Medstartr Momentum 2015: did you miss it? (Video)

December 2, 2015 | by

Let’s go to the video. Monday’s Medstartr Momentum/Health 2.0 NYC event was a Broadway Showstopper at Microsoft’s NYC Tech Center. Now available is a (so far) uncut video on medstartr.tv (scroll down to 11/30). There’s no play/skip bar on this, only a pause, so you may want to investigate a linked Health 2.0 NYC Livestream video page which has segmented the sessions and these have a play/skip bar.

Speakers included Susannah Fox, the CTO of HHS as well as 24 panelists, and 5 Momentum Talks representing Patients (Regina Holliday) Providers (Cheryl Pegus, NYU), Partners (Amy Cueva, MAD*POW), Institutions (Wen Dombrowski, MD, Northwell), and investors (Peter Frishauf.) There were four pitch sessions through the day featuring early-stage companies organized around Wearable Health Tech, Hospitals 2.0 and Pharma Tech 2.0. Hat tip to founder Alex Fair, his team, Steve Greene and the 15 sponsors who made it happen. TTA is a long-time media sponsor of Health 2.0 NYC.

HCF Catalyst’s first startup/scaleup accelerators–apply by 27 Nov (Australia)

November 6, 2015 | by

HCF, Australia’s largest non-profit healthcare fund, has started Australia’s first true accelerator for health tech, HCF Catalyst. While accelerators have been around now for the better part of 10 years in the US and UK, they are new Down Under. Both startup and scaleup programs are on offer.

  • Startup: a three-month education/support program with a following three-month incubation program; initial investment of AU$50,000 and a next-round opportunity for up to AU$100,000 from the Slingshot Venture Fund. Qualifying teams should have, to quote their page, an idea that aligns to one of the HCF Catalyst themes, a fantastic team, able to deliver an MVP within three months of starting and global aspirations. See information and apply here.
  • Scaleup: for early-stage companies with business which are in growth mode, this is an access program that includes mentoring and coaching–no funding but access to investors, mentoring, coaching and a ‘demo day’. More information and to apply here.

Partners include Sparke Helmore, PWC, University of Newcastle, Artesian Capital Management and IBM SoftLayer. Hat tip to George Margelis via Twitter and Shawn Larkin, HCF Managing Director on LinkedIn.

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

Rubber Bands – The next big thing in wearable sensors?

August 28, 2014 | by

Rubberbands

When you’re ten years old, pinging rubber bands across the classroom is fun. Getting caught doing so by your teacher is not. However you have to admit it’s kind of a novel use for those flexible little bands. Now Irish researchers may have upped the game by finding another, even more novel application for them.

The team at AMBER, the Science Foundation Ireland-funded materials science centre, and the School of Physics TCD, working with researchers from the University of Surrey, have discovered a method of creating wearable sensors from shop-bought rubber bands. If you were listening back in class, you’ll remember that rubber doesn’t normally conduct electricity. However, the researchers whose findings have just been published in ACS Nano, a leading international nanoscience publication, discovered that by adding graphene the rubber bands became electrically conductive. In tests, the bands were strongly affected by any electrical current flowing through them if the band was stretched, which means tiny movements such as breath and pulse could be sensed by the technology.

The potential of graphene to be used in wearable sensors was noted by our TTA Editor-In-Chief, Donna, in her Pointer to the Future item back in 2011, Nanosheets and graphene: powering sensors, computers. Because rubber is available widely and cheaply, this latest development could open up major possibilities in the manufacturing of wearable sensors worldwide. Which means we can all look forward to finding graphene infused biosensors in everything from our bras to our bionic underpants.

Read more: TANN Ireland, ENGINEERING.com

Electronic Alerts in EHRs Reduce Urinary Tract Infections (Study – US)

August 27, 2014 | by

According to the World Health Organisation, urinary tract infections (UTIs) win top prize for most frequent health care-associated infection in high-income countries. And the cause?…A massive 75% of all of hospital acquired UTIs result from having a urinary catheter fitted (i.e. a tube inserted into the bladder through the urethra to drain urine). And it’s far from unusual to have this procedure done, for between 15 to 25 percent of hospitalized patients have one fitted during their hospital stay (Source CDC). Having a urinary tract infection can be nasty enough but if left untreated serious consequences can result including permanent kidney damage.

