Tender Alerts: Yorkshire assistive tech, Wales DPS for health

November 7, 2017 | by

Susanne Woodman, our Eye on Tenders, has set her gaze on two high-value UK tender offerings:

  • Yorkshire and the Humber: North Yorkshire County Council is seeking a vendor for Assistive Technology Services to enable people to live in their own homes for longer and reduce demand on social care services. The value of the five-year contract is £4.9m with a start of 01 April 2018 ending 31 March 2023. Tenders must be submitted by 17 January 2018. There is not much information on the Gov.UK page and it’s recommended that you contact Tim Wood of the NYCC at tim.wood@northyorks.gov.uk.
  • NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS): The NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership is seeking multiple vendors for its procurement project establishing a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for Digital Patient Services Partners. According to the tender summary, this will be the first ever DPS created in Health in the UK and within any known ICT market. There are five lots to this tender and it is complicated, so review the information on the Full Notice Text tab on the Sell2Wales site. This Editor suspects the deadline may be in error as it’s out to 30 July 2021!

UK Telehealthcare’s London MarketPlace

March 2, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/UKtelehealthcare.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]6 April, 10am – 3pm at London Fire Brigade HQ, 169 Union Street, London SE1 0LL  

UK Telehealthcare is organizing its first MarketPlace for 2016 at the LFB to commemorate its 150 years of service to the community. About 30 exhibitors will be presenting the latest in assistive technologies for the home including telecare, sensor-based and safety/alert. Best of all, it is free to professionals in social care, healthcare and security. See PDF attached or contact Gerry Allmark.

 

Novartis extends ViaOpta app for visually impaired to smartwatches

July 7, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ViaOpta-Nav-Apple-Watch.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]New to this Editor (and I suspect our Readers) in assistive technologies for wearables are Novartis’ ViaOpta apps to aid the visually impaired and facilitate their independence as well as safety. Now available for smartwatches as well as smartphones, its features are primarily centered on assisting with navigation, including (new) points of interest and worldwide maps. Another new feature, recognizing and ‘reading’ both scenes and objects, is for smartphone only because it is dependent on the phone’s camera. Cues are both audio, vibration and visual (see left). Novartis claims this is the first wearable app designed specifically for the visually impaired and blind, now estimated at 285 million worldwide. It’s available in 11 languages and best of all, it’s a free download. Smartwatch demo is on YouTube. Novartis release. Mobihealthnews.

Your Friday ‘robot fix’

December 6, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/69521326_tpstrandscloseup.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]EU Robotics Week last week had over 300 separate events all over the region (including Macedonia and Malta!) to popularize robotics to the general public and to stimulate education in the STEM-related fields (science, technology, engineering and math). eHealthNews picked five EU-funded projects as ‘cool’ across several assistive technologies: RoboHow (learning tasks from instructions or human example); the RADHAR intelligent wheelchair; Stiff-Flop (a surgical robot ‘arm’ modeled after an elephant trunk; ROBOFOOT (for use in footwear manufacture); and the STRANDS robot project which is being used during a challenge to patrol a populated environment. STRANDS robots (left) are designed to have cognitive/learning ability and are being tested on site, according to the article, in a care home for the elderly in Austria (assisting human carers), and in an office environment patrolled by a security firm in the UK (BBC News England 28 August). These all seem to be variations on AT themes, and we note that eHealthNews didn’t choose any clinical/telepresence ‘bots, but one wonders what happened to the MOBISERVE/Kompaï companion robot [TTA 23 Aug].

Wanted: Launch Event correspondent 19 Nov-Sheffield

October 11, 2013 | by

TTA is asking for one (or two) of our readers to be a volunteer correspondent for the launch 19 November of the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) at the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield from 12.30pm until 4.00pm. CATCH is being established at the University of Sheffield as a strategic research centre and interdisciplinary research hub to study and develop new user-friendly technologies which enable independent living and improve healthcare for older and disabled people. Unfortunately none of the Editors will be in the area to take up their kind invitation to view their exhibition, presentations and demos. If you are willing to write up an article within 48 hours of the event, please email EIC Donna here (donna.cusano@telecareaware.com) as I must authorize this with the Sheffield group. You will be credited of course but expenses and article will not be covered.

Update 14 October: We have two volunteers! Thanks to Drs. Kenneth Law and Mutaz Aldawoud of the Hillside Bridge Health Centre in Bradford for offering to attend and write their observations.