Teladoc sues Amwell on patent infringement–again

This week’s Big News in the Telehealth Wars was Teladoc suing their chief rival Amwell (the former American Well) for patent infringement. These relate largely to telemedicine carts and robotic technology patents acquired by Teladoc via InTouch Health, which was finalized in July. InTouch Health’s value in the neighborhood of $1bn, when all was factored in, was reinforced by its over 130 patents and pending applications.

Notices were sent by Teladoc in mid-September for compliance by 18 September. It was mentioned by Amwell as meritless in filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission but apparently did not make a dent in their through-the-roof IPO raise of $742 million on 16 September. Their share price remains steady at over a $10 per share increase from the IPO price.

Amwell’s infringing products, according to reports on the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, encompass their Carepoints line of digital scope, stethoscope, and four different types of telemedicine carts, including the Horus HD Digital Scope System and the Thinklabs One Digital Stethoscope. There are nine contested patents. Teladoc is asking for treble damages plus court fees. Amwell has already stated that this type of business for them is in single digits–5 percent of revenue in 2019.

Both Amwell and Teladoc have been down this road before in 2015 and 2016. Teladoc also started it then, with Amwell countersuing–and losing in June 2016, with additional patent challenges filed by Teladoc with the USPTO. This record doesn’t bode well for Amwell, but even though IP fights tend to generate nasty headlines and drain resources, what is contested is a fraction of their business. Curiously, to this Editor’s knowledge, there is no record of InTouch Health, prior to their acquisition, challenging Amwell on these systems. Healthcare Dive, Healthcare IT News, Fierce Healthcare, WSJ (paywalled)

Cleveland Clinic, American Well extend partnership to high-acuity telehealth services with ‘The Clinic’

Proof that the realm of virtual consults is growing more competitive and specialized than ever is the announcement of a joint venture between the Cleveland Clinic and American Well. Dubbed The Clinic, the partnership will give patients access to comprehensive and high-acuity care services by integrating Cleveland Clinic’s specialists with American Well’s platform. 

While Cleveland Clinic and American Well have worked together in telehealth for non-emergency and specialty care since 2014, this new partnership takes it a giant step further to the care and management of complex conditions. Cleveland Clinic has also stated that telehealth is a key part of their growth strategy to double the number of patients served in the next five years. The Clinic will provide both national and international reach beyond their physical locations that include Abu Dhabi and London, according to a quote in the press release from Tom Mihaljevic, MD, their CEO and president. 

Cleveland Clinic reported that in 2018, the number of annual virtual visits grew 68 percent, anticipating that in five years, 50 percent of their outpatient visits will be virtual.

No timing for a go-live of The Clinic has been announced. Release, Mobihealthnews

Best Buy enlarges health tech footprint with Tyto Care expansion, connected fitness products (updated)

Best Buy is dramatically increasing its wellness profile with two announcements around digital health. The first is today’s announcement of a further rollout of retailing Tyto Care’s TytoHome device and platform in select Best Buy stores in California, Ohio, North Dakota, and South Dakota. This adds to the previously announced Minnesota locations [TTA 17 Apr] for a total of 30, as well as nationwide via BestBuy.com. In Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Tyto Care connects to Sanford Health doctors 24/7. In California and Ohio, as well as for online sales, Tyto Care partners with LiveHealth Online, part of American Well, except for users in Louisiana and Mississippi who will be covered by Ochsner Health System. Each visit is a maximum of $59, which may be less depending on the patient’s insurance plan or the type of visit. Tyto Care is also offering the plan through LiveHealth Online to select employers. Release.

Tyto Home is a handheld examination device with attachments that can examine the heart, lungs, skin, ears, throat, and abdomen, plus body temperature. The captured information can be sent or examined live by a primary care provider.