The most effective way to reduce the incidence of UTIs (apart from not having a catheter fitted in the first place) is by removing the catheter as soon as it is no longer needed. Unfortunately, all too often this does not happen. That’s why the findings from this new study from the University of Pennsylvania are significant. Results showed that automated alerts in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) reduced urinary tract infections in hospital patients with urinary catheters.

The EHR alert system worked by prompting physicians to specify the reason for inserting the patient’s catheter. On the basis of the reason selected, the system then helped them decide (a) whether urinary catheters were needed in the first place and (b) alerted them to reassess the need for catheters that had not been removed within a recommended time period. And it was no small-fry study. (more…)

Pilot Health Tech NYC winners announced (US)

July 3, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

Last Thursday, the 11 winners of the second annual Pilot Health Tech NYC program were announced at Alexandria Center, NYC. A joint initiative of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Health 2.0, it provides early-stage health tech companies based in NYC a ‘test bed’ in partnership with many of the most prestigious metro area healthcare organizations, and another platform to keep health tech growing in the city. Each project represents a distinct need in the spectrum and a common theme is integration of care into workflow. Some needs are obvious: senior care, pediatrics, rehabilitation, cardiac disease and diabetes management. Others are less so: vision, medication adherence, data analytics, blood donation and social support.

The winners are supported by $1 million in funding to operate and report results from the individual pilots which will take place starting in late summer through end of year. An interesting fact from the announcement release is that the Pilot Health Tech inaugural class companies [TTA 1 July 2013] have raised over $150 million in private investment since their win: AdhereTech, eCaring, Rip Road, Vital Care Services, BioDigital, Flatiron Health, Sense Health, Bio-Signal Group, Opticology and StarlingHealth (acquired by Hill-Rom).

The winners (some of which we’ve been following like GeriJoy, NonnaTech and eCaring) and their partners are:

  • Smart Vision Labs / SUNY College of Optometry
  • GeriJoy / Pace University
  • QoL Devices, Inc. / Montefiore Medical Center
  • Urgent Software, LLC / Mount Sinai Health System
  • Nonnatech / ElderServe
  • Fit4D/ HealthFirst
  • AllazoHealth / Accountable Care Coalition of Greater New York
  • Canopy Apps / Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY)
  • Healthify / VillageCare
  • Tactonic Technologies / NYU Langone, Rusk Rehab Center
  • Hindsait, Inc. / NY Blood Center

More information in their release. Many thanks to NYCEDC and Eric Vieira of ELabNYC (another NYCEDC initiative) and CUNY.

Related reading: ELabNYC Pitch Day in March

Technology which resonates with the 50+ consumer

July 1, 2014 | by

If you are a health tech developer, entrepreneur or marketer lost in the forest of the 50+ market, Laurie Orlov of Aging in Place Technology Watch and the new Boomer Health Tech Watch just handed you a map with her latest study for AARP, Challenging Innovators: Matching offerings to the needs of older adults (link to PDF). To appeal successfully to the multiple segments and sub-segments of 50+, there’s more to it than a strong belief that your tech would have been just the thing for your mum or grandmere. The hurdles like reluctant long-term care providers and tech-unfamiliar older adults are significant. Misreading the market, making the tech too complex or identifying it too strongly with ‘old folks’ usually lead to ‘lights out’. Ms Orlov’s pointers take you through testing, crowdfunding, accelerators, the right way to price disrupt, transition point mapping, partnerships and more. A recommended guide.

Over at Aging in Place, Ms Orlov serves up another idea with The ideal wearable for seniors – why not a much-modified PERS which incorporates smartwatch/fitness band capabilities such as dehydration monitoring, activity, blood pressure and other tracking, putting them up on a smartphone app.

CEWeek NYC (Part 1): health tech moves to the front

June 26, 2014 | by

CEWeek NYC, Metropolitan Pavilion/Altman Building (@CEWeekNY)

Part 1

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) stages events in New York twice yearly–at the start of both summer and winter, the latter as a preview of International CES in January. CEWeek NYC is a bit of an overstatement–it’s Tuesday-Thursday. It was apparent on today’s main day (Wednesday) visit that beyond the lead dogs of ever-larger HDTVs, in-car audio/smartphone integrators and marvelous audio speakers small and large, something else was different. Health tech was right behind them in prominence, including related areas of robotics and 3D printing. (This builds on CEA’s own trumpeting of the 40 percent growth of the ‘digital health footprint’ at this year’s CES. Hat tip to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn.)

