Aging in America 2013: conference report

March 26, 2013 | by

Joop Koopman, reporting for Bayard Presse, has generously shared with us (in English) his report on the annual conference of the American Society on Aging, which took place in Chicago 12-15 March. Commentary on presentations by Aging in Place Technology Watch’s Laurie Orlov, gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, Mary Furlong’s What’s Next Summit preceding ASA, AARP, Scott Collins of LinkageConnect, Caring.com and Louis Tenenbaum. Technologies: Care Innovations, GrandCare Systems and Philips. Communities: OnLok Lifeways, Avenidas (virtual).  PDF (10 pages)

Joop Koopman is an experienced writer/journalist, with a background in Catholic media (as editor and publisher), baby boomer-oriented marketing, as well as public relations serving both commercial and non-profit clients and causes. He currently provides a stable of European magazines catering to the 50-plus audience with information on US marketing trends. He is fluent in Dutch and French.

P4 Digital Conference 2012 videos (Scotland)

December 17, 2012 | by

Over 160 delegates attended Scotland’s P4 Digital Conference last month (20 and 21 November 2012). Topics concerning digital healthcare branding, consumer psychology, sports physiology and design were covered. Thanks to the Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the conference sponsors, LifeScan Scotland Ltd, Health Science Scotland, Healthcare Group CSC, NHS 24, Scottish Lifesciences Association and Video3 Technologies for making 5 recordings of the sessions available to the public here: P4 Digital Conference 2012.

Crain’s Health Tech Summit (NYC)

November 16, 2012 | by

In general, systems coped and helped others out which were flooded or lost power; NS-LIJ took in patients from evacuated NY Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYHHC) facilities as well as NYU-Langone Medical Center. In opening remarks, NS-LIJ CEO Michael Dowling pointed out the large gap that had to be worked around–a torrent of new admissions, and being unable to access non-network EHRs. He also pointed out that what healthcare needs is the right data to make the right decisions, and that health care systems were liable to data overload–too much, not right and thus not actionable. Closing remarks by HHC’s CEO Alan Aviles returned to Sandy and were a blow-by-blow account of hospital disaster response, followed by what was being done (step by step) to restore services and lessons for the future.

Dan Cerutti of IBM’s Watson commercialization area presented the development of Watson’s deep Q/A in processing structured and unstructured data, and their tackling oncology first in partnership with WellPoint, and refining the decision making model through research with the Cleveland Clinic. [More in TA 27 Sept and 1 Nov] WellPoint’s CTO Rickey Tang extended the discussion into the wild and wooly world of utilization management, so dear to payers and so badly in need of streamlining in precertification, collection of missing information, cost transparency and post-service review. Both Watson and WellPoint are intent on redoing the UM process; eHealth developers should especially keep an eye on how this restructuring develops. A rather surprising factoid tossed out by Mr. Tang was that 81% of doctors spend less than 5 hours/month reading journals, which gave your Editor pause, especially with state and specialty continuing education requirements; does this account for how physicians are transitioning to consuming information via PCs and mobiles?

The Payers and Providers: Making Health Tech Work panel again returned to how to utilize data in moving to evidence-based care, and then moved forward into issues such as connectivity and patient engagement–extending care to the life of the patient outside the walls of the hospital and the doctor’s office. Managing massive amounts of data into workflow was also a major concern of the panel. Charles Saunders, M.D. of Aetna Emerging Businesses noted the fine line between Big Data and Big Brother. Aetna is developing a payer-neutral infrastructure with providers through Accountable Care Solutions to narrow population gaps in care and integrating its patient engagement application, iTriage [TA 24 Dec 2011], to fill what he termed the ‘white space’ between visits. In later remarks, he added case management and call centers to that mix; in total, more overlap, not less, between provider and payer. For providers, their approach is also affected by the composition of their patient population. Pamela Brier, CEO of Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, pointed out the special challenges of being both the largest Medicaid provider in the borough–now moving to a managed care vs. fee-for-service model–and having a major commitment to the seriously mentally ill, which are for now both roadblocks for Maimonides moving into an accountable care (ACO) model. Their focus is on the electronic transfer and integration of patient information between providers through the local RHIO (regional health information organization). Dr. Neil Calman of the Institute of Family Health and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, from the primary care provider view, proposed that useful data is real time, alerting to patient status and responding to patients at the ER (ED), and will inevitably result in workflow changes. Marco Diaz, representing employers as VP Benefits for Thomson Reuters, thought the balance would come at the consumer level, in matching and integrating individual data, engagement and actions into records. In follow up questions from the floor, panelists were asked about their experiences with remote patient monitoring (telehealth) integration and the effect on same-cause readmissions. Ms. Brier’s experience has been about a 15% reduction, with a key factor the integration of care managers; Dr. Saunders claimed that the rate could be as high as 40% if transitions of care are managed effectively. A sobering note at the end concerned data tracking and a potential increase in liability, not only from the data capture but also from data breaches. However, Dr. Calman positioned this as more importantly, and inevitably, a manageable risk in an improved standard of care, with RHIOs and an ‘electronic trail’ being part of the security solution.

