The developing nations dubbed BRICS–Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa–have prosperity, uneven as it may be, but their public health is not keeping up. In addition to communicable diseases, obesity and diabetes are exploding. This Atlantic article is insistent on ‘infrastructure’–which is needed–but here are five countries which are wide open for mobile health. High rates of cell phone ownership and the huge job to be done in helping people towards awareness and self-management — means opportunity, as long as it is kept simple and inexpensive. Which health tech systems now at BluePrint Health or StartUp Health will help these people manage food consumption, tracking weight, exercise, blood glucose in a non-QS way? Brazil, China, and India Are Fat, And Getting Fatter
Telehealth tiptoeing into skilled nursing facilities (US)
Shattering a few stereotypes on older adults and technology use is this profile of Las Colinas of Westover Rehabilitation, a short and long-term-care (LTC) residence near San Antonio, Texas Technology. Their short and long-term residents–largely in their 70s and 80s–use CogniFit brain training games, videos and Skype-ing on a Kindle Fire and Apple TV for brain stimulation, games, socialization and connectedness with families.The facility is also up to date with the specialized long-term-care EHR PointClickCare. Perhaps not typical in LTC now, but a pointer to where the near future should be. Senior care goes high-tech (San Antonio Express-News)
Growing Army-Navy ‘jointness’ in telehealth (US)
Our readers will note that most advances in telehealth, in smartphone-based support and TBI research have originated out of the US Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), the Army Research Laboratory, Medical Research & Materiel Command and the Research, Development and Engineering Command. The US Navy has jumped in with Kinect for rehab with the West Health Institute. Now the US Army Medical Information Technology Center at Fort Sam Houston (Texas), part of the Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA), is the point of contact for the Navy for a pilot program using instant messaging hardware and software–Jabber–to be tested at Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and planned to be rolled out through worldwide naval medical facilities. JBSA is the locus for medical training in the Army and much of the armed forces; the Army’s medical school AMEDDC&S is located there. Fort Sam Houston’s Video Network Center also handles telemedicine consults for the Army, Navy and VA. USAMITC helps telehealth become a reality for Navy medicine (JBSA release).
Two more useful – Simple Telehealth – items for GPs (UK)
Nearly a month ago we posted links to GP Online two articles written by Professor Ruth Chambers for UK GPs about practical ways to use the NHS Simple Telehealth system–aka Florence or Flo. They covered hypertension and inhaler use. Now we discover two further articles, oddly, on a different part of the site. They follow the same useful pattern as the earlier ones. They are:
- Adopting remote monitoring via telehealth in your CCG’s practices – part 3: smoking cessation
- Adopting remote monitoring via telehealth in your CCG’s practices – part 4: weight loss
How telehealth can fail to manage chronic diseases
For a US nurse’s view of telehealth (remote monitoring), see a blog by Kavita Radhakrishnan, RN, PhD. Start with this article, which is positive in tone: Can Telehealth Improve Chronic Disease Outcomes in the Community? but make sure to follow up with this item which swings the other way: Unintended Consequences: How Telehealth Can Fail to Manage Chronic Diseases.
EU ahead of US on telehealth
US law firm Epstein Becker Green analyses two key differences between the US and EU regulations affecting telehealth. First they identify the ability of health workers to treat their patients even when the patient moves to another EU state. Second is about getting health insurance companies to cover costs when health services are received abroad – it seems that insurance companies are required to do so under an EU directive whereas in the US cover is mostly state based: E.U. Way Ahead of the Game on Telehealth. Heads-up thanks to TANN England editor Chrys Meewella.
The diabetic experience: the fly in the Quantified Selfing ointment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Quantified Selfers (QSers) maintain that their obsessive practice not only is the be-all and end-all of leading a Healthy Life, but if only more of the hoi polloi would do it, we’d avoid doctors and healthcare costs, the seas would part and we’d bounce to the Gates of the New Jerusalem with a gleam in our eye, driving our Fords with Allergy Alert SYNC. Well, this Eye has gazed Gimlety on this entire Movement for quite a while, to the raised noses of the Healthcare Digerati, and now has found a fellow nay-sayer and nose lower-er in the unexpected pages of The Atlantic. The Eye now slaps the Head for not thinking of the following.
