Weekend reading: AI cybersecurity tools no panacea, reality v. illusion in healthcare AI, RPM in transitioning to hospital-at-home, Korean study on older adult health tech usage

February 23, 2024 | by

A potpourri of current articles. Hope you don’t feel like Pepper the Robot after you read them!

AI won’t boost cybersecurity, that’s cutting corners (Cybernews)

AI tools that make cybersecurity more effective and faster in response are increasingly available. They are estimated in a Techopedia article rounding up multiple studies to be a global market of over $133 billion by 2030. IBM claims that organizations with AI cybersecurity took 100 days less to identify and contain data breaches. Yet AI can also leave organizations more vulnerable to cyberattack. Hackers and ransomwareistes have been using AI for years in phishing and vishing (phone-based social engineering) attacks–now using OpenAI. What’s vulnerable? Large language models (LLMs) used in generative AI (AI with the ability to create content) can be corrupted and fed false information [TTA 7 Feb] or create deepfake images–Google Gemini is the latest example (not in article). FTA: “We need human critical thinking to use AI to solve and prevent problems. We’re adopting AI far faster than we have the ability to understand how to adopt it properly.” Another approach is to think like a cybercriminal and use AI to better understand how criminals can break into your systems.

What is real and what is illusion with healthcare AI? (03:16 video, Healthcare IT News)

This is a preview of a HIMSS24 talk on 11 March by Dr. Jonathan Chen, assistant professor at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research. Patient care and outcomes are dependent on discerning what is real and what is not, especially in the use of chatbots in patient notes. Generative AI can be very convincing even if it’s not accurate, and that is not what is wanted in patient care. We are at the Gartner Peak of Inflated Expectations when it comes to AI–and we’ve been there before.

RPM strategies for moving from discharge to hospital-at-home care (Healthcare IT News) 

How can the home be better treated as a fundamental care setting? Understanding this is key to transitioning patients from in-hospital acute care to hospital-at-home, which is in reality not being discharged and requires managing a significant number of complex layers. Interview with Cindy Gaines, RN, chief clinical transformation officer at Lumeon, a clinical automation company.

Tailor fit digital health tech to the elderly’s needs: study (Mobihealthnews)

This summarizes a South Korean study that compared the usage of digital devices, such as smartphone apps, health apps, and wearables, among healthy and pre-frail/frail Koreans aged 65+. Smartphone use is nearly universal in South Korea, but wearables are only lightly used. Frailer respondents used social media more than healthy ones and used more healthcare apps on their phones. From the study: “There was a notable difference in the services used by pre-frail and frail respondents compared to healthy respondents. Therefore, when developing digital devices for pre-frail and frail older adults, it is crucial to incorporate customized services that meet their unique needs, particularly those services that they frequently use.”

505 participants completed the survey, with 153 (30.3%) identified as pre-frail or frail and 352 (69.7%) as healthy. Full study in the Journal of Korean Medical Science 27 November 2023

Is healthcare too much for Big Tech’s Google and Apple? Look at the track record. And David Feinberg’s $34M Cerner package.

August 24, 2021 | by

With Google scattering Google Health to the four winds of the organization--the heck with what employees recruited for Health think of being reorg’d to, say, Maps or YouTube and falling through the corporate rabbit hole–more detail has leaked of Apple’s struggles. This time, on the scaleback list (a/k/a chopping block) is Health Habit. It’s an app in the Apple Store that connects users with AC Wellness, a doctor’s group in Cupertino, California. The ‘eligible participants’ are restricted to Apple employees. From the app site, they can check weight, nutrition, blood pressure, and schedule wellness checks. It seems to be the typical ‘skunk works’ project that’s not ready for prime time, but its public fate seems to be poorly timed and simultaneously, overblown because they are–well–Apple. 

Bottom line, is healthcare once again proving rather resistant to being leveraged by technological solutions? Those of us who go back to the Stone Age of health tech, or those of us who joined in the Iron and Bronze Ages, remember when you couldn’t get into a conference cocktail party without a “wellness” app. (You say you’re in behavioral and remote patient monitoring for older adults? Oh, look! A squirrel!)

Microsoft was going to dominate consumer health with their HealthVault for personal health records (PHRs). We know how that turned out–dead apps, Fitbit an also-ran bought, Pebble and Misfit going to the drawer of failed toys, Jawbone t-boning plus Intel and Basis written off in 2017, and HealthVault unlamentedly put out with the trash at the end of 2019. Oh yes, there was an earlier Google Health for PHRs, which died with a whimper back in 2012 or so.