 

After a break, the shorter Innovations and the Market panel discussed what can be successful–and not–in health tech. David Blumenthal, M.D. of Partners Healthcare, which is heavily involved in innovative telehealth such as text reminders and startups such as Healthrageous [TA 17 Oct], told a cautionary tale about his encounter with a ‘Silicon Valley hotshot’ who thought his app was ‘the end’–it was, though not in the sense he intended. What is obvious to the developer is not necessarily that to the consumer. Patients don’t listen! Medivo, an early-stage monitoring/lab result tracking company founded by seasoned veteran Sundeep Bhan, has evolved its revenue model several times as it has grown. To Maria Gotsch, CEO of the NYC Investment Fund, the real revolution is coming with data analysis and the tools to make it actionable. Similar tools have been pioneered in the financial sector, and NY is rich in skilled people. However, the talent hasn’t yet migrated from financial to health tech–the VC mentality is still stuck in financial and shopping websites–but the outlook is improving. The panel agreed that for healthcare innovations, ROI in the traditional sense remains problematic, but is rapidly becoming part of a new standard of care delivery.

 

Tweetstream at #crainshealth.  Many thanks to Crain’s event producer Courtney Williams for facilitating Editor Donna’s attendance.


Update 19 Nov: North Shore-LIJ–a healthcare behemoth in the making? Crain’s seems to think so here.

 

“WSD…the [cost effectiveness] evidence there is not compelling enough” (UK)

November 4, 2012 | by | 4 Comments

Thanks to Government Computing we have two reports from the Health Service Journal 2012 Telehealth Conference 30-31st October:

Our headline quote is taken from the former, which flags up current thinking from speakers from the Department of Health and academia. The second focuses on the variability of wireless broadband coverage in the UK and has a memorable quote from Hazel Price, assistive technology project manager at Kent County Council, “In Kent we have more dead spots than a collection of cemeteries.”

Health 2.0 NYC: Pitch Yourself Into the ‘Shark Tank’

July 24, 2012 | by | 1 Comment

with Philippe Chambon of New Leaf Venture Partners. Other panelists included fellow entrepreneur Brett Shamosh of Wellapps (purchased by Medivo), Milena Adamian, MD of Life Science Angel Network, Esther Dyson of EDVenture, Donna Usiskin of a private investment team, and Alan Brody of the iBreakfast start-up forum.

Both the winner and runner-up were considered by the panel and audience to be ‘contendahs’:

The winner was not related to telehealth at all–BriteSeed’s SafeSnips technology is a near-infrared sensor which can detect blood vessels’ location, diameter size and blood flow, preventing catastrophic cutting into same during minimally invasive or robotic surgeries. This risk is estimated at 2.9% of these surgeries and SafeSnips would help surgeons avoid this at an average cost of $200/surgery. The technology was originally developed out of Northwestern University and they have an outstanding advisory board. And they already have a strong marketing tag: ‘SafeSnips puts the sense into surgical tools’. Congratulations to founder Paul Fehrenbacher on an excellent presentation which smartly included some rather graphic (to non-clinicals) surgical video to drive home the ‘catastrophic’ point. (Pictures do tell the ‘pain point’.) Editor Donna’s neighbor’s consensus was this was a high risk venture (with FDA approval and patent still pending)–but also high potential reward.