Who were the early adopters of QS? Diabetics. From the late 1970s on, patients were handed glucose meters in the doctor’s office, stacks of reading material and told to go forth and self-manage. Are they happy? Empowered? In control? Au contraire, mon frere!
The fact that diabetics have been doing this for years, and that they largely loathe the experience (author’s emphasis), not only serves as a caution to the vogue of self-tracking. It also offers an opportunity, serving as an object lesson in what works, and what doesn’t work, when people track their health.
Loathing Can Be Quantified as in the 2012 BMC Health-published survey where diabetics told researchers that self-monitoring was the enemy, a Sisypheian task, a perpetual Battle of Stalingrad. No wonder why they are DEPRESSED. The sheer tedium of every day, several times a day, pricking fingers with crude monitors, making the decision on to eat, what, to inject or take pills, meds that get you sick, and never, ever being ‘in balance’, feeling wrong, guilty and scared, would depress The Eye more than sitting through a Jim Carrey movie. Fine to take away a few steps with LifeScan’s VerioSync and iBGStar to send the metering to the smartphone, or to Telcare’s system, and know that hovering in the future may be the non-invasive glucose meter and fully automated insulin pumps that work with your smartphone, but… Thomas Goetz’s point: don’t expect QSing to be a panacea as hyped, do expect that emotional baggage is in the trunk of the car, and that tracking for people is WORK that is really to be avoided. And as Editor Donna continually reminds The Eye, only undertaken when it is a solution to an unavoidable job to be done. And if they don’t see the job… The Diabetic’s Paradox
Your Friday robot fix: senior housing helpers, getting more humanoid
Care Innovations, which has no stakes (thus far) in robotics, highlights what robots can do and change in the senior housing area in this (sponsored) article in Senior Housing News. Featured: the ‘Hector’ assistance robot, developed by the EU’s CompanionAble Project [TTA 23 August]; ‘Monitoring Platform 3.0’ iPad and iPhone mobilizers such as Helios [TTA 2 Oct]; as ‘little armies of telepresence’ for non-emergencies (a small mention of telecare here); solving the worker shortage [TTA 19 May 11 on Robosoft and the Kompaï care robot, which Editor Steve has been following ever since, recently updated] and enabling independence [Robot & Frank, anyone?]
But a problem with more humanoid robots like Roboy is not developing arthritis but an inherent stiffness in the joints. COMAN, from the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), mixes in compliant joints to make them less so, and safer (pulling a robot off the floor can be hazardous for your joints!) This Humanoid Robot Gets Pushed Around But Stays on Its Feet (IEEE Spectrum) Another hat tip to Toni Bunting, TANN Ireland.
Device vs. Device: a mobile health faceoff
MedCityNews pits unrelated mobile health devices and apps against each other in this series you may have overlooked last pre-holiday week. Some surprising winners in these eight short ‘n’ sweet matchups:
AliveCor smartphone ECG vs. DrawMD by Visible Health iPad app for general surgery patient ed
Related news: AliveCor names new CEO, experienced medical device and healthcare entrepreneur Dan Sullivan (Mobihealthnews)
Diabetes Manager by WellDoc (FDA cleared) vs iTriage by Healthagen
AirStrip ONE by AirStrip Technologies (FDA cleared) vs Lab Counter by ZappyLab
BT gets Cornwall telecare/telehealth service as part of service outsource package (UK)
The on-off-on saga of BT’s attempt to become the major supplier [latest posts] of services including telecare and telehealth for Cornwall has finally been confirmed. The deal will involve the transfer of 303 full time equivalent staff with the majority of staff expected to transfer in July. BT to be awarded Strategic Partnership contract (Insider Media).
Trafford Council pledges free telecare trial for over 80s (UK)
After checking the date on this item (not 2007 or 1st April) I can post it with congratulations to Trafford Council and its partners AgeUK, Trafford Housing Trust and LMCP Carelink. Trafford Council pledges free Telecare trial for over 80s. Messenger Newspapers.
