Telecare Aware News Network briefing

Background

When Telecare Aware started in 2005 it focused on news from the UK. However, it quickly developed an international perspective, helping readers note developments in other countries that possibly had general lessons or implications for the industry. This took a big step forward with the appointment in September 2009 of Donna Cusano to improve TA’s North American coverage and to provide context for developments based there.

However, this growth meant that coverage of country-specific news items, such as Government policy developments and local development projects were squeezed out of the news stream.

From our news searches we frequently see items that would interest readers in particular counties but we do not report them because they would not interest the general readership. Countries where we think there is an immediate need for their own sites are:
Australia (now active)
Canada (now active)
England (now active)
France (now active)
Germany
India
Italy (active soon)
Netherlands
Pakistan
New Zealand
Scotland
Spain
USA – individual states
Wales (active soon)
but other countries will be welcome to have their own site too.

Telecare Aware News Network sites

We have developed the facility to set up sites quickly, under the eCareAware.com domain. (See this as an example.) These are blog-type sites suitable for noting news items and providing a link to them. Items do not need to be reported in English. We would like to have 2 or 3 contributing editors per country. We will have links to each country site from the main Telecare Aware site.

What is required of Contributing Editors?

The requirements of contributing editors country sites are:

• To scan news sources most days, looking for items to post.
• To post a link to the news items, with a sentence or two indicating why readers might want to read it.
• To have a sense of what is ‘newsworthy’, rather than to have writing skills.
• To have a working knowledge of English, for communications with the TA editors.

You do NOT need:

• Previous experience of working on a blog. Training on posting items will be given.
• To write articles – although if you want to do that, they will be welcome!
• To maintain the website. We will do that. It is just a matter of logging on, posting your item and logging off again.

Why become a Contributing Editor?

As a contributing editor you will:

• Gain recognition in your country’s community and amongst TA’s wider readership.
• Find that it is an excellent way of keeping your knowledge up to date.
• Receive a complimentary membership of the Telecare Aware In Review site. (Subject to posting at least three items a month).
• Be able to stop your involvement any time that your situation or interests change.

You may also find that you are offered press passes to conferences in exchange for reporting on them.

What next?

If you would like to volunteer to be a contributing editor for your country’s site, email Steve. steve.hards@telecareaware.com

Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Commenting Policy
Anonymity Policy
Press Release Policy
Conference Publicity Policy
Soapbox Guidelines (for authors)

Privacy Policy

We collect a small amount of information from people who sign up for our news updates mailing, including name and email address (to provide the service), country, if offered, and IP address and date of sign up. We never sell, rent, give or otherwise expose this data to any third parties. The legal basis for this is your consent. The data is stored in a private Amazon S3 account using ‘Sendy‘ as our private email management system.

We keep a record of subscribers who use the automatic unsubscribe link at the bottom of each updates email or whose subscription is suspended owing to repeated hard bounces. This enables us to maintain a ‘clean’ list of active subscribers and email them only. The unsubscribed record will be maintained as long as the alerts emails are sent out.

If you wish not only to unsubscribe but to have your record deleted as if it never existed (the ‘right to be forgotten’) you will need to email to us with ‘Delete’ in the subject line, as we have to do this manually.

Cookie Policy

When you arrived at this site Google Analytics cookies were stored on your computer. If you visit parts of the site that use WordPress (such as the archives and TA In Review) WordPress cookies may also be stored. We cannot personally identify you from these cookies but they are essential to help us understand usage of the site. We think it reasonable to assume that, as a tech-savvy Telecare Aware reader, if you object to this you can easily delete those cookies and stop them being added on future visits. (Google ‘delete and block cookies’ plus the name of your browser.) By not deleting or blocking our cookies you imply your consent to our using them.

Commenting Policy

Readers are encouraged to add comments to items that further debate or elaborate them. All comments are moderated. That is, before they appear on the site they will have been read by one of the editors who may make small unacknowledged edits for matters of grammar but who will indicate with an italicised comment within square brackets [like this] if part of a comment is omitted or substantially altered for any reason.

We approach the task of moderation impartially and subsequent publication should not be interpreted as our implied agreement with the originator of the comment.

Anonymity Policy

The gist is…if you have a serious comment to make anonymously…email it, don’t just post it.

Truly anonymous comments – where the writer is unknown – are not published unless they are unexceptional.

Comments or articles where the authorship is known but are offered for publication anonymously are considered on their merits. (Email editors Steve or Donna in confidence.) There are some circumstances where it is necessary to be close to a particular situation to be able to throw light on it but to write about it publicly would jeopardise the author’s position. In that case, the decision to publish an item anonymously hinges on the question of whether or not it is informed opinion that will add insight to, or might start, a debate on a particular topic.

Unsubstantiated allegations of illegal behaviour or substandard products, for example, would not be posted unless they could be independently verified, in which case we would probably publish them ourselves.

Just because a post, article or comment, etc. is published on Telecare Aware, readers cannot and should not infer that the editors agree with the author, anonymous or not.

Press Release Policy

Unlike some other websites, we do not publish press releases per se – we publish news and may link to a press release that explains that news. Therefore, while we are pleased to receive press releases directly, and will link to them on your website, we are unlikely to report on information that we believe is not ‘news’ of interest to our readers. This generally means we will not be reporting on press releases containing ‘announcement’ material such as:

• You have routinely acquired a new customer or distributor/reseller
• You have redesigned your website
• You are going to present, or have presented, at a conference

Please also note that press releases with ‘news’ that we have to unhype first, or ‘studies’ and ‘research’ which lack basic objectivity and methodology are unlikely to gain a place on the site – unless we use them as bad examples, which we have been known to do from time to time.

Conference Publicity Policy

On request, conferences and events will get a free listing on the Events page.