The runner-up is of interest to our readers who are concerned with older adults and their living arrangements, especially when that person can no longer live at home safely or needs a higher level of special assistance in everyday care, such as what we in the US call ‘memory care’. Silver Living is effectively a TripAdvisor(R) for senior communities. It independently reviews communities on factors such as care, appearance (independent photos), geography, residence availability, pricing, independent family and resident reviews, and state inspection reports. It also enables users (primarily younger family members) to compare communities much like an Edmunds.com does with cars. In the US, senior communities are a $200 billion market, but with a 46% turnover and onsite sales only; family members often cannot conveniently visit or compare desired communities, as they may live at a distance from the older adult at what is often a painful and emotional time. Bookings could be made directly on the site. Silver Living would also be a useful tool for hospital discharge planners, geriatric care managers, home care managers, doctors and social workers who generally do not have complete or updated referral resources. The revenue model is based on resident referrals (a potential limitation) but with the market size and need…the audience consensus was, ‘why hasn’t someone thought of this before?’ Congratulations to founder Tal Ziv on a strong and detailed presentation

The other presenters were Health2Social (patient empowerment using social media), Health Options Worldwide (automating care and treatment options for companies’ high cost patients) and Talk About Health (a platform for cancer questions, answers and support). All great ideas and developing in the heart of NYC, which is slowly but surely becoming friendler (albeit expensive) territory for healthcare-related startups.

Video will shortly be available on this link. Many thanks to the organizers, especially Alex Fair of FairCareMD and the first healthcare crowdfunder MedStartr. (TA 12 July; more on this to follow) and Steve Greene of Sperlingreene.

What I learned at Health 2.0 NYC

April 1, 2012 | by
  • Rip Road and text connectivity’s appeal. This is the firm responsible for Mount Sinai’s ‘Text in the City’ adolescent health and Partners HealthCare prenatal text programs. Texting not only has great relevance to a younger group, but has appeal that cuts across all ages, demographics and phone types, is HIPAA compliant and not a budget buster. President and founder Eric Leven’s strong presentation begged the question–why aren’t more providers doing this right now? Or are we in the field so in love with smartphones that texting ain’t cool enough to use right now?
  • ClickCare and doctor/clinician/patient connectivity. This is a platform (mobile and desktop) started in 1995 by two doctors which essentially is a virtual doctors’ lounge where physicians can easily collaborate on patient results and share images. It also permits other clinicians and (in a limited fashion) patients and families to see information. Business model is a $99/month per license subscription. Business Development VP Angela Speziale presented.
  • Perhaps most important in potential to telehealth providers is the overlooked concept of ‘transitional care’. Amaji’s Ben Spivey described the critical inflection point where the patient is being discharged from the hospital on ‘the bubble’ as requiring more than traditional home care–the need is in-home primary care. This comprises in-home visits (usually by mid-level providers) who manage rather than simply monitor patients; coordinated home visits and ancillary services such as routine outpatient visits, home nursing and home telemonitoring services, enabled by Amaji’s fully interoperable EMR. Here is a role for technology combined with care management and provider support. And some eHealth providers are now getting it. Honeywell HomMed, which many of us know as strictly a hardware provider–its latest being Genesis Touch–has combined services like Amaji, Ascend HIT and Verizon Wireless into LifeStream Partners.

 

Other presenters were Spain’s Kanteron Systems (open source digital imaging, including 3D imaging superimposed on the body prior to surgery); Fluent Medical (gaps in clinic workflow, CancerLife (patient support online network) and Fresh Digital (in hospital patient education).

 

Finally, Health 2.0 NYC head organizer Alex Fair is moving forward a ‘kickstarter’ for early-stage funding in eHealth…more on this when it happens!

KF Congress 2012: reflections on third day, 8 March

March 9, 2012 | by | 4 Comments

the poster session presenters. There were 17 over two days, each constrained to a 3 minute presentation. They therefore made their main points concisely. I observed that having identified themselves in this way there were plenty of people following up with them after the sessions. I had the impression that the other presenters in the parallel breakout sessions, who had 20 minutes to present did slightly less well but that is based on the small sample I attended.

There must be a version of Parkinson’s Law that states that ‘Presentations expand to fill the time allotted to them (and then some)’.

Poster sessions that got a special mention from Nick Goodwin, the Congress Chair (who also gets a thumbs up for his hard work), were the session on the Israel-wide EHR system by Orit Jacobson, the ‘TalkMeHome’ service for people with early dementia (Netherlands) and ‘Memory and Memories’ (Digital PhotoFrame Therapy, UK).

Keeping the best for last kept most of the attendees at the conference to the end: Magdalene Rosenmöller from IESE Business School, Barcelona and Adam Darkins, from the UD Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA); the whole topped with a ringing speech from Jeremy Hughes of the UK’s Alzheimer’s Society.