Presentations got the Gordon Ramsay treatment and were re-plated as bite-sized sizzling steak tips. Also different was the format. Instead of a long, dozy general press briefing several flights up at the huge top of the Met Pavilion at 9am, then rushing to the show floors before the crush of buyers, the floors opened to press only for a generous two hours. Then fast-moving keynotes and conference presentations of no more than one hour started at 11am in an intimate downstairs room. Alternatively, the centrally located demo stage between the show floors hosted 15 minute presentations. Other than occasionally having to wait in a narrow hall as the downstairs room emptied between presentations, both were wise moves. Very workable and very low on the Tedium Scale. Three of the eight Wednesday presentations were robotics or health tech-related, not including the closing FashionWare wearable tech show. The proportion is the same on Thursday.

Notable on the show floor:

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/0625141011.jpg” thumb_width=”170″ /]The latest fitness band/watch is not a brick, mercifully. Withings formally debuts tomorrow the Activité watch (left) which looks like a fine Swiss analog chronometer, not a slab on the wrist. It’s a man’s watch size on a woman, a bit slimmer and simpler than a Breitling, and connects to your smartphone using the Withings HealthMate app to track activity, swimming and sleep monitoring. You also get time (analog, yes!) and alarm clock, all powered by a standard watch battery so none of the recharging shuffle. Available in the fall at $390, but if you are a dedicated QS-er with style…. Also VentureBeat. (more…)

Addiction: Improving Outcomes using Computer-based Therapy

May 27, 2014 | by

Computer-Based-Behavioral-Therapy-Shows-Promise-For-Addiction-Treatment

A recent randomised control trial gives support to the use of computer-based therapy for treatment of addictions. The results were reported this week at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, following publication in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Although the trial focused specifically on cocaine-dependent individuals, it replicates findings of a RCT carried out in 2008, in which participants had a wider range of substance addictions.

Results of this latest study show that those who received computer-assisted therapy were significantly more likely to attain three or more consecutive weeks of abstinence from cocaine as compared to those not receiving any form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – 36% compared with 17%. And the effects appear to last; the control group also had better outcomes six months after treatment had ended.

Individuals who receive CBT learn to identify and correct problematic behaviours by applying a range of techniques.  Central elements of the therapy include anticipating likely problems, correcting harmful thought patterns, and developing effective coping strategies. The techniques enable people to counteract addiction’s powerful effects on the brain, so they can regain control of their behaviour and lives. (more…)

Insomnia Apps: A replacement for sleeping pills?

May 2, 2014 | by

sleepstation

For those of us suffering from insomnia there’s no denying it can be a real pain! For some it means wakening up a number of times throughout the night, while others are unable to get back to sleep after only a few hours rest. In my case it means drifting off into a peaceful slumber before inevitably waking just minutes later with a jolt, looking like Frankenstein’s monster and wondering if someone just hit me up the face with a bolt of lightning!

The latest NHS approved sleep app is Sleepstation. It’s one of three listed on the NHS Choices Health Apps website, the others are Sleepio and Sleep Diary. (more…)

Health IT funding bubble seen by veteran investor

February 7, 2014 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/crystal-ball.jpg” thumb_width=”120″ /] How is health tech like the 1990s ‘dot-com’-ers? Veteran Silicon Valley investor (HealthTech Capital) and former entrepreneur Anne DeGheest projects a ‘Series B crunch‘ in funding health tech and IT in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch. The key factors: angels and ‘unsophisticated investors’ are pouring money into all sorts of devices, apps and related services in seed and Series A stages just to get on board in a hot sector. When the founders of these companies get to Series B and present to more demanding investors, the lack of a true value proposition and a detailed business plan that answers basic questions leave them standing on, as aptly put, ‘a pier to nowhere’ or as Joe Hage termed it last month, ‘insolvent with a great idea.’