The press releases crow about Big Tech’s mastery of complexity, yet going off on their own without partners–or even with partners–never seems to work. In the industry, it makes for a few good articles and the usual rocket launching at places like Forbes, but the pros tend to treat it with a shrug and pull out a competitive plan. Glen Tullman, founder of Livongo who will never have to worry about paying for chateaubriand for two for the next billion years or so, stated the obvious when he said that patients cared about the overall experience, not the tech.

Speaking of experience, Amazon Care promises the best for its employees and enterprise accounts–a one-minute telehealth connection, a mobile clinician if needed within the hour, and drugs at the door in two hours. All with direct pay. This has met with skepticism from telehealth giants like Teladoc and Amwell with established corporate bases. There’s also CVS Health and Walgreens. The Editor has opined that care isn’t Amazon’s game at all–it’s accumulating and owning national healthcare data on Amazon Care and Pharmacy users that is far more valuable than whatever is spent on providing care and services [TTA 16 June]. Will Amazon really be able to pull it off?

Paddy Padmanabhan, the author of Healthcare Digital Transformation, lists a few more reasons It’s Too Hard For Big Tech In Healthcare in his HealthcareITNews article here….

  • Healthcare is a part-time job for Big Tech
  • Big tech firms want to solve the healthcare problem by themselves
  • Selling technology is not the same as selling healthcare services

…but holds out some hope that the initial success of “digital-first and virtual-first providers of healthcare emerging as challengers” will point the way for them.

And speaking of Google Health and former employees, Cerner’s necessary SEC disclosure today of new CEO and president David Feinberg, MD’s compensation package was sure to create some talk in Googleville among his now-scattered team. $34.5 million over the next 15 months is structured as follows:

  • $900,000 base salary
  • a target cash bonus of $1.35 million
  • a one-time cash bonus of $375,000 stock
  • $13.5 million in Cerner’s restricted shares for 2022
  • $3.375 million in stock shares for the fourth quarter of 2021
  • a new hire award of $15 million in restricted stock shares to offset his equity loss with Google. 

Whew! Becker’s HealthIT

Weekend reading: 1/3 of global healthcare orgs ransomwared, 50%+ mobile privacy problems–BMJ study, med device insecurity

June 25, 2021 | by

Weekend reading to make you feel insecure, indeed. Healthcare continues to be one of the most vulnerable sectors to hacking, breaches, ransomware. (It likely was one of the top 5 on the list handed to Mr. Putin in Geneva a week ago.) It doesn’t help that many organizations from providers to payers, legacy devices to apps, figuratively have a ‘Welcome Hackers’ neon sign on their doors, virtual and otherwise.

Three articles from the always interesting Healthcare Dive, two by Rebecca Pifer and the third by veteran Greg Slobodkin, will give our Readers a quick and unsettling overview:

  • According to cybersecurity company Sophos in their 16-page report, 2020 was an annus horribilis for healthcare organizations and ransomware, with 34 percent suffering a ransomware attack, 65 percent confirming the attacks encrypted their data, but only 69 percent reported that the encrypted data was restored after the ransom was paid. Costs were upward of $1 million. Their conclusion: assume you will be hit, and at least three backups. Dive 24 June
  • The BMJ found that lax or no privacy policies were a key problem with over half of mobile health apps. 23 percent of user data transmissions occurred on insecure communication protocols and 28.1 percent of apps provided no privacy policies. There’s a lot to unpack in the BMJ study by the Macquarie University (Sydney) team. Our long-time Readers will recall our articles about insecure smartphone apps dating back to 2013 with Charles Lowe’s article here as an example. Dive 16 June
  • Old medical devices, continuing vulnerability that can’t be fixed. Yes, fully functioning and legacy medical devices, often costing beaucoup bucks, are shockingly running on Windows 98 (!), Windows XP, outdated software, and manufacturers’ passwords. It’s hard to believe that Dive is writing about this as it’s been an issue this Editor’s written about since (drumroll) 2013 when TTA picked up on BBC and other reports of ‘murderous defibrillators and pacemakers’. If too far back, try 2015 with Kevin Fu’s and Ponemon’s warnings then to ‘wash their hands’ of these systems even if they’re still working. Chris Gates quoted in the article: “You can’t always bolt-on security after the fact, especially with a legacy piece of equipment — I’ve literally handed checks back to clients and told them there’s no fixing this.” Dive 23 June

What to do?

