Here’s a link UK readers may want to email to their GPs, or their practice managers. It might do more good for the cause of telehealth than Department of Health endorsement or even 3ML publicity.

In brief, NHS Stoke on Trent CCG has been running a clinical rollout of Simple Telehealth’s advice and interactive Florence SMS texting service and is now offering to fund a CCG’s licence for a year, including costs of at least 15,000 patient texts, and helping with implementing Florence across each participating CCG. See Telehealth no longer a remote possibility for general practice GP Online for details. Whether you pass it on or not, it is a good description of the system and the areas it covers, including a mapping of Florence to the NHS Outcomes Framework. Head-up thanks to Mike Clark.

The latest news from the southeastern state of Victoria (Melbourne) features a blast from the state’s Health Minister on hundreds of millions in funding cuts, while the Federal minister claims that an additional AU$1 billion over four years is heading Victoria’s way. The debate continues (see TA 29 Dec for a lively reader discussion); is this reality or political blather? Telehealth rebate cut will hurt Vic: Davis Hat tip to reader Ellen ‘Ethical Lens’ Fink-Samnick.

The much-rumored acquisition of major medical point-of-care reference database Epocrates by practice management/EHR leader Athenahealth has many good points for the latter, including the integration of drug interaction alerts into EHRs. Epocrates’ stumbles into mobile EHRs may also have, paradoxically, made it more attractive. But even with this, financial observers see Athenahealth as essentially sideways in terms of growth. But it may point to the major trends of 2013 your Editors have seen for awhile: a push for integration into easier-to-by ‘all in one’ packages; consolidation in order to stay in place in a muddling market. 4 observations about the $293 million athenahealth-Epocrates acquisition (MedCityNews) Editor Donna’s note: An interesting aside, for those who follow palace intrigues and the consolidation of the EHR market, is Allscripts’ ‘Christmas-surprise’ CEO dumping referred to at the end of the article, courtesy of financial analysis website Seeking Alpha.

“All of us have beliefs – many of them subconscious, dating back to childhood – about what it means to get older. Psychologists call these ‘age stereotypes.’ And, it turns out, they can have an important effect on seniors’ health. When stereotypes are negative – when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued – they are less likely to seek preventive medical care and die earlier, and more likely to suffer memory loss and poor physical functioning…” (Judith Graham, NYT/Herald Tribune: Older people become what they think – an interesting read.) Has anyone done any research on the psychological effect on people of offering them a pendant alarm?

Press release writers please take note: Lake Superior State University 2013 List of Banished Words. More on YOLO here.

and, in the case of health plans, diversify enough to cushion the loss of beneficiaries to state exchanges or health system plans. Schoenfeld’s statement “I think luckily we are at the point that Washington is picking up on it. We’re going to see that remarkable change happen right in front of our eyes in 2013. I’m happy to go on record in saying that is going to be a transformational year for the health care industry because of the use of telehealth.” is perhaps the result of a premature cup of Christmas cheer. Now Editor Donna may be too cynical; maybe the ACA=Y2K and it will be resolved without disaster; hasn’t every year been transformational in health tech since 2005? But this ‘grizzled veteran’ cheerfully predicts that 2013 will be another really tough slog in FBQ* swampland. Progress will be made but no one will be ‘jumping for joy’. What is shaping up though, is that American Well, like other devices, has to be integrated. Either they will be doing the integrating, or (more likely) someone else will get it to fit into lives and finding someone to pay for it. American Well CEO: Telehealth is becoming part of everyone’s medicine cabinet (MedCityNews)

Hat tip to reader and ‘Aging in Place Technology’ writer/analyst Laurie Orlov

* The Five Big Questions (FBQs)–who pays, how much, who’s looking at the data, who’s actioning it, how data is integrated into patient records.

The Rock Health accelerator for digital health did some tracking of its own–2012 investment action in the wide, wild world of digital health. Good news: investments were up 45% vs. 2011 to $1.4 billion. Not so great news: more than 20% of that was due to five large deals; out of 179 companies, only eight had invested in three or more companies. Many of the eight are familiar: Qualcomm Ventures, Aberdare Ventures, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, NEA, West Health Investment Fund, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Council Capital and the ubiquitous Khosla Ventures. Most of these investments funded technologies relating to consumer engagement and personal health tracking. According to the bar chart in the article, most deals exceeded $5 million. Rock Health’s presentation (Slideshare). MedCityNews article.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for a small business developer to provide a Portable Brain Recording Device and App–not just any EEG + app but one that is low-cost ($30), highly portable, easily usable in the field, easy to use sensors, and downloads high-fidelity data directly to a phone or tablet without an interface. Beyond the battlefield, it’s envisioned in civilian hospitals and commercial research adaptations. Specifications are contained in SB131-002 Portable Brain Recording Device & App, 13.1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) here–read carefully all supporting material. On DARPA’s 2013 Wish List: Extreme Diving, Portable Brain Reading, And Gravity Vision (PopSci) Hat tip to TANN Ireland’s Toni Bunting.