Best Buy is also betting that people also will flock to their stores to sample connected fitness, most with virtual classes and coaching. Last week they highlighted five: Flywheel Sports, an indoor cycle with online classes; Hydrow, a rowing machine with virtual classes on real-life bodies of water; NordicTrack, with a line of treadmills, bikes, rowers and strength training machines with virtual classes; NormaTec, a digital compression recovery system; and Hyperice, which produces a range of recovery tools like massagers. The digital fitness market is massive–estimated by Piper Jaffray at around $5 billion today, over double from 2016’s $2.1 billion. Mobihealthnews, CNN Business

This adds to a Best Buy digital health profile that includes the Big Buy of GreatCall last year and Critical Signal Technologies monitoring last month to add senior remote monitoring devices to their portfolio. This is not without pitfalls. Earlier this month, Best Buy was sued for a defect found in its GreatCall Lively MobilePlus mobile PERS that in action failed to detect falls as described, after GreatCall discontinued the device in mid-May in what a letter from their CEO David Inns described as an “important safety recall,” offering buyers a Jitterbug flip phone or a full refund. But Best Buy is hedging its bets on tech with higher price-point connected fitness exercise machines and wearables which will attract higher end buyers into stores and online.

News roundup: The state of Finland’s health tech, American Well-Cisco team for TV consults, Tech for Quality Care in Manchester 9 July

Finland shows its sisu in health tech startups. It’s a country you wouldn’t think of readily as hospitable to startups, but they’ve leveraged their tech skills (think the pivots that Nokia has accomplished) to create patient outcome and remote patient monitoring companies that are making an impact in Europe. Some which are making an impact are Meru, Kaiku, and Navigil. Venture capital is ‘thinnish’ which leads to companies seeking seed and development funding from government sources and later on, foreign investors. Mobihealthnews is profiling these companies in conjunction with Business Finland, a government entity. HIMSS and Health 2.0 also had their European conference in Helsinki, and this article discusses how their national health service, Kanta Services, leverages digital health in e-prescribing, they have a national database called the Patient Data Repository that collect patient data records to make them accessible to providers and patients, and the My Kanta patient portal.

Back to the 1990s? Tech device maker Cisco is teaming up with American Well to convert TVs to a video portal via a set-top unit. This is targeted to older adults and those with multiple chronic conditions who may not be comfortable with laptops, tablets, or smartphones, but wouldn’t mind using their TV to connect to a doctor. How it work seems to require a ‘smart TV’–the patient would activate the device on the TV, connect it to Wi-Fi, and initiate the video consult with the doctor and caregiver. No information on timing, markets, or pricing at this time. CNBCWhy does this sound like a klutzy non-starter to this Editor, who went through the fad of interactive TV in the Mad ’90s? It seems to need more than just consults.  Mobihealthnews notes that Quil Health, a Comcast-Independence Blue Cross joint venture, is targeting pre- and post-care support through the TV. Comcast is also rumored to be working on an Alexa-like ambient sensor based device to monitor basic vital signs and fall detection.

Using Technology for Quality Care on 9 July is a free half-day conference/workshop at Kings House Conference Centre, Manchester. It is the first of a series of regional workshops in the North West region to learn from local areas where councils, care providers, and suppliers work together using technology to support care. More information is on this PDF and on the Local Government Association website. Hat tip to Reader Adrian Scaife who just recently joined Alcuris Ltd. as Business Development Manager.

Breaking News–Teladoc: while accredited by NCQA, placed on ‘under corrective action’ status (updated)

Breaking News. Teladoc–one of the two giants in telemedicine–has been placed on ‘under corrective action’ status in its latest (15 May) two-year accreditation with the National Committee for Quality Assurance, better known by its initials, NCQA. Their next review is slated for six months (18 Nov).

According to the earliest breaking report on Seeking Alpha, a business and stock market website, the move to ‘corrective action’ status has been brewing for some time. Teladoc was the first telemedicine company to win this coveted status in 2013. Now, of course, all major telemedicine players have this accreditation.

This is the latest mark against the company, which has gone through some recent ‘interesting times’ financially with accounting problems based on booking stock awards (2018), the CFO’s resignation, and lack of replacement. The report by a ‘bear’ on the stock indicates that its large contract with Aetna, among others, is up for renewal.