Dr Rosenmöller gave a fast helicopter flight over much of the telehealth (in its broadest sense) landscape, while Dr Darkins showed why he has done so well since joining the VA: his style is visionary but clear, broad in scope but illustrated with relevant detail. Most refreshingly amongst the tidal wave of research data presented these past three days, his data are drawn from the VA’s management reports. Oh, the credibility that gives! It is a session to watch again if you missed it.

KF Congress 2012: reflections on second day, 7 March

March 7, 2012 | by | 4 Comments

the Minister Paul Burstow’s keynote speech. The speech was full of the usual warm stuff about how significant telecare and telehealth is, so that was not the reason for its significance.

It was because he gave an outrageous plug to one company – Tunstall. This endorsement was highly inappropriate in a Ministerial speech, particularly as it was not just confined to the hall but was being streamed to viewers around the world.

The other suppliers in the hall, particularly the principal sponsors, must have been very cross once they were over the shock. It was probably also more ‘evidence’ for the conspiracy theorists [I’m not one of them: Editor Steve] who believe that it is Tunstall, and not the Minister, directing the UK Government’s policy on telecare and telehealth.

The ultimate twist to this gaffe is that, just a few minutes before, the Minister had been criticising services that stockpile kit. It is not a secret (apart from to the speech writer, perhaps) that stockpiling kit is a characteristic of a number of Tunstall’s large-purchase customers!

To his credit, the Minister risked taking questions from the floor. I asked about the contrast between his support for the 3millionlives initiative and his lack of support for the use of telehealth with prisoners [TA item, scroll to bottom]. His reply, in relation to prisoners, was “Ministerial edict is not the best way to make sure something happens”…so why is he pronouncing on 3millionlives? The words ‘cake’, ‘have’ and ‘eat’ come to mind.

Other than that, there were some interesting presentation topics during the rest of the day and I will follow them up in future items.

UPDATE 8 March 8am: Full text of the Minister’s speech here. Heads-up thanks to Mike Clark.

UPDATE 8 March 10:30 am. Tunstall milks it: Press release. Paul Burstow MP advocates NHS Gloucestershire and Tunstall’s work…

KF Congress 2012: reflections on first day, 6 March

March 7, 2012 | by

able to live with multiple and contradictory notions heads swirling around their heads, so no one seemed to mind.

Professor Stan Newman, still gagged by the conventions of peer-reviewed journal publishing and still not, therefore, able to reveal any significant WSD results, talked about results that have been in the public domain for some time. These concern the numbers of GPs and patients recruited into the WSD trials. The most striking finding was the lack of people in the cohorts who required both telehealth and telecare equipment. “We couldn’t find them” he said. Attendees were left with the impression that either people with both needs do not exist in the population or that services tend to ‘prescribe’ what they know; either telecare or telehealth. However, I gleaned outside the session that they were there, but they were people who were particularly prone to decline to participate because they feared that answering the study’s health questionnaires was a threat to their social care services and benefits.

Clearly, there is going to be much debate over interpretation when the full results are published.

The session by Professor Jeremy Wyatt was more thought-provoking than its title (Using Evidence to innovate in clinical practice and self care: role of randomised control trials) led one to expect. He emphasised that amongst all the data analysis the question ‘What does this mean to the patients?’ needs to be asked. For example, for a particular set of telehealth users, the technology may enable them to make more informed rejection of treatment, leading to an increase in mortality. Without understanding that, the researchers may assume the increase to be a negative outcome. If that were the case, how would you build a business case on the evidence? [Head swirling, editor Steve retreats to bed.]


Telecare Services Association Conference 2011 Breakout sessions

November 17, 2011 | by

These are not in any particular order – newest at top, just as people send them in.

Remote Monitoring and Virtual Visiting using PC-to-TV Technology

Alasdair Morrison, Service Manager STAY, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, ran a workshop with Adam Hoare from Red Embedded on their roll out of virtual visiting systems across health and social care. The presentation (video below) is aimed at giving people the background to what the project is and where they will be deploying the equipment.

The main part of each workshop they ran demonstrated the technology. Alasdair says “We only had positive comments from our audiences and the feeling was that people could see this technology as a way to bring health and social care together and make up the gaps between telecare and telehealth whilst making savings across many organisations’ teams and services.”

Click to play. Music alert Smile

{flvremote}http://tsa2011-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/sandwell-tsa-nov11.mp4{/flvremote}

Conference reports: TSA2011

November 13, 2011 | by

Reports from the TSA’s International Telecare and Telehealth Conference 2011, London.