We select a very few conferences per year for ‘Media Partnership’ arrangements whereby both parties provide mutual publicity. Therefore do not be offended or surprised if we turn down your media partnership request – paid adverts for other conferences are welcome, at normal advertising rates – see the Promote page.

Soapbox Guidelines

The ‘Soapbox’ is a place where you can write about industry-related topics on which you feel strongly. There is no preferred length – it should be just as long as you think necessary to make the point(s). We only ask that it is interesting, passionate or entertaining – and not libellous or defamatory, of course.

Browsing other Soapboxes (under the Opinion menu item) will give the best idea of the approach. References to authors companies are allowable for context but blatant self-promotion is not. Your company, personal website or contact details can be linked to at the end. There may be some light touch editing for consistency of house style but you will be able to review any changes before publication.

Telecare Aware is a feisty, independent B2B review of healthcare technology (telecare and telehealth) primarily in the US and UK (where Steve Hards, EIC, founded it in 2005). We’re opinionated, independent and write about the news and issues important to our international readership of developers, telehealth implementers, policy makers, marketers and funders. We also invite outside opinions (in the Soapbox). We are technology advocates, with an eye to what best works in keeping people of all ages independent and healthier, integrates into care workflow, and has a workable business model.

Visits to Telecare Aware have continued to grow month-on-month and, looking at the statistics up to the end of September 2010, this is what Company A has missed out on:

• The total page views in September 2010 were 14,957 – up 40% on December.
• Unique visitors in September had increased to 5,580 – up 94% on December.
• Over the nine months since Company A stopped advertising there have been 127,650 page views and 35,196 unique visitors.
• If Company A and Tynetec had been the only advertisers (we allow only a maximum of four in that slot) Company A’s banner would have been seen 63,825 times.
• At the same click-through rate as December, they could have expected at least 2,360 visits to their site. As it was, most of the banner views went to Tynetec by default. Lucky them!

To repeat: in the past 9 months Company A missed an estimated 2,360 visitors to their website by not advertising on Telecare Aware.

Because Telecare Aware provides news of interest to people on all sides of the telecare, telehealth and eHealth industries, our visitors are industry-focused and very loyal. In any time period about half of our readers visit more than once. Telecare Aware therefore has a concentrated readership of influential people in the field. Advertisers who are seen to be supporting Telecare Aware consistently may benefit from that loyalty.

Furthermore, because of its long term commitment Company A had previously been enjoying beneficial pricing for advertising. It will now miss out should it decide to advertise again because Telecare Aware’s prices – while still reasonable – went up in September to reflect the 40% growth in page views and the near doubling of unique visitors.

So what are you waiting for? Another 35,000 visitors to pass you by? See this page for rates, etc. and get in touch to set up your advertising now.

Why might you PAY to subscribe to a FREE service?

If you value the independence of Telecare Aware and the time it saves you researching developments in the industry, please consider making a voluntary recurring subscription or an occasional donation.

Small subscriptions of £5-£10 ($7-$15), especially if made regularly, are as appreciated as the larger one-off donations we occasionally receive.

Contrary to popular belief, Telecare Aware does not receive grant funding and keeps afloat with a small revenue from sponsorship and other advertising. Your contribution will be used to keep Telecare Aware going, to keep it independent (and opinionated!) and to keep its content free to people who would be unable to access it if it were a fixed subscription-based service.

Click on the button below to make a donation (one-off or recurring) via PayPal’s secure interface which works with credit and debit cards as well as PayPal accounts. Alternatively, see note below.

If it is constitutionally difficult for your organisation to make a simple donation, we understand. Let us know and we can arrange to invoice you for a subscription.
Email Steve

The fact that you are not experiencing our site as we intended means that you are using an internet browser that does not comply with World Wide Web standards.

More specifically, you are using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) or older. We know, because amongst other problems with IE6, it does not display certain image files properly.

BUT THIS IS ONLY ONE MINOR PROBLEM WITH IE6

The list of problems is as long as your arm, but the most important is that it is insecure and makes your computer vulnerable to hacker attacks. This is why Microsoft recommends that you upgrade to the latest version (currently IE8) and why the German and French Governments recommend that you avoid Internet Explorer altogether! (Wikipedia article about IE6 for more information.)

If it is your own computer, there is no excuse for not upgrading from IE6 or switching to a better browser such as Firefox, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari (for PCs too). It is FREE to do any of these things!

If your IE6 browser use is determined by your company or organisation’s IT department (GE! Intel! O2! IBM! Bosch! and many UK councils), you may have a battle on your hands to get them to change it or to allow you to use another browser. However, they will have to change eventually, as many websites are starting to block people who use IE6 – so they may as well change sooner rather than later, and you can help them along that path by complaining and by pointing them to the following article on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Developers’ blog: Engineering POV: IE6 and/or the Microsoft recommends that you upgrade item.

UPDATE: New Internet Explorer 6 and 7 security weakness found. Forward this to your IT department if you are battling to get them to upgrade. IE zero-day flaw leaks out from zdnet.

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If your company is not having a presence at a major conference, sponsoring a Telehealth & Telecare Aware report from it may be your best and cheapest alternative way of ‘being there’. Your banner will be seen by everyone reading the reports – for ever. Here’s an example.

How it works

Editors Steve Hards and Donna Cusano give our time, energy and expertise to travel to and write the reports, and conference organisers – who understand the value of the publicity – offer us press passes. But we need support to cover travelling and subsistence.

Please plan ahead as far as possible: the sooner arrangements can be agreed the less travel and accommodation generally cost, and so less sponsorship funding is required. We can either invoice you for the agreed costs or it may suit your budget or administrative arrangements to make accommodation and travel bookings on our behalf.