  • If you are a healthcare organization, think security first. Other organizations in finance and BPO do, locking down to excruciating points. And yes, you’ll have to pay a premium for the best IT security people, up your budgets, and lower your bureaucracy to attract them. Payers are extremely vulnerable with their wealth of PHI and PII, yet tend to skimp here.
  • Consider bringing in all your IT teams to your home country and not offshoring. Much of the hacking occurs overseas where it’s tougher to secure servers and the cloud reliably and fully.
  • Pay for regular and full probes and audits done by outside experts.
  • If you supply a mobile app–design with security and privacy first, from the phone or device to the cloud or server, including data sharing. There are companies that can assist you with this. One example is Blue Cedar, but there are others.
  • If you supply hardware and software for medical devices, think updates, patches, and tracking every bit you sell to make sure your customers do what they need to do. Even if your customer is a past one.

(Side message to NHS Digital–don’t rush your GPDPR upload to the summer holidays. Make it fourth quarter. Your GPs will thank you.)

Suggestions from our Readers wanted! While your Editor has been covering security issues since early days here, she is not an expert, programmer, or developer, nor has stayed at a Holiday Inn Express lately.

NHS’ COVID contact tracing service started today–but where’s the app? Australia? (with comments)

May 29, 2020 | by | 4 Comments

To paraphrase the burger chain Wendy’s long-past spokeswoman, Clara Peller, ‘Where’s The App?’. The NHS debuted a contact tracing scheme for COVID, but it is a manual system dependent upon–people. If you test positive for the virus, you will receive a call from the NHS’ test and trace system. The person will ask for information about your recent contacts with others, and then asked to self-isolate for 14 days. Those names you provide will be contacted as well.

The NHSX-developed Bluetooth LE app remains in beta test on the Isle of Wight, which started on 5 May [TTA 5 May]. Reportedly there were 52,000 downloads in week one, which for an island with only 80,000 households is pretty impressive. 

The original rollout date set by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and NHSX chief Matthew Gould to the House of Commons’ science committee was mid-May, which has come and gone. The new date is now sometime in June. However, Baroness Dido Harding, the new director of NHS’s Test and Trace program, would not confirm that date–as we’d say, tap dancing quite hard. Digitalhealth.net, Telegraph

The US has been hiring contact tracers by state from Alaska to New York. A recent study in preprint in MedRxiv (PDF) by Farzid Mostashari of ACO management company Aledade and others found that in order to reduce the transmission rate by 10 percent, a contact tracing team would have to detect at least half of new symptomatic cases, and reach at least half the people with whom they were in close contact. MIT Technology Review 

Apps have been deployed in Australia (COVIDSafe) and Singapore (TraceTogether) and are in development in Switzerland and Germany. Most use BTE, but South Korea, India, Iceland, and some US states including North Dakota and Utah are using GPS phone location. China has been the most ruthless in using GPS data to monitor citizen locations and activity, to restrict their movements. Previously mentioned here [TTA 19 May] are UnitedHealth Group and Microsoft’s ProtectWell, PWC’s homegrown app–and Google and Apple announced in April a BTE app which hasn’t debuted yet. The Verge

Post-COVID back to work: for workplace screening, testing, contact tracing, there’s an app for that

May 19, 2020 | by

If you’re looking forward to going back to the office without the children and the dog barking, and seeing people other than your family, don’t expect to go back to “The Office” Normal with kibitzing over the divider and in the kitchen/break room. Chances are the latter will be locked, and the nearest person over the divider will be six feet away. There will not only be serious physical changes to the office, starting with many fewer people there, but also apps to track your health and who you come in contact with. Your employer will be managing your potential risk for infection of yourself and others.