Exactly what this ‘corrective action’ is related to has not been made public by either NCQA or Teladoc. Comments under the article sourced from a Wells Fargo analyst that the action is arising from a workflow that Teladoc uses for credentialing providers.

A good portion of this article discusses revisions on the Teladoc website and marketing materials which ensues when something like this happens and it is the basis for a superiority or credentialing claim.

NCQA is a non-profit that advocates quality standards and measures for healthcare organizations, health plans, and organizations that provide services to the former. Their standards are widespread in the industry as a means of review and accreditation for providers and hospitals, as well as incorporated into quality metrics used by HHS and CMS. For those who may not be able to access the full article–requires free membership (but you’ll get emails) registration with the Seeking Alpha site–attached is a PDF of the article.

Update: While to the ‘bear’ Teladoc is a glass half empty and cracked, to another Seeking Alpha writer, the glass is more than half full even though the company continues to run substantial losses. Here’s an analysis that is mostly positive, though acknowledging the issues above.

International news roundup: ATA dispatches, compete for funding in Helsinki, Spry FDA-cleared for COPD, Merck acquires ConnectMed Kenya

There’s not much news so far from the just-wrapped ATA 2019 conference in New Orleans, but POLITICO Morning eHealth highlighted a drop-by by Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, urging attendees to demonstrate to their local politicos that telemedicine is safe and effective–and be ready to answer questions about fraud or misuse. Louisiana’s Ochsner Health System is branching into retail with the O Bar, cleverly designed to look like an Apple Store to merchandise wearables and other health tech devices. For Ochsner patients, they can enroll into RPM programs and have their data directly input into their Epic EHR. American Well released a survey of 800 doctors, with the unsurprising finding that 22 percent have used telehealth to treat patients, but this is up 340 percent since 2015; also that the doctors finding telehealth most attractive to practice are also reporting high levels of burnout. Looking for more substantiative news from NOLA.

It’s Helsinki for pitching your digital health idea in June. The 11th edition of the interestingly named EC2VC Investors Forum and Pitch Competition is now part of HIMSS/ Health 2.0 Europe 2019. Healthcare startups and SMEs looking for funding can apply, with 12 companies to be selected to present before a jury panel of digital health investors. The format is a four-minute pitch, followed by six minutes of Q&A. More information and to apply by 6 May, with finalists selected by 13 May. The event is 11 June from 13:00 to 16:00 at Messukeskus Helsinki Expo & Convention Centre. 

Spry Health’s Loop wearable device gained FDA clearance. Spry is a RPM device company with a wrist-wearable device that measures pulse oximetry, respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure (research only) through optical sensors. While users can receive reports on the display and alerts, it is primarily meant for clinical monitoring by physicians in healthcare systems. The RPM is meant to detect signs of patient deterioration and exacerbations early so that actions can be taken. For the present time, the company is focusing on the device’s use in COPD patients. Certainly there is a large market in the US–there are 12 million diagnosed patients, with COPD the third leading cause of death with over 120,000 deaths per year. Mobihealthnews, BusinessWire, MDDIOnline

Merck acquires Kenyan digital health startup ConnectMed. The pharma company is purchasing ConnectMed’s telehealth applications in Kenya serving about 8,000 consumers, as well as related management systems. Merck will use the platform in conjunction with its Curafa point of care clinical and pharmaceutical services. Started in September of last year, these are run by local independent pharmaceutical technologists, clinical officers and nurses for underserved populations in Kenya. ConnectMed will cease operations. During its lifetime, it developed three DTC digital health services in Kenya and South Africa. WT/Startup Africa

Tyto Care inks deal with Best Buy for retail sales of remote diagnostic device

Tyto Care’s long-planned retail debut of the TytoHome remote diagnostic device has arrived at Best Buy. The telehealth device which incorporates a camera, stethoscope, otoscope, tongue depressor, basal thermometer, and smartphone app can be bought online for $299.99. According to their release, TytoHome will be available at select Minnesota Best Buy stores and will roll out to North Dakota, South Dakota, California and Ohio.