Kaiser Permanente may–or may not–have fully dodged a near-atomic data breach of over 300,000 patient records and more. A now-public dispute between Kaiser and a vendor which stored records for some of their Southern California hospitals has put Kaiser in the hot seat for its practices with both the California Department of Public Health and US Health and Human Services (HHS). This long-time vendor was sued by Kaiser initially for not returning all records after the contract ended, and for storing records in questionable circumstances including a shared warehouse storing party rental items and a Ford Mustang, plus other records on home computers and hard drives stored in open garages. The vendor countered by accusing Kaiser of not encrypting transfers of electronic files and sending patient data requests and other sensitive information via unencrypted email. By the end of the Los Angeles Times article, you’ll be holding your aching head in disbelief at both sides, while reaching for the Tylenol (or Panadol). Vast cache of Kaiser patient details was kept in private home.

The Leap Motion gesture controller, widely tagged as the must-have gizmo of 2013 [TA 27 Dec] took one step forward from gizmo-dom by being bundled in selected ASUS PCs and notebooks by end of year. In the GizMag article are some stats on the controller–it can track the movement of the user’s hands at a ‘blistering’ 290 frames per second, tracking movements to 1/100th millimeter, far greater than Microsoft Kinect. A pointer to the nearby future for surgery, rehabilitation, personal connectedness.

A surprisingly dim view, at the level of The Gimlet Eye’s, of the Quantified Self, by Deanna Pogorelc in MedCityNews. She leads off with a tweet with Eric Topol reporting his first patient with ‘cyberchondria’. What to do with the data other than worrying about it? Well, it seems that developers and car makers like Ford and BMW are insisting that we have it (yes, heart rate DOES go up in NYC rush hour traffic), but does the average, non-chronic-condition person know what to do with TMI (too much information) other than worry? “The heart of the quantified self movement is empowering patients with their own data, but some of the startups and research projects I’ve seen lately make me think that we are overestimating the total number of people who want it and know what to do with it.” Well said. Are we headed toward the over-quantified self?

…you’ll be interested in attending Silvers Summit on Tuesday 8 January (agenda), Fitness Tech also on Tuesday (agenda), the two-day Digital Health Summit on Wednesday and Thursday 9-10 January (agenda) or TechZones such as Eureka Park and Robotics.

Update 8 Jan: Prepare yourself for the onslaught by reading this preview of health and fitness tech at CES — wearable tech as a short-term trend and smaller, cheaper devices longer term, but where does all that data go–and who’s looking at it. Health-and-Fitness Tech Grows at CES, but Challenges Lie Ahead (AllThingsD)

Brian Dolan of Mobihealthnews did some panning among Alere‘s SEC filings and found this nugget in their 8 November 10-Q (not cited in the article, but readily available on the Alere corporate website). Under ‘Acquisition-related Contingent Consideration Obligations’ (page 26), this refers to the undisclosed July acquisition price of MedApps, now Alere Connect:

With respect to MedApps, the terms of the acquisition agreement require us to make earn-out payments upon achievement of certain technological and product development milestones through January 15, 2015. The maximum amount of the earn-out payments is $22.0 million.

The headline and article, Alere to pay as much as $22M for MedApps, created an interesting debate on the Digital Health LinkedIn group (member access only) on what seemed to be a dismayingly low price for a company considered to be a development pioneer and quality leader in wireless telehealth, replete with FDA Class II, CE and Health Canada clearances, plus plenty of sweat and tears. Editor Donna pointed out that the SEC filing did not disclose the closing payment at time of sale–the earn-out structure, so typical of early-stage technology acquisitions, is in addition to the closing (which could be substantial, or little, in cash and stock) because outside investors generally want to exit at that time. What is also apparent is that the earn-out is based on ‘milestones’, which look fine in the rosy light of purchase but can prove to be very difficult to achieve, potentially reducing the $22 million earn-out. But what this bit of legwork gives us is a chalk mark on the board for mobile telehealth devices, and it’s a little lower than we thought.

The first business day of the New Year started off positively for telehealth, with the announcement of the $5 million Series A financing of Independa, developer of the Angela social engagement system for older adults and the Artemis telehealth system. Investors are healthcare investment firm City Hill Ventures, a previous investor, and strategic partner LG Electronics USA, with participation by additional investors. LG became a partner with Independa last year with the Angela system piloting on LG’s Pro:Centric Healthcare TVs. Independa release

MediSafe Project, based in Haifa, Israel, has developed an Android and iPhone medication reminder app that both advises the user and alerts family members when medications are not taken. The HealthWorks Collective article claims MediSafe is the first cloud-based mobile med reminder app (which Editor Donna questions, thinking of Merck’s Vree and Janssen’s Care4Today here in the US), but what is interesting here is the potential for big data analytics; according to the CEO, “which demographics have higher non-compliance for a drug compared to the general population, the doctors or areas that have the lowest prescription rates with a city, competitive drugs patients are switching to, and so on.” This big data is clearly the revenue model, as the app is free on Google Play and the iTunes App store worldwide in multiple languages for Android (iTunes English only). Interestingly, the reminder system is being translated shortly to an automated phone system for those with simple or feature phones.