encouraged to oppose its threats and orders. Not only did this allow the subjects to get comfortable with the idea of standing up to the “actual” entities themselves, but because they had taken part in creating the avatars, it helped them realize that the entities actually originated within their own mind. Additionally, each subject received an MP3 recording of their sessions, which they could listen to whenever they started hearing voices again.
Almost all participants experienced a reduction in the frequency and severity of their episodes–and three of the subjects, who had been experiencing hallucinations for 16, 13 and 3.5 years, stopped hearing voices completely. The research team just received a £1.3 million (US$1.98 million) grant from the Wellcome Trust to expand the research starting in July. Avatars help schizophrenics gain control of voices in their heads (Gizmag)
Sensory feedback adds to prosthetics and situational awareness
There have been a number of prosthetics developed in recent years that directly connect with nerves, but their drawbacks have included deterioration of the nerve-prosthetic connection over time and lack of reliability in acting like a natural limb. With over 2,000 American military personnel suffering major amputations since 2000, the US Department of Defense’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is working to advance better nerve-connected prosthetics through the RE-NET–Reliable Neural-Interface Technology–program. DARPA uses nerve/muscle interfaces to give amputees feedback and improve control (Gizmag) For the sight-impaired, the Russian company Oriense is extending its technology that assists robots to avoid objects to a human-worn camera/sensor combination. It combines a Primesense sensor (akin to Microsoft’s Kinect camera) with Oriense’s software which scans data from the sensor and gives voice notifications about where objects are and if they are directly in your path. The prototype would not be out of place on a robot (camera on chest, computer in hand, earbud) but second generation promises to be more streamlined. From robot tech to humans: hardware to “see” the world around you (MedCityNews).
AdhereTech wins Healthcare Innovation World Cup
AdhereTech, a med reminder startup from the Summer 2012 Blueprint Health class, recently won the $50,000 Healthcare Innovation World Cup sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim and organized by NYC-based independent healthcare research organization HITLAB (Healthcare Innovation Technology Lab). The annual competition challenges innovators in healthcare and IT to help solve global health issues; this year’s focus was diabetes prevention and management. AdhereTech is nearly to market with an M2M-connected compact bottle for pills or liquids that not only reminds, but also provides a measurement of pills/liquids remaining in the bottle [TTA 28 March]. Second place with a prize of $10,000 went to Indian company Team IITKgp which is developing a non-invasive blood glucose measurement device. Runners-up: in third place with an award of $5,000 was India’s Team SmartSense, developing a multianalyte sensing device for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and Ohio’s Team EndoGoal, a mobile and web-based social rewards program for people with insulin-dependent diabetes who track daily glucose levels. All four teams had previously received $2,500 for reaching the final rounds as semi-finalists in the US and India. The awards were hosted by the German Center for Research and Innovation (GCRI). Congratulations to all. Release. Website
Telecare: A waste of time or the future of health and social care? (UK)
A longish article on the Building Better Healthcare website (for the building industry) gives a fairly comprehensive overview of the current state of telecare in the UK. It ranges from ‘pendant or chord’ [sic] to ‘buddi’ via the TSA Code of Practice and a number of council examples. It’s probably a reasonable response to ‘What is Telecare?’ for industry outsiders: Special report: Telecare: A waste of time or the future of health and social care?
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