  • UnitedHealth Group and Microsoft’s ‘ProtectWell’ app will screen your health everyday (using Microsoft’s COVID-19 triaging Healthcare Bot and Azure. If there’s a risk of exposure or if you are exhibiting symptoms, it will direct you to a COVID-19 testing process that enables closed-loop ordering and reporting of test results directly back to employers, managed (of course) by UnitedHealth. The app will also provide guidelines and resources for a safer work environment, including physical distancing, personal hygiene, sanitation, and more. UHG and Microsoft are furnishing the app to employers at no charge. UHG has already implemented this ‘contact tracing lite’ for frontline workers and will roll out to its over 320,000 employees; Microsoft will do the same for its US-based workers. Release
  • Enterprise software company Appian released Workforce Safety and Readiness, an app to enable HR departments to plan and maintain a return to work for employees and to maintain a safer workplace. This ’employee re-entry’ app as their CEO Matt Calkins put it, is not for every company. The app will quiz employees on factors such as health data, possible virus exposures, and details about their jobs to determine when and how they should return, based on their jobs plus CDC and state guidance, both of which keep shifting; state and local guidance in particular is keeping more than one law firm quite busy. The app can then push information to workers about their new hours, area, and similar. When the employee is back to work, they can then use the app to provide feedback on crowding and lack supplies such as hand sanitizer or wipes. The app is built on a HIPAA-compliant system and originated with a self-reporting disease app. Appian is targeting larger companies with thousands of employees on a $5,000 per month subscription model. Appian page, The Protocol
  • Companies large and small have devised their own mass testing procedures for current workers and those returning, as early as the next two weeks. This next article from Protocol details several approaches, mostly around detecting the imminently ill.
  • PWC has already set up a contact tracing system for returning workers, an app that tracks contacts with the phones of others of a person who self-reports being ill. While the privacy seems pretty robust–it works on employee self-reporting and his or her AD ID on my phone, then all the other phones it had contact with over the past X days via Bluetooth. As PWC’s David Sapin of their connected solutions area put it, “But if you’re going to come back into the workplace, you need to accept having this type of app on your phone.”
  • For a really dystopian view, see this article in Bloomberg. You may be scanned thermally, have an elevator operator (back to the past!), and lots and lots of sensors monitoring your comings and goings. Facilities departments will be retrofitting for anti-microbial surfaces and plexiglass guards. Before you are allowed to return, if you are allowed to return, you may be pre-assessed for risk before you are allowed to, with bonus point for antibodies. And when you’re back in your ‘six feet office’, you’ll have many more rules governing daily desk coverings, how you interact with your colleagues, walk in the hall, go to the bathroom. Hint: buy acrylic polycarbonate manufacturer stock. ZDNet

Of course, one wonders if Unintended Consequences will be to very firmly establish a remote workforce, which is anathema to some companies, or encouraging further outsourcing of work to offshore entities.

PharmaTech Innovations/Health 2.0 NYC Wed 19 July –speakers confirmed, reserve now!

July 17, 2017 | by

Wednesday, 19 July, 6-8:30 pm at Cohn Resnick LLP, 1301 6th Avenue, NYC

Health 2.0 NYC‘s July event examines innovation in the pharmaceutical business. It’s changing radically, from companies like PillPack which disrupt traditional pharmacies to apps that monitor clinical trials or prescribed as adjuvant therapies. Presenters on Wednesday night include:

  • Dan Conely – Managing Director, NJ Angels, active investor in drug discovery automation
  • Grace Cordovano, PhD – Enlightening Results – CEO and private cancer patient advocate. She founded Enlightening Results, LLC in 2010 to foster private, personalized patient advocacy services.
  • Jodie Gillon – Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Senior Director, Patient Advocacy and Professional Affairs

Early stage companies presenting: ClearRx. Other speakers/presenters to come. 

For $25, you get engaging speakers, beverages, food, and plenty of networking time amongst the like-minded and leaders in health tech! More information and registration on the Health 2.0 NYC Meetup page. (Disclaimer: Editor Donna is an event host and TTA is a long-time sponsor and supporter of Health 2.0 NYC) 

Health tech arrivals (Philips, Roche, VRI, PushDoctor)…and departures (Pact, Jawbone)

July 6, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Looney-Tunes-Were-in-the-Money.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This popular vacation week has been filled with ‘money under the wire’ news of acquisitions, investments…and one high-profile owner shuttering a pioneering activity app.