TytoHome has been from the start (late 2016) pitched to parents as a 24/7 service for ill children in that middle-of-the-night sick call to the doctor, but more recently for adults as an adjunct to a virtual visit. The Israel-based company with US offices in NYC partnered with American Well early [TTA 2 Dec 2016]. For Best Buy customers outside of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, TytoHome will connect to doctors via LiveHealth Online, an American Well partner. In those three states, TytoHome will connect to Tyto Care health system partner Sanford Health and their medical providers. Each visit will be $59, possibly less if the service is covered by the person’s or family insurance plan.

Best Buy, of course, has made a large bet on retail health tech with its purchase of GreatCall, well-known for its Jitterbug phones targeted to older adults with its 5-Star PERS, but also prior to the acquisition with GreatCall’s purchases of Lively’s tech for consumer devices and HealthSense in LTC systems. Their current plans are outlined in a recent interview with CEO David Inns.

NYeC’s 2018 Gala & Awards on 27 November (US)

The influential New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is honoring four highly influential leaders in improving healthcare through the use of technology on Tuesday 27 November in NYC: Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health; Linda A. Lambert, CAE, Executive Director of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Physicians; and CEO/founders Ido and Roy Schoenberg, MD of American Well.

The gala will be at the Edison Ballroom, which this Editor can confirm was a top-notch venue last year. More information and registration is here.

If you are at all engaged with healthcare systems and technology in the New York metro area, it’s worth your time and fisc to attend this event to be the company of over 250 C-suite executives, leaders, and policymakers.

NYeC is a non-profit which works with the New York State Department of Health to improve healthcare by collaboratively leading, connecting, and integrating health information exchange (HIE) across the state. One of their major tasks is to advance the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY), a network connecting healthcare professionals statewide. 

$6.8 bn in digital health funding through Q3 blows the doors off 2017: Rock Health

And the money rolls in. All Rock Health had to do was wait a quarter to get breathless [TTA 4 July], because digital health funding through Q3 is now exceeding the full year 2017 by $1.1 bn. The average deal size has accelerated substantially–$23.6 million versus last year’s $16.4 million. The deals are bigger but fewer–290 so far versus 357 last year–and the length of time between funding rounds has consistently grown shorter. 

Another proportional shift is the growth of Series B and C startups, at long last, and a more than doubling of D+ deals.

A big shift in this quarter were that the stars lined up, perhaps for the first time, with at-home and on demand health. American Well of course at $291 M loaded these dice, but also benefiting from the throw were the similar Doctor on Demand, Honor (home care), and NowRx med delivery service. Faster meds at lower cost have become a major area of action (Amazon with PillPack, TelePharm, others). Digital therapeutics that help to monitor health at home followed from Pear Therapeutics, Click Therapeutics, Akili Interactive, Virta Health, Propeller Health, and Hinge Health. 

And where the money comes from? Independent venture funds still account for 63 percent, and corporate VCs for 15 percent.  Some of those CVCs are major names such as GSK, Abbott, and Cigna. Big tech is also moving into healthcare, with Amazon’s $1bn acquisition of PillPack, the Apple Watch 4, Google’s Nest.

Rock Health’s trend prediction is continued consolidation in digital health, with companies continuing to acquire each other. “With available capital and a desire to build out product lines, talent, and client bases, it’s not surprising to see a great deal of M&A activity within digital health.” One example given is Welltok, which plays in the consumer health ‘activation’ area, and their acquisitions from corporate health management programs to Wellpass, which has created such as Text4Baby, Text2Quit and Care4Life and whose largest customer is state Medicaid plans.

Keep in mind that Rock Health tracks deals over $2 million in value from venture capital, excluding government and grant funding. They omit non-US deals, even if heavily US funded.

Rock Health’s report. Healthcare Dive.  Mobilhealthnews‘ own top 17 M&As, which include Best Buy-GreatCall and Logisticare-Circulation in the burgeoning area of non-emergency medical transport (NEMT).

