Is digital health neglecting The Big Preventable–medical errors?

September 6, 2014 | by | 1 Comment

 

Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the US – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.

(US Senate hearing, cited in HealthcareITNews 18 July 2014)

At the end of last month, this Editor questioned the efficacy of our current state of ‘consumer engagement’ in Patients should be less engaged, not more. The ‘less engaged’ was a call for simplification: regimens and devices which were easier to use, less complicated and far easier to fit in everyday life. (Aesthetics helps too.) Back in 2013, HeartSister/Ethical Nag (and Canadian) Carolyn Thomas called for health app (and by inference consumer engagement) designers to ‘skate to where the puck is going’–as in “For Pete’s sake, go find some Real Live Patients to talk (and listen) to first before you decide where you’re going!” Often it seems like these apps and platforms are designed in a vacuum of the entrepreneur’s making. The proof is the low uptake (Pew, Parks, IMS) and the apps’/programs’ lack of stickiness after all this time (Kvedar 8 Sep blog post).

Now Laurie Orlov tells us we were looking at the wrong puck, as analysts do. First, all that ‘nudging’ and all those apps haven’t moved the needle on diabetes and obesity. Second, why are app developers neglecting that third largest killer, preventable medical errors? Add to that 400,000 yearly–over 1,000 per day–the 10,000 estimated patients every day who suffer serious complications. (more…)

IBM Watson, get me consumer engagement

June 20, 2014 | by

A pointer to the future for healthcare? What’s made health tech headlines is IBM Watson’s big data modeling for decision support tools in oncology and taking the US Medical Licensing Examination [TTA 10 Mar and prior] , but Watson’s capabilities are being tested in other verticals such as retail and customer service. This latest item from Direct Marketing News (!) does a once-over-lightly-from-the-press-release on their partnership with contact (call) center Genesys  ‘customer experience platform’. It will further automate both telephonic and online service using Watson methodology by end of this year. Not mentioned of course is all the back end information on customer behavior. What can this mean in healthcare? Off the top of this Editor’s head, it’s proactive consumer engagement, a concept much discussed but rarely achieved without a fair degree of obtrusiveness. Trending data on fitness monitoring being sent on your smartwatch or band, interactive suggestions/reminders in diabetes management at those mid-afternoon times when you’re reaching for candy or coffee, a phone call from a real or virtual ‘case manager’ using behavioral data off your smartphone (locating you at the ice cream stand), better call center support for clinical trial research done by contract research organizations (CROs) using behavioral data…..  Article

Short, ‘springy’ takes for Friday

March 21, 2014 | by

IBM Watson crunches the genomics for glioblastoma. A clinical trial at seven locations is being developed in partnership with the NY Genome Center to identify potential treatment options for the most common type of brain tumor–one where diagnosis and treatment time is of the essence.  iHealthBeat, Modern Healthcare….Also in NY, Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx is evaluating several mobile initiatives including a current pilot for texts/care management to support diabetic teenagers, as well as evaluating interacting with diabetics on fitness and  biosensor monitoring. FierceMobileHealthcare….Yecco’s social media platform for families caring for older adults [TTA 13 Mar] adds insurance. Allianz Global Assistance UK announced Yecco Home Care insurance, providing up to six weeks of assistance at home following an accident, injury or hospitalization. Release….Six US Senators seek clarification on FDA mobile health regulations. The letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg inquired on FDA plans and asked if legislative assistance might be required. The FDA/ONC-HIT framework report originally due in January now has a deadline of 31 March. iHealthBeat. The Hill ‘Healthwatch’….The Samsung Galaxy S5 won’t be considered a medical device by South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. According to Engadget, it was the heart-rate sensor that subjected it to stricter regulations under current South Korean laws. Oy….And it took a while, but finally the Tunstall Americas management page lists new CEO Casey Pittock at the top! (No release yet though.)

Turning an iPhone into an endoscope

October 11, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

The interestingly named ‘Endockscope’ is a docking device which connects an iPhone 4S to an endoscope.  The Endockscope acquired images of the same resolution and acceptable color resolution. An evaluation team of twelve expert endoscopists evaluated the image quality compared to the Storz HD camera standard, and concluded that they were equivalent for flexible ureteroscopy and somewhat inferior, but still acceptable for flexible cystoscopy. Savings? $46,469–$154 compared with $46,623 for the Storz HD. The device is yet to go to human trials. FierceMobileHealthcare. iMedicalApps (abstract) The Endockscope was also commented on by Dr. Eric Topol in his Medscape article on genomic medicine, decision support tools such as IBM Watson possibly replacing doctors, a robot administering anesthesia, the Theranos fast blood testing system possibly disrupting lab testing…Topol on ‘Taboo Genetics,’ a Frugal App, and Magic Supplements

IBM Watson working on medical license, practicing and shrinking (US)

March 10, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

The IBM Watson data analytics/decision-support tool now in test advising doctors on oncology at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai and other hospitals is being prepped for the US Medical Licensing Examination, which is a three-part series which licenses medical school graduates for practice.  It’s also making progress on shrinking–not going for its psychiatry boards, but reducing its physical size: from a master bedroom to bathroom to possibly a projected smartphone size by 2020, if you can think that far in advance.  The next big step appears to be integrating ‘big data’ into Watson’s computing capabilities leading to an entirely new stage of cognitive analytics, but right now ‘Dr. Watson’ is busy digesting a big oncology data meal, according to this article:  600,000 pieces of medical evidence, two million pages of text from 42 medical journals and clinical trials. It’s also busy practicing its capabilities of sifting through 1.5 million patient records representing decades of cancer treatment history to provide to physicians evidence based treatment options. Computerworld