Acquisitions:

Philips Healthcare added London-based pregnancy app developer Health & Parenting for an undisclosed sum. Its most popular app is Pregnancy + (and ++), with 12 million downloads via the Apple Store and Google Play, but others are Baby + for all things baby-rearing, and Baby Name Genius to Find That Ideal Name. It will fold into and diversify Philips’ existing uGrow digital parenting platform which includes the Avent smart baby monitor and smart ear thermometer and leverages the open infrastructure of Philips’ Health Suite Digital Platform. One wonders at the flood of data flowing from these apps to these devices and what Philips will do with all these points. Release, MedCityNews

Roche acquired Austrian partner mySugr, a management tool that promises to ‘make diabetes suck less’. Last year they added Roche’s Accu-Chek Connect blood glucose monitor to its chosen device connect and sync list. mySugr features an app for users to log their meals, exercise, glucose levels, and mood. It also captures pictures of user snacks and unleashes “a diabetes monster” avatar when the food choices are poor based on their glucose levels. Terms were not disclosed. MedCityNews

Telecare/monitoring company VRI quietly acquired Healthcom from Woodbridge International. Healthcom’s primary area is care transition management using medical alerts, telehealth, and medication management for payers, government agencies and care partners. Originally positioned as a partnership June 30 on VRI’s website, Globe Newswire confirmed the sale a week later. Terms (again) were not disclosed.

Mobihealthnews rounded up 24 major acquisitions, including GreatCall (by GTCR) and Best Doctors (Teladoc)–all by June 30!

Investments:

Manchester’s PushDoctor telemedicine app raised $26.1 million in Series B financing from Accelerated Digital Ventures and Draper Esprit plus Oxford Capital Partners, Partech Ventures, and Seventure Partners. This added to their $10.1 million Series A raise in January 2016. PushDoctor connects UK patients with NHS-registered GPs for virtual visits costing only £20. Unlike US-based tele-docs, Push Doctor issues prescriptions, makes doctor-led referrals to other health providers and specialists, and helps manage repeat prescriptions. Their founder also has an eye on managing long-term conditions, short-term illnesses, fitness, and nutrition. Their major UK competitors are Babylon Health (which recently raised £50 million for its triage app), Ada Health, and Your.MD. Crunchbase, TechCrunch, Mobihealthnews

And shutterings:

Pioneering fitness incentive app Pact (founded 2011) announced its closing by end of August. Originally a ‘get thee to the gym’ app, it branched out into healthy food (eat more vegetables!) and tracking meals with MyFitnessPal. Pact never truly emerged from seed funding. A rare stumble by Khosla Ventures, which led a 2014 bag-of-skittles round of $1.5 million. Mobihealthnews, Crunchbase

Jawbone closed out the week by liquidating and transubstantiating into Jawbone Health Hub. More on this here. 

65+ smartphone ownership is up to 42 percent–but slumps with increased age

March 22, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elderly-smartphone.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A report of progress in smartphone ownership by those over 65 years of age is mixed indeed. There’s progress–ownership is up to 42 percent of the age group, and 64 percent of these smartphone owners are users of the Internet according to Pew Research‘s 2016 study. But mitigating factors to this good news is that ownership is very much a function of income and age. According to the US Census’ American Community Survey 2015, 66 percent of those aged 65+ households with income $70,000+ own smartphones, but that declines to 33 percent in the 75+ age range and 27 percent of those 80+. Perhaps Laurie Orlov exaggerates the cost of smartphones, especially Android–this Editor has never bought an LG phone over $200 and has a miserly data plan, using Wi-Fi most of the time; Verizon has plenty of new older models at lighter prices and other carriers like Consumer Cellular and GreatCall have excellent deals. But what is true is that interest wanes with age–and that phones, especially Apple, still present legibility and usability barriers to those with low vision or hand arthritis. Ms Orlov also notes Pew’s discovery that 65+ users are less likely to secure their phones with lock codes and regularly update their apps. Aging in Place Technology Watch

When is an app not an app? (When it’s a conundrum)

October 25, 2016 | by

It all started so simply. In DHACA under the leadership of Rob Turpin (BSI) we produced the definitive guide to app regulation in the UK. Sure it was 44 pages long (and will shortly need updating) however we all knew that an app was standalone software and that none other than MEDDEV 2.1/6, the ultimate definitive guide to when an app is a medical device defined software as:

…a set of instructions that processes input data and creates output data.

However doubts began to creep into this editor’s mind when he heard that app developers in the US were avoiding (US/FDA) medical device classification as that would rule them out as service providers, which can reduce future  reimbursement benefits – as we quoted Ralph-Gordon Jahns of research2guidance in 2014 “profitable developers… rely on service sales as their primary source of revenue.”