A mHealth refutation of ‘Why Telemedicine is a Bust’

Worth your time over a long coffee is David Doherty’s lengthy analysis of a recent article published on the CNBC website on the ‘failure’ to date of what was supposed to revolutionize healthcare, the telemedicine ‘video visit’. Mr. Doherty counters point-by-point that the concept of telemedicine is already out of date–that the future of healthcare is with mobile devices, such as the EKG-taking KardiaMobile. He points to the distrust of large telemedicine companies such as Doctor on Demand and American Well as being heavily wedded to health insurers (the prevalent business model), selling/trading patient information, and breaking the individual doctor-patient relationship.

Mr. Doherty sees the future of telemedicine enabling individual doctors to better serve their patients on several levels–video consults, monitoring, and via high-quality apps–seamlessly.  But the insurer-employer-practice model is hard to break indeed, as American Well, Teladoc, and Doctor on Demand–all of which started with a DTC model–found out. And reimbursement is improved, but discouraging. mHealth Insight

News roundup: First Stop, GlobalMed, American Well, Avizia, Medicity, Health Catalyst, Allscripts, Welbeing, BenevolentAI

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Announcements and acquisitions have been multiplying–here’s what’s most interesting.

In companies we’ve recently written about:

Our recent Contributor Bruce Judson, now with corporate telemedicine provider First Stop Health, wrote us enroute to the Government Finance Officials Association conference in St. Louis that FSH achieved triple-digit top-line revenue growth and also achieved an average utilization rate of 52 percent. The formal announcement was made earlier this week at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas (release), where another one of our Contributors, Sarianne Gruber, is attending for Answers Media Company.

GlobalMed, a prior contributor to Perspectives, is offering a lower cost telemedicine alternative to practices with a flat fee starting at $799 per month for three years. Startup costs remain at about $5,000. The starting kit includes a cart, a total exam camera, stethoscope and vitals linked to the organization’s network, and a nurse license. Additional compatible equipment is available at extra cost. We know that a number of comparable telemedicine cart-based kits run upwards of $8,000. It is one of the first public acknowledgments this Editor has seen (but has known for years) that high cost is a major impediment for implementing both telehealth and telemedicine in practices. Health Data Management.

In other news:

Telemedicine and telehealth consolidation continues with American Well’s acquisition of hospital-based telemed/workflow systems provider Avizia. Avizia has a product line of telemedicine carts and workflow software for 40 different specialties, including telestroke and telebehavioral health. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Prior investors in this 2013 Cisco spinoff include Northwell Health, NY-Presbyterian, HealthQuest, and other providers in seven rounds totaling over $23 million. Healthcare IT News

A further sign of consolidation, this time in the crowded health information business, is the Medicity acquisition by Health Catalyst. Health Catalyst is primarily a data analytics and warehousing company while Medicity focuses more on data interoperability and patient engagement for practices, health systems, and HIEs. Medicity was purchased by Aetna in 2011 with much fanfare for $500 million as one of its ‘Emerging Businesses’, rebranded as Healthagen in 2013 [TTA 28 Feb 14] which never quite took off. Out of that unit, what remains are Active Health Solutions and Aetna Accountable Care Solutions, a payer-driven value-based care management company. The amount of the sale was not disclosed but is expected to close in 90 days. Health Catalyst’s CEO Brent Dover served as president of Medicity up to 2013, and both companies are located in Salt Lake City. What is interesting about this sale is that CVS, which is buying Aetna, has no comparable in-house technology. It’s a probable shedding of peripheral or money-losing businesses prior to sale.  HISTalk, MedCityNews

Allscripts continues on its acquisition binge with patient communication and engagement platform HealthGrid. HealthGrid is a mobile app platform that delivers care and education materials traditionally distributed from practices to patients via paper. In January, Allscripts bought practice EHR Practice Fusion for $100 million (a loss to investors) and earlier McKesson’s HIT business for $185 million. It’s a noticeable shift to value-added care tools for this formerly EHR-centric company. Mobihealthnews. 