Monday, November 14th: Been there. Done that. Waiting for the zealots’ t-shirt
Tuesday, November 15th: Two halves and a bit
Wednesday, November 16th: Not going home with my conference bag on my head
Reports from presenters and attendees: TSA Conference 2011 Breakout sessions
TSA Crystal Award winners (PDF)

Disclosure: Editor Steve’s attendance at the conference was facilitated by the organisers.

Telecare Services Association Conference Wed 16 Nov 2011

November 13, 2011 | by | 2 Comments

Not going home with my conference bag on my head

Readers will rejoice to know that I did not have to travel home wearing the conference bag on my head. As I predicted on Monday, Jonathan D Linkous’s presentation entitled What can the UK teach the USA about Telecare delivery and what opportunities does this offer to the UK market? Was all ‘health’ and no ‘telecare’ in the sense that the word is used in the UK.


Archbishop Desmond Tutu started the day by means of a five minute video address. In 2009 he had become an ISfTeH (International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth) ambassador for eHealth. The address was pre-recorded as the previous week he had been in Rio de Janeiro launching the Society’s Global eHealth Ambassadors Program. He said that the UK had a leading role in the development of telecare and telehealth. His reputation for charm and diplomacy is clearly deserved.

Readers, knowing my concerns – well, OK, near-obsession – with the lack of an agreed terminology in this field will not be surprised to learn that my ears picked up when Archbishop Tutu made the point that whatever the words we use, they are a only a tool to reach out to change the lives of people. That’s a perspective I will try to remember Smile


Provocative mHealth presentation

David Doherty of 3GDoctor gave what was arguably the most interesting and provocative presentation of the conference, about mHealth (mobile health).

The core of his proposition is that smartphone communications are rapidly emerging as the next mass medium as the main source of information for people in the way that the internet supplanted television, which supplanted cinema, which supplanted radio, which supplanted newspapers.

He contended that just as the non-smart mobile phone hit the manufacturers of watches and cameras in the noughties, the smartphone and tablet computers are already disrupting other markets, such as for desktop PCs, and will disrupt our accustomed ways of delivering many services, including healthcare. [Telecare Aware readers will be familiar with our reports of adoption of iPads by doctors in the US, and we also heard at the conference that the NHS Direct app, which contains the whole algorithm used in their call centres, has been used over a million times in the 6 months since it was launched.]

David said that “The best opportunity we have of containing future healthcare costs can be achieved by teaching [older] patients to SMS.” He gave examples of how the 3GDoctor service works and of various health apps. Conference Chair Roy Lilley commented that many of the functions of the equipment on display in the exhibition could be replicated on phone and tablet apps.

This session should have triggered more debate: there were audience members I spoke to afterwards who, based on their own preferences regarding phone and internet use, remain to be convinced that these developments have significant implications for their telecare service delivery.


Telewhatever

The third speaker was Jonathan Linkous chief executive of the American Telemedicine Association who, as I indicated above, talked about telemedicine and telehealth (undefined) in the US. He focused first on its still patchy adoption. However, in terms of trends which imply that ‘telewhatever’ is becoming embedded into services, he gave the example of ‘teleradiology’ (interpreting X-rays and scans remotely) which is now so commonplace that it is considered ‘normal radiology’ by its practitioners who did not recognise that they were doing ‘tele’ anything!

He rounded off by making public his invitation to the TSA and other such organisations around the world to form an international consortium to share current telehealth service standards and to develop a common set.


There was then a time for further breakout sessions or exhibition visiting. I noticed a subtle but striking change in the exhibition area this year compared with last. If you asked an exhibitor a question they would be as likely as not to whip out an iPad and show you a presentation or a website as part of the process of answering it. It not only brought home David Doherty’s point about the technology changing ‘service delivery’ but it also highlighted that the experience of sharing a small screen with someone keeps the communication flow personal. So perhaps tablet computers will help bridge doctor/patient communication gaps!

The conference was rounded off by the non-industry speaker, Nick Hewer from the UK’s version of The Apprentice TV show. It was mildly entertaining but when it ran over time many audience members left. Not a reflection on Nick, but to catch trains, one assumes.

– – – – – – – –

A selection of comments gathered from attendees
[to be added]

Telecare Services Association Conference Mon 14 Nov 2011

November 13, 2011 | by | 2 Comments

Been there. Done that. Waiting for the zealots’ t-shirt.