Things got more complicated when it emerged at the UK Health Show this autumn that PHE was considering listing digital GP services as (more…)

Three of the best – digital health events at the Royal Society of Medicine for 2016

January 28, 2016 | by

The Royal Society of Medicine has two unbeatable benefits to offer conference attendees: virtually every world expert is keen to present there and, because it is a medical education charity, charges are heavily subsidised. As a result you get the most bang for your buck of any independent digital health event, anywhere!

And just now the offer is even more attractive as if you book for all three in the next 14 days (ie by 12th February) the RSM will give you a 10% discount on all three!

On February 25th, the RSM is holding their first 2016 conference: Recent developments in digital health. This is the fourth time they have run this popular event which aims to update attendees about particularly important new digital heath advances. For me the highlight will be Chris Elliott of Leman Micro who plans to demonstrate working smartphones that can measure all the key vital signs apart from weight without any peripheral – that includes systolic & diastolic blood pressure, as well as one-lead ECG, pulse, respiration rate and temperature. When these devices are widely available, they will dramatically affect health care delivery worldwide – particularly self-care – dramatically. See it first at the RSM!

I’d also highlight speakers such as Beverley Bryant, Director of Digital Technology NHS England, Mustafa Suleyman, Head of Applied Artificial Intelligence at Google DeepMind (who’ll hopefully tell us a bit about introducing deep learning in to Babylon), Prof Tony Young, National Clinical Director for Innovation, NHS England and Dr Ameet Bakhai, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. It’s going to be a brilliant day!

Book here.

On April 7th the RSM is holding Medical apps: mainstreaming innovation, also in its fourth year. Last year the election caused last minute cancellations by both NICE & the MHRA, who are making up for that with two high-level presentations. Among a panoply of other excellent speakers, I’m personally looking forward especially to (more…)

Free entry to UCL’s Rosalind Franklin Appathon at Wayra – Tuesday 23rd Feb

January 21, 2016 | by

UCL is delighted to invite you to join them at Wayra, London for their Prize and Tech Day on Tuesday 23rd February at 14.30-19.00 as part of the Rosalind Franklin Appathon- a national app competition to empower and recognise women as leaders in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine).

This free event will include some short talks from the judges, UCL Provost Professor Michael Arthur and a very special guest talk from Rosalind Franklin’s sister, author and historian Professor Jenifer Glynn. We will then hear pitches from the app finalists. Winners will be announced by Baroness Martha Lane Fox (Founder of Lastminute.com), Andrew Eland (Director of Social Impact Engineering, Google) and Dame Athene Donald (Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge). There will also be plenty of time for networking and a chance to try out some of the apps. More information can be found here .

Do join UCL in celebrating the breadth of digital talent here in the UK and the pioneering women behind some truly innovative and exciting apps by registering for the event here.

165,000 apps, 3 bn downloads and counting: global mHealth apps study

November 25, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/mHealth-Developer-Economics-2015.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]The results of the fifth annual mHealth App Economics survey are out. Our Readers were invited to participate back in March when it was sponsored by German research firm research2guidance in collaboration with mHealth Summit Europe and HIMSS and kicked off at the Riga meeting in May.

Major apps stores reported more than 165,000 mHealth apps published by 45,000 companies, and projected 3 billion downloads by close of 2015.  Some other key findings from R2G do surprise:

  • The target for apps is DTC–chronically ill patients–with their hospitals as #2. Physicians are important, but less so than last year’s survey.
  • App publishers aims appear altruistic. 53 percent of mHealth publishers claim that their main motivation is to help people improve their medical conditions. However, 60 percent aren’t reaching their goals yet mainly due to low reach. The vast majority of apps (62 percent) mark up less than 5,000 annual downloads. (See the chart below for some possible reasons why)
  • Diagnostic apps lead in anticipated business potential until 2020. And app publishers have added medical professionals to their team.
  • What app publishers find works to change behavior is not gamification. What does: integration of provider feedback or dialogue.
  • Yet providers, such as doctors and nurses, are seen as the most threatened group by mHealth solutions.
  • A scant 3 percent of mHealth publishers generate more than $1 million–and they are far more focused on sales and brand awareness than their brethren which make little. (chart)

(more…)

No future for mHealth as m-health

July 24, 2015 | by

There is, but not what was envisioned five to six years ago. If you still think of mHealth as a subset of ‘health’ and defined by its devices as a separate strategy or ‘revolution’, it’s time to check your glasses’ prescription. Thus an article like this published in HIMSS Media’s mHealthNews that focuses on mobile devices starts off feeling antique (as in 2008-9) in its emphasis on video and direct to consumer apps and problems thereof–then fast forwards to This Modern World: the Graettinger-esque dissonance of data insecurity, the entry into the City of Glass of integration–multiple platforms, data sets and apps/tools into personalized, proactive care and clinical decision support.