In UK news:

Welbeing has won Norwich City Council’s Norwich Community Alarm Service (NCAS). It provides a 24-hour, year-round monitoring and response service for over 6,500 adults who are vulnerable or at risk in this part of East Anglia. The press release is on UK Telehealthcare‘s news page. 

BenevolentAI, a UK company using artificial intelligence for drug development, raised $115 million in new funding, mostly from undisclosed investors in the United States, according to Mobihealthnews, for a total funding of over $200 million. The company uses AI to reduce drug discovery time and risk. It does not do its own drug discovery but sells the intellectual property discovered by their AI algorithms, claiming to cut drug development timelines by four years and improve efficiencies by 60 percent compared to pharma industry averages.

Deals of the day: American Well partners with Philips for global telehealth apps, gains $59 million partnership with Allianz

The large partners with the large, adding a global dimension. Telemedicine provider American Well and Philips announced today a global alliance to integrate American Well’s patient-doctor video consults with a range of Philips’ healthcare monitoring program. First up will be adding American Well consults to the Philips Avent uGrow parenting app. This is an Apple/Android app that presently tracks baby feeding, weight, and sleeping patterns, tying into Philips baby monitoring products such as an ear thermometer and babycam. The second stage with American Well involves their mobile telehealth software development kit (SDK) to integrate video consults into other Philips’ digital health solutions and the Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform. Philips also announced that uGrow will include voice activation with the ever-trendy Amazon Echo and the Philips Avent smart feeding kit to automatically monitor the time, volume and duration of a baby’s feeds. Philips release

American Well’s second global deal of the day is with insurer Allianz’s digital investment fund, Allianz X.  The latter, funded with a $59 million investment, creates another partnership dedicated to developing a digital product that combines wearable sensors, remote monitoring, and virtual visits. The goal is to widen patient access, lower cost and improve healthcare quality. As part of the deal, Allianz X will be joining American Well’s Board of Directors. Allianz is not well known as a health insurer in the US, but is active in the international health insurance area for individual expats and employers with international employees.  Release, Mobihealthnews

The ‘health kiosk’ idea is alive and kicking from New York to France

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Kiosk1.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /][Photo: NYP] The $40 million+ failure of HealthSpot Station last year [TTA 14 June 16] might have signaled the demise of the health kiosk (telemedicine + multiple vital measurement devices) concept. Basic stations with consumer engagement/mobile tie-ins such as Higi have been gaining traction at retail locations [TTA 30 Mar] such as RiteAid (which bought the assets and IP of HealthSpot) and Publix supermarkets. CVS MinuteClinics in northeast Ohio and Florida have allied over the past two years with Cleveland Clinic and American Well to integrate records and telemedicine. But the kiosk model is gaining a second life with these recent iterations.

  • NewYork-Presbyterian, Walgreens (Duane Reade) and American Well: Kiosks located in private rooms at select Duane Reade drugstores (left above) connect to NYP OnDemand using American Well telemedicine and Weill Cornell Medicine emergency medicine physicians. In addition to the live consult, the patient can send select vital signs information to the doctor using a forehead thermometer, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter, and a dermascope for a high-resolution view of skin conditions. Pediatric emergency physicians are available through NYP OnDemand weekdays between 6 – 9pm. Prescriptions are e-prescribed to the patient’s preferred pharmacy. The first kiosk opened this week at 40 Wall Street with additional locations to open in 2018. NYP OnDemand telemedicine consults are also available to NY area residents through the Walgreens website. American Well release, Healthcare IT News, MedCityNews
  • H4D (Health for Development): French doctor Franck Baudino wanted to reach those who live in what the French term ‘health deserts’ in their rural areas. Over the past nine years, he developed a booth-type kiosk connecting to a live doctor and with vitals instrumentation. The Consult Station is fully equipped with a wide range of vitals instrumentation, including vision, audio, eye, and blood glucose, functioning almost as a remote doctor’s office. In France, to gain access, all users need do is pop in their carte vitale. Reportedly the kiosks can treat 90 percent of common illnesses. Prescriptions are printed out in the booth. Consult Stations are now in France, Italy, Portugal, Philippines, Canada, Belgium, UAE and were recently cleared by FDA as a Class II device. ZDNet  