For the past few years the Telecare Services Association’s conference has flirted with telehealth – its core ‘home’ audience being social services telecare providers. But during the past year the seduction has been complete and throughout today the speakers’ focus on telehealth’s nuptial preparations has been positively upbeat – complete with ‘topical’ reference to Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin‘ (1964).

With all the attention on telehealth, telecare has been largely relegated to the workshops and exhibition hall where, I’m happy to say she seems to be getting along quite nicely, thank you.

As if telehealth were already wearing her bridal veil, none of today’s speakers defined what they meant by the term and with each new speaker it will take time for the audience to work out that they are not talking about the same thing as the previous one. Furthermore, if the term ‘telecare’ in the final day session entitled What can the UK teach the USA about Telecare delivery and what opportunities does this offer to the UK market? by Jonathan D Linkous, Chief Executive of the American Telemedicine Association does not also turn out to be a variation of ‘telehealth’ I’ll wear my conference bag home on my head!

So what was revealed today?

Nothing of the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) randomised control trial results, of course, but we knew that would be the case, anyway, didn’t we? I suppose so because no one took Conference Chair Roy Lilley’s challenge to ask for their money back. Professor Stanton Newman’s re-titled session turned out to be WSD Trial – Evaluation of Telehealth and Telecare: Who accepts and rejects the equipment and why which was an interesting complement to the Telecare Aware Soapbox item on the topic. However, it is really just a byway in the WSD countryside.

Between Professor Newman, Paul Burstow, the Minister for Care Services and Stephen Johnson, Head of Long Term Conditions at the Department of Health (DH) we were variously told that the WSD results were:

  • in the last stages of the peer review process
  • that they are only a couple of weeks away from publication
  • that DH was considering how to follow up publication to get the best bang for the buck (I paraphrase)
  • that DH is working on a LTC-based ‘year of care’ tariff which, one assumes, will include an element for telehealth

Hey ho! Telecare in England had its chance to become the belle of the ball with the Preventative Technology Grant back in 2006-08 and councils frittered that chance away like nervous adolescents. Let’s hope the NHS can do better when its turn comes! (Hmm…have I just mixed metaphors? Sorry!)

A couple of snippets from Professor Newman’s presentation (you can wait for the full results, can’t you?): 5831 participants to the WDS were recruited [out of 27,000 invitations, we learned from later speaker Gwyn Weatherburn] but only a very small percentage of people who had the equipment installed asked for it to be removed. People who were less likely to ask for it to be removed were female, younger and from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Roy Lilley, who, at some point had been branded a zealot neatly turned that around and had the majority of the audience proclaiming that they too were telehealth zealots! We are now waiting for the t-shirt.

Dave Tyas, telehealth co-ordinator from the Cornwall WSD brought the issues to life with the example of patient ‘Eddie’. Main points I picked up from his presentation were:

  • Most people DO get on with the technology regardless of age
  • Resistance initially came from the GPs who had workload concerns, but referrals are now increasing
  • A service needs to set up in a way that can scale across conditions and numbers
  • Patient satisfaction with delivery/installation is critical
  • Lack of information is the main barrier for patients
  • What patients DO is more important than what they SAY

Stephen Johnson followed Paul Burstow’s speech. Three points from Stephen for me were:

  • If we cannot be clear about telehealth amongst ourselves (the zealots!) how can we expect the public to be clear?
  • After the WSD results are published it will be hard for people to argue for more pilot projects. (Hooray!)
  • Unlike MRI scanners we do not have the luxury of having 30 years to get it mainstreamed.

To the last point I’d add that neither do current potential users.

Gwyn Weatherburn’s presentation was a round-up of the wide-ranging interest of the Royal Society of Medicine in the topic. It was more interesting than I’ve probably made it sound.

The afternoon was drawn to a close by Adam Darkins, a British ex-brain surgeon who is Chief Consultant, Care Coordination Services for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the US. As he oversees one of the largest telahealth projects in the world (he has picked up the American way of pronouncing it despite not losing his English accent) his credentials are second-to-none. His presentation was also the most visually interesting with old photos drawing analogies with current technological concerns. Two significant points I noted were:

  • Using home telehealth does not unlock money from hospital-based healthcare
  • Developing counties do not have to disinvest from old healthcare systems before investing in the new ones that are emerging. So, if they can invest, they could leapfrog the developed counties.