At MedCity News, the snark prevails in coverage of a World Congress Boston mHealth + Telehealth World conference where participants seemed to treat mHealth as m-health–chattering on about smartphones and tablets as devices not delivery vehicles, (more…)

66% of ‘tech-savvy seniors’ dissatisfied with current health tech

March 5, 2015 | by

Yes, those same people who–gee whiz–designed computers, did their own programs in MS-DOS and went from Palm Pilots to BlackBerries to iPhones, are already over or hitting 65 (3.9 million in US in 2015)–and they aren’t happy with what’s being served up to them in healthcare tech. The Accenture study across 10 countries and over 10,000 adults points out the demand–67 percent–and the dissatisfaction–66 percent. They want independent self-care tools, wearables to monitor themselves, online communities like PatientsLikeMe, patient navigators and health record tools. Moreover, the more comfortable they are with and value technology, the more likely they are already using technology for tracking weight and cholesterol levels. Couple this with the ‘Drawn and Quartered’ Parks Associates research [TTA 11 Aug 14] and moving past the mHealth hype earlier this week, the study points out a strong market for apps, online tools and other digital health–but designed not for a peer group of most designers, nor to be ‘cool’. Helloooo designers! Wake up! Laurie Orlov does point out on AgeInPlaceTech that there’s not much new here, but that we shouldn’t move on. Accenture release, Modern Healthcare, Fred Pennic in HIT Consultant, Stephanie Baum in MedCityNews

Personalised health & care 2020 – required reading! (UK)

November 16, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

The NHS’s National Information Board (NIB) this week published its long awaited document on its plans for personalising health and social care activities, with a strong England focus. It breaks new ground for such a document in many ways (not least that when you put ‘apps’ or ‘telehealth’ or a myriad of other terms into the search engine, you get many hits!).

Before describing at some length why this editor considers the document to be so important, it is of course important to recognise that there will be an election in six months’ time so both the funding and the priorities of the NHS may well change before it has even got beyond the very first set of commitments. A further point is that, were the NHS to meet all the commitments it has made, even in recent years, it would be a very different organisation to that that it is: commitment do not necessary result in delivery.

The document is subtitled “A framework for action” which is a good description. it contains many individual commitments. However few are are sufficiently (more…)

2015: mHealth’s breakout year–or more of the same sideways?

September 9, 2014 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-thinker-statue-flickr-satyakam-khadikar-480.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Adopting or Ditching It? We’re barely into September, yet the first 2015 prediction-of-a-sort is on the record from Center for Connected Health‘s Dr. Joseph Kvedar in The eHealth Blog. Does Apple HealthKit+Samsung‘s SHealth’s iterations+Google Fit+smartwatches everywhere (including LG’s G Watch R) equal $7.2 billion in wearables alone by 2018 as part of a mHealthy $49 billion by 2020? He’s optimistic, yet he hedges his bets with the caveat

“The challenge in health care is that, though we know what patients/consumers need to do to improve their health, most of them don’t want to hear about it.”

Which indicates that Dr. Kvedar has joined our small group of Thinkers puzzling out why health apps haven’t taken off beyond their Quantified Selfer early adopters and what Parks Associates termed ‘Healthy and Engaged’ [TTA 11 Aug]. With 1/3 of the purchasers of activity trackers putting them in the drawer after six months and the unstickiness of apps (80 percent are abandoned after a shocking two weeks), the winning combination isn’t obvious. But is it ‘focus on engagement’ and ‘personal, motivational and ubiquitous’? Certainly key factors, but how do we get the ‘Challenged but Mindful’ with a chronic condition–or two or three–to track and reward their real progress, even on a bad day–which an activity tracker which constantly presses you to exceed your performance has trouble gauging. (more…)