The REAL acute care: hurricanes, health tech, and what happens when electricity goes out

This afternoon, as this New York-based Editor is observing the light touch of the far bands of Hurricane José’s pass through the area (wind, spotty rain, some coastal flooding and erosion), yet another Category 5 hurricane (Maria) is on track to attack the already-wrecked-from-Irma Puerto Rico and northern Caribbean, thoughts turn to where healthcare technology can help those who need it most–and where the response could be a lot better. (Add one more–the 7.1 magnitude earthquake south of Mexico City)

Laurie Orlov, a Florida resident, has a typically acerbic take on Florida’s evacuation for Irma and those left behind to deal with no electricity, no assistance. Florida has the highest percentage of over-65 residents. Those who could relocated, but this Editor from a poll of her friends there found that they didn’t quite know where to go safely if not out of state, for this storm was predicted first to devastate the east coast, then it changed course late and barreled up the west (Gulf) coast. Its storm surges unexpected produced record flooding in northeastern Florida, well outside the main track. Older people who stayed in shelters or stayed put in homes, senior apartments, 55+ communities, or long-term care were blacked out for days, in sweltering heat. If their facilities didn’t have backup generators and electrical systems that worked, they were unable to charge their phones, use the elevator, recharge electric wheelchairs, or power up oxygen units. Families couldn’t reach them either. Solutions: restore inexpensive phone landlines (which hardwired, mostly work), backup phone batteries, external power sources like old laptops, and backup generators in senior communities (which would not have prevented prevent bad fuses/wiring from frying the AC, as in the nursing home in Hollywood where eight died).  Aging In Place Tech 

It’s another reason why senior communities and housing are supposed to have disaster preparedness/evacuation plans in place. (If you are a family member, it should be included in your community selection checklist and local records should be checked. This Editor recently wrote an article on this subject (PDF) that mentions disaster and incident planning twice. (Disclaimer: the sponsoring company is a marketing client of this Editor.) In nursing homes, they are mandatory–and often not executable or enforced, as this article from Kaiser Health News points out. 

Another solution good for all: purchase 200-400 watt battery packs that recharge with solar panels, AC, and car batteries (AARP anyone?). Campers and tailgaters use these and they range below $500 with the panels. Concerned with high-power lithium-ion batteries and their tendency to go boom? You’ll have to wait, but the US Army Research Laboratory and University of Maryland have developed a flexible, aqueous lithium-ion battery that reaches the 4.0 volt mark desired for household electronics without the explosive risks associated with standard lithium-ion power–a future and safer alternative. Armed With Science

Telemedicine and telehealth are not being fully utilized to their potential in disaster response and recovery, but the efforts are starting. Medical teams are starting to use telehealth and telemedicine as adjunct care. It has already been deployed successfully in Texas during Harvey. Many evacuees were sent to drier Dallas and the Hutchinson arena, where Dallas-based Children’s Health used telemedicine for emergency off-hour coverage. Doctor on Demand and MDLive gave free direct support to those affected in Texas and Louisiana through 8 September, as well as Teladoc, American Well, and HealthTap for a longer period to members and non-members. Where there are large numbers of evacuees concentrated in an area, telemedicine is now deployed on a limited basis. Doctor on Demand releaseSTAT News, MedCityNews 

But what about using affordable mobile health for the thousands who long term will be in rented homes, far away from their local practitioners–and the doctors themselves who’ve been displaced? What will Doctor on Demand and their sister telemedicine companies have available for these displaced people? What about Puerto Rico, USVI, and the Caribbean islands, where first you have to rebuild the cellular network so medical units can be more effective, then for the longer term? (Can Microsoft’s ‘white space’ be part of the solution?)  

