Put them on the calendar: autumn/winter UK health tech events

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/calendar.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]September means that we come back from our holidays. Those smartphone calendars come out and the gaps are filled for the last part of the year into 2017 (gasp!) Here’s our (now separate) starter list for UK.

The RSM’s Telemedicine and e-Health Section (which is chaired by our own Contributing Editor Charles Lowe, who will be updating them as usual)…Event listings here and surely more to come (All at the RSM)

Point of care testing: disruptive innovation – is the NHS ready for it yet?   22 November

Recent developments in digital health   28 Feb 2017

The King’s Fund’s upcoming meetings involving healthcare technology (All at The King’s Fund)

Designing digital services around users’ needs   6 Oct 2016
Learning from clinician and patient-centred service design

Integrated Care Summit 2016   11 Oct 2016
Improving local population health and delivering accountable care (more…)

Put them on the calendar: upcoming US IoT, connected health events (updated)

September means that we come back from vacations and holidays. The calendars come out and we start to fill in the gaps for the next few months into (gasp!) 2017. Here’s a forward look through to next August for US healthcare and IoT  conferences, including International CES.

If you’re in Dallas this coming Thursday, the Health Wildcatters accelerator is premiering their new office at Pacific Place with a bash starting at 5:30pm. Reserve tickets quickly and find out more #HWGrandOpening Hat tip to Hubert Zajicek

Since TTA’s been a media supporter of Parks Associates’ Connected Health Summit for the past two years, here’s a sample of their other IoT and connected home events.

CONNECTIONS™ Europe  (Smart home, IoT and the connected consumer)
November 2-3, 2016, Amsterdam     www.connectionseurope.com

CONNECTIONS™ Summit at CES
January 5, 2017, CES, Las Vegas    www.connectionssummit.com

CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference
May 23-25, 2017, San Francisco   http://www.connectionsus.com

Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers
August 29-31, 2017, San Diego  www.connectedhealthsummit.com

December is a big month for US conferences; three of note (and likely partners again) are:

MedStartr Momentum (MedMo16) (more…)

Looking back over Telehealth & Telecare Aware’s predictions for 2014, part II

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/magic-8-ball.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Editor Charles has treated you to a look back on his 2014 predictions, daring Editor Donna to look back on hers. Were they ‘Decidedly so’, ‘Yes’, ‘Reply hazy, try again’ or ‘My sources say no’? Read on…

On New Year’s Day 2014, it looked like “the year of reckoning for the ‘better mousetraps’”? But the reckoning wasn’t quite as dramatic as this Editor thought.

We are whipping past the 2012-13 Peak of Inflated Expectations in health tech, diving into the Trough of Disillusionment in 2014.

There surely were companies which turned up ‘Insolvent with a great idea’ in Joe Hage’s (LinkedIn’s huge Medical Devices Group) terms, but it was more a year of Big Ideas Going Sideways than Crash and Burns.

Some formerly Great Ideas may have a future, just not the one originally envisioned. (more…)

CES Unveiled New York

11 November, New York

The annual event that is CES Unveiled in New York City is meant to be a nanoparticle-scale preview of International CES in Las Vegas, 6-9 January.  It’s a smörgåsbord of what used to be called ‘consumer electronics’ and now is all about innovation–a taste of everything from ever-smarter video and audio to sensors, smarter homes with IoT (the cutely named Internet of Things), Big Data, robotics and (drum roll) Digital Health and the Quantified Self (QS). This Editor regrettably missed the opening briefing by Shawn DuBravac, CEA’s Chief Economist and Senior Director of Research which would likely touch on his areas of the innovation economy and disruption along with the other four 2015 trends to watch: big data analytics, immersive entertainment content, robotics and digital health. (CEA helpfully provides the 30-page white paper here.)

The exhibitors at the Metropolitan Pavilion did not fully represent the trends, however. (more…)

Faux Glass: not just a knockoff, but a sendup

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/gI_147093_Faux-Glasses-Sample-Picture-Spotlight-On.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Need to impress your Silicon Valley/Alley buds, but the exchequer is low? Didn’t get to be a Glass Explorer on the first round? Fret no more! Faux Glass is here. It’s missing a few things that Glass has–like a phone, photo/video camera, a GPS, internet search access smack in your eye–but does have a magnifier, a spotlight and eight LED indicator lights which light in sequence to a “crack me up” command, like Where the Faux (the product’s built in GPS to nowhere), Faux-to Shop (for fixing photos never taken), and What the Faux (for general searching). All on Indiegogo for $1,480 less than Glass! “They’re not fake anything; they’re real Faux” says Faux-In-Chief Robin Raskin (who’s also a tech journalist, author and founder of Living in Digital Times and FashionWare). The full court press on Faux Glass is of course leading up to International CES in January and their conferences including the Digital Health Summit. Ms Raskin through this also reminds us that crowdfunding and digital tech is not to be taken too seriously. PRWeb release. Website.