Ms. DeGheest’s view that we are reprising the elements of the ‘dot-com’ bubble is confirmed by the numbers in Rock Health‘s and PwC‘s funding reports throughout 2013:   (more…)

End of year roundups: 10 leaders, 10 trends

December 21, 2013 | by

Four of Information Week‘s top 10 tech leaders have a direct impact on healthcare: Tony Young, CIO, Informatica (big data); Michael Sentonas, VP & CTO, APAC, McAfee (defense against cybercriminality); Dr. Ruchi Dass of HealthCursor Consulting Group, India; Mikael Hagstrom, Executive VP, EMEA and APAC, SAS (big data and analytics again.) The others are from Hitachi Data, Dell, Amazon, Salesforce.com, Facebook and UIDAI India. Juniper Consulting’s top 10 trends for 2014 are smarter cities, mobile money (bitcoins, anyone?), wearables, tablets, mobile fitness, LTE goes wide, smarter devices, cheaper home gaming, personal private clouds and 3D printing. VentureBeat

Motorola files patent for Emergency Alert – Neck Tattoo!

December 8, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

throat tattooAnother pointer to the future in the world of wearable tech is this patent filed by Google-owned Motorola, for a throat ‘tattoo’, with the capability to send automatic alerts with location information to a monitoring centre or the emergency services (though the patent filing is drafted much wider!).

The ‘tattoo’ idea isn’t as dramatic as it first appears, as the filing states it can be applied to the skin via an adhesive, or embedded in a collar or neck-band. The way it would work is by capturing the sound from a person’s throat and transmitting it to a nearby smartphone or other Mobile Communications Device (MDC). (more…)

mHealth Summit: the warmup

December 7, 2013 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mHealth2012_logo_NOtag_272x53.jpg” thumb_width=”190″ /]Even if you are not attending the mHealth Summit starting Sunday near Washington, DC, we’ll be covering selected topics through our correspondents on the scene.

News and highlights:

  • Founding organizing partner mHealth Alliance is relocating from the UN Foundation in Washington, DC to Johannesburg, South Africa to be closer to its work in developing countries. Release.
  • If you follow David Doherty of mHealth Insight (3G Doctor) as we do (and he does us), his mHealth/LinkedIn group will have an informal meetup at their booth #917 on Monday, 6-7:30pm. More information. He will also be speaking.
  • FierceMobileHealthcare’s preview
  • A spotlight on Sunday’s activities

Official Tweetstream: @mhealthsummit   Hashtag: #mHealth13

Update 9 Dec: Bad weather in the area has delayed many participants or changed travel plans. MedCityNews has a timely listing of speakers’ Twitter usernames to follow here.

Telehealth & Telecare Aware is a media partner of the 2013 mHealth Summit.

Going Googly over Glass: reviews

December 6, 2013 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/3022534-inline-s-6-a-surgeons-review-of-google-glass-in-the-operating-room.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Glass has been out long enough and used widely enough in the health/medical area to have some meaningful reviews. The hot area seems to be surgery, and having previewed this at the end of a minimally invasive hernia surgery during Heather Evans, MD’s talk at the NYeC Digital Health Conference [TTA 16 Nov; also her AAS article], this Editor knew more were to come. University of California-San Francisco formally received the first approval from the Institutional Review Board to use Glass during surgeries (iHealthBeat 27 Nov). Pierre Theodore, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at UCSF, prior to that point performed 10 to 15 surgeries with Glass assistance. From a longer article in Fast Company: “His conclusion so far: the technology is indeed useful in the operating room as an adjunct device in delivering necessary information, but it still has miles to go as a product.” Other drawbacks are its dependence on an optimal Wi-Fi signal which can be chancy in an OR, its weakness on voice commands, being able to easily scan X-rays during surgery, patient privacy and very importantly, sanitization. Completely hands-free operation is the surgeon’s goal. (Photo of Dr. Theodore courtesy of Fast Company)

Voice-enabled devices–pointer to the future?

November 22, 2013 | by

LA billionaire and healthcare investor par excellence Patrick Soon-Shiong (his NantHealth raised $31 million earlier this year and owns Vitality, eviti, iSirona, iCOS) has just made a sizable $8 million investment in Fluential, which is developing a voice interface and speech-optimized recognition software for digital health, wellness, and weight management, to run on anything mobile including wearables, and to be released in the spring of 2014. If this works (and better than Siri), it has major implications across the board in the future shape of both consumer and clinical health tech, especially for older adults and those with mobility concerns. Mobihealthnews.