A ‘shocking’ solution to India’s crime problem?
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/she-antirape-shock-device-camisole-450×476.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]Three engineering students at India’s SRM Institute of Science and Technology in Tamil Nadu (Chennai) developed and won the 2013 Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award given by SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) for a body-worn device designed to help defend women in the case of personal attack. The device is a camisole-type undergarment which is wired with sensors and electric shock circuit board at the bosom, insulated by a polymer, with attached GPS and GSM modules. Pressure in the bosom area, consistent with the usual frontal attack, triggers a 3,800 kilovolt shock [likely a notation error–probably 3.8 kV, see Comments–Ed. Donna] up to 82 times and also activates the GPS. The designers known collectively as SHE (Society Harnessing Equipment)–Manisha Mohan, Niladri Basu Bal, Rimpi Tripathi, the first and third listed are women–are to be commended.
India’s huge problem with male-on-female crime was highlighted at the end of 2012 with the assault of a young couple in central New Delhi, resulting in his severe injury, her rape and death. It also put an international spotlight on India’s wretchedly poor policing and law enforcement resulting in a reported reduction of tourism by at least 25 percent. The official Indian Government response was tepid at best–including ‘working on’ a prototype safety watch that would take photos and send texts in case of attack. It was TTA’s weekend outrage for 2 February for its ‘sheer howling incompetence’, stimulating quite a reader discussion. And no, this device won’t save or prevent the vulnerable (female and old) from attack, but the electrifying element of surprise may give an edge to the victim permitting a quick getaway. Digital Trends (India), Techpedia India (SRISTI), SHE team profile/submission Another hat tip to Toni Bunting, TANN Ireland.
The ‘virtual reality’ workout and a Spidey-Suit
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/spidersense-suit-2.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Adding to the list of VR-driven workout platforms is University of Wisconsin-Madison’s CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), which tracks muscle movements while you virtually walk (via goggles) through a room and pick up things. The CAVE researchers are using the EMG tracking information to determine what muscle movements are used in each action. (Hat tip to Toni Bunting, TANN Ireland) Not too far away in Illinois, University of Illinois-Chicago researchers have wired up a whole spaghetti-bowl of sensors from head to toe as ‘SpiderSense’ (left) which enhances spatial awareness–detecting that something is nearby for the visually impaired.
Previously in TTA, VR in physical therapy: Microsoft Kinect, West Health Institute, Fraunhofer, 15 January
GE, StartUp Health select their ‘Lucky Thirteen’
GE Ventures’ Healthymagination and accelerator StartUp Health announced, after a two-month screening process, their 13 (up from 10) companies for their joint three-year program. The 13 recipients will be mentored over the next three years in exchange for 2 to 10 percent equity ownership by GE and StartUp Health’s Innovation Fund. They are a diverse mix including hand hygiene in hospitals, connecting patients to mental health professionals, integrating non-clinical home care observations into home health, and a device for gait and balance restoration. Short bios on companies via TechCrunch. GE/StartUp Health release (MarketWatch).
Previously on TTA, why GE is getting ‘imaginative’ with StartUp Health: 10 January, 7 March.
NHS needs better vision of digital patients
This item picks up on some of the issues raised by the recent NHS Innovations Expo. To quote one participant “innovations like telehealth can and will come for British NHS users — but only if the emphasis shifts from a focus on long-term care to incorporating it in the day to day running of hospitals, clinics and other patient contact points”. NHS needs better vision of digital patients Information Week UK
Whisper of the heart
Two app-related items spotted by TANN Ireland editor Toni Bunting. Connect the dots with the first to this TTA item and the second has potentially huge implications for understanding heart disease:
- Smartphone apps sense users’ emotions and quantify wellbeing (Springwise.com)
- A Million Smartphones Will Drive Biggest Heart Health Study in History (SingularityHub.com)
Related item on TANN Ireland: Gamifying meditative breathing with the Zen biosensor.
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