Of course there’s the possible faux that presents itself as seriously real, or what’s been dubbed ‘scampaigns’ on crowdfunding sites like…Indiegogo. (more…)

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

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…)

‘Silver’ no longer, it’s ‘Lifelong Tech’

International CES’ Silvers Summit now Lifelong Tech. An indicator that the focus in ‘aging tech’ is now less on imposing monitoring systems on older people and more on enabling people of all ages to live better is the name change of one of the ur-events of digital health. The focus is now on the 50+ (78 million strong in the US). With the drop in age is a substantial broadening of interest in technology from smartphones to longevity and social connectedness as well as the traditional safety and improved quality of life. Lifelong Tech will debut at 2015 International CES 6-9 January 2015, though the change isn’t on their materials or website yet. Organizers (Living in Digital Times) remain the same. This Editor will be seeing their short and sweet wearable tech presentation (no windy panels of corporate execs) next Wednesday.  Release

Dr. Topol in the AT&T house: a reboot of ForHealth?

HIMSS14 will tell. The big news that kicked off this snow-bound week in large parts of the US was Dr. Eric Topol joining Dallas, Texas-based AT&T ForHealth as Chief Medical Advisor. Well-known for his personality and evangelism of all things mHealthy, certainly Dr. Topol lends a certain star power to Big Blue’s efforts in this area–a shine that went completely dark in 2013 after a promising start in 2011 and strong partnering moves in 2012 (Alere and WellDoc diabetes management TTA 10 Aug 12VRI monitoring in May). The quietude of 2013 deserves a closer look. Dr. Geeta Nayyar joined with fanfare in September 2011 as Chief Medical Information Officer and departed exactly two years later to join engagement company PatientPoint with the same title. ForHealth made no waves at International CES save for being an example in the controversial ‘sponsored data’ plan announcement (GeekWire). Even finding ForHealth on the AT&T website is not easy. It is buried under ‘Business>>Enterprise Business‘ and then in a dogpile of footer links as ‘Healthcare Solutions‘–not ForHealth. In marketing, this is a state usually termed ‘dead in the water.’ The fact that Dr. Topol is remaining as Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health also indicates that he is no direct replacement for Dr. Nayyar, despite being cited by AT&T SVP Chris Hill as a “change agent” who will help “drive our competitive strategy”. We’ll see if HIMSS14 on 23-27 February where AT&T will be exhibiting and their subsequent activity marks a genuine reboot for ForHealth, putting Dr. Topol’s impressive abilities to work beyond a twinkle. AT&T press release, MedCityNews article

The CES of Health (Thursday)

Beaucoup fitness bands and wearables, an ‘all-in-one’ glucose meter and finally, a lack of hype!

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/razer-nabu-main-banner.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Mobihealthnews rounds up 18 mobile health launches in a slideshow format (a bit difficult to page through). It’s heavy on fitness monitor bands and wearables from well-known and startup companies at price points from the $100 range up well past $400:  Sony, LG, Garmin, Polar, Razer, Virgin Pulse (clipon), Lumo, iFit, Movea, Wellograph and Epson. (Also see Medgadget’s roundup if you can’t get enough!) Outside of fitness monitors: from China’s iHealth Lab (Andon Health), a blood pressure monitoring vest, an ambulatory ECG device that supposedly sticks to the wearer’s bare chest (no FDA approvals yet); Zensorium Tinke’s pulse oximeter plus for Android (seen by this Editor at New York CES in November 2012), the Qualcomm Life-backed YoFiMeter cellular glucose meter (more below) and the Medissimo Medipac GPS tracking pill box from France. Already covered here: Withings Aura, Qardio, Mother, Kolibree. (more…)

International CES unveils in NYC

The trends and items of note for next January’s show in Las Vegas

  • The ‘Internet of Things’ is the phrase-du-jour–embedding anything and everything with sensors (digital elements) and blending the physical and digital worlds
  • Consumer Digital Health Care was listed as #3 of CEA’s 2014 Technology Trends to Watch (PDF link). What is hot is self-tracking (1/3 of mobile users have tracked using a smartphone and tablet, and over half are now concerned about data security), integrating tech for seniors (touching on Selfhelp’s Virtual Senior Center [TTA 17 Mar 2010], remote monitoring (telehealth and telecare) including GrandCare Systems and kiosk HealthSpot Station, patient adherence, FDA approval of apps and the home as a healthcare hub.
  • Robots were the #4 trend: consumer robots such as home cleaners Roomba, Ecovacs; robots in eldercare; humanoid robots like NAO; robotic prosthetics and exoskeletons.

Digital health will again be showcased as a TechZone  (more…)