One telehealth company, DictumHealth, has a special interest and track record in both pediatric telehealth and global remote deployments where the weather is hot, the situation is acute, and medical help is limited. Dictum sent their ruggedized IDM100 tablet units and peripherals to Aster Volunteers who aid the permanently displaced in three Jordanian refugee camps in collaboration with the UNHCR and also for pediatric care at the San Josecito School in Costa Rica. In speaking with both Amber Bogard and Elizabeth Keate of Dictum, they are actively engaging with medical relief agencies in both the US and the Caribbean. More to come on this.

Texas gets its telemedicine on: governor signs off on full direct-to-consumer access

The telemedicine stars at night–and day–are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas. Over the weekend, Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 1107 which ended the requirement that a physician-patient relationship had to be established offline before a telemedicine visit could take place. MedCityNews  The Texas House earlier this month passed House Bill 2697 permitting direct-to-consumer virtual doctor visits, followed by the concurrent bill SB 1107 in the Senate. JD Supra (Jones Day), Modern Healthcare

The new legislation allows for previously prohibited initial care via telemedicine (versus in person), asynchronous “store-and-forward” typically used for data and images or other such audiovisual technology so long as it complies with rules that ensure safety and quality. The bill’s terms were negotiated between the Texas Medical Association, the Texas eHealth Alliance, and Teladoc. It also effectively ends the long-running, six-year standoff between Teladoc and the Texas State Medical Board, and the shutout of other providers such as American Well.

Both rivals cheered the good news on, which was timed beautifully for Teladoc’s 1st Quarter earnings call on May 9, adding to record-high visits, plus healthy revenue and membership increases. While it has many internationally known medical centers, Texas is a huge state and is notoriously short of primary care physicians, with 71.4 primary care physicians per 100,000 people and 46th among all the states for primary care physicians per capita.

There is one aspect of the bill that ensures further legal challenge, which is the language prohibiting the use of telemedicine to prescribe abortion-inducing medication as it does in 20 other states. Mobihealthnews. Further background in March article

Debate on Care Quality Commission’s position on online prescription services on Radio 4’s TODAY (UK)

Friday’s BBC Radio 4 TODAY breakfast show has two segments discussing the Care Quality Commission‘s public warning on online prescription services and potential danger to patients. The first is a short interview of Jane Mordue, Chair of Healthwatch England and independent member of the CQC (at 00:36:33-00:39:00). The second, longer segment at 02:37:00 going to 02:46:30 features our own Editor Charles Lowe, in his position as Managing Director of the Digital Health and Care Alliance (DHACA), debating with Sandra Gidley, Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) English Board. The position of the RPS is that a face-to-face appointment is far preferable to an online service, whereas Mr Lowe maintains that delays in seeing one’s GP creates a need for services where a patient can see a doctor online and receive a prescription if necessary. The quick response allays anxiety in the patient and provides care quickly. Both agreed that a tightening of guidelines is needed, especially in the incorrect prescribing of antibiotics, and that there is no communication between patient records. Mr Lowe notes that GPs have always been comfortable with a telephonic consultation but are far less so with telemedicine consults via Skype. Here’s the BBC Radio 4 link available till end of March.

In the US with 24/7/365 telemedicine services such as Teladoc, MDLive and American Well, there is a similar problem with patient records in many cases except for history that the patient gives, but this is an across the board problem as the US does not have a centralized system. The prescribing problem is less about antibiotics, though MRSA/MSSA resistant superbugs are a great concern. According to Jeff Nadler, CTO of Teladoc during his #RISE2017 presentation here in NY attended by this Editor, Teladoc has a 91 to 94 percent resolution rate on patient medical issues. Of that 9 percent unresolved, 4 percent are referred, 2 percent are ‘out of scope’, 1 percent go to ER/ED–and 2 percent of patients are ‘seeking meds only’, generally for painkillers. Teladoc’s model is B2B2C, which is that patients access the service through their health plan, health system, or employer.