Med-e-Tel 2013 presentations available

May 17, 2013 | by

Copies of the presentations at Med-e-Tel 2013 (10-12 April 2013) are now available. Click on the ‘full presentation’ links to access the presentations. The Med-e-Tel Knowledge Resource Center also still contains the presentations from previous events (2002-2012). You can access the Resource Center here.

The Med-e-Tel 2013 proceedings, published as Global Telemedicine and eHealth Updates – Knowledge Resources, Vol. 6, 2013 (610 pages) are now also available for purchase. It contains 133 short papers of presentations that were submitted for the Med-e-Tel 2013 conference program. To order a copy contact info@medetel.eu.

Before you go for that mhealth app, read this

May 13, 2013 | by

This common sense six-page guide to consumer mHealth apps, which are proliferating like dandelions on spring lawns, is free, fairly simple and put together by a trusted source–The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). Its emphasis is on defining what an app is, how to select the best one for you and–being that it’s AHIMA–securing your private data, particularly taking some care to read the app’s privacy policy. One hopes that they will get the word out through consumer and privacy channels, not to just the HIT and IT security types who read HealthITSecurity. MyPHR/Mobile Health Apps 101: A Primer for Consumers

Where the real remote care innovations are

May 6, 2013 | by

Another report by James Barlow from the ATA Conference.

More evidence that the really innovative thinking in the remote care world is coming from lower income countries. Dr Sikder Zakir from the Telemedicine Reference Centre (TRC – www.trclcare.com) in Bangladesh reported on the use of mHealth to improve access to underserved populations. Usually this would involve telemedicine – in its m- or non-mHealth guises – bringing healthcare to remotely located rural populations. Bangladesh is no exception, with 40,000 doctors and 25,000 nurses for 160 million people. But as is only too obvious to anyone who has been to countries in the Gulf there is a huge population of migrant workers living there. The 5 million expats from Bangladesh have 20 million dependents back home dependent on remittances, but neither side is well served for healthcare. The TRC is using mHealth to provide expats with access to doctors in Bangladesh via SMS messaging and voice calls, and extends the service – free – to up to five of their family members. Funding is via a $3 a month subscription paid via the migrant worker’s mobile phone network. The scheme is being tried out with 80,000 migrant workers in Singapore, before moving to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

We also heard from Dr Zakir about AMCARE (www.amcare24.com), an example of mHealth being used to extend diabetes care from hospitals to villages. This uses microinsurance payments (50 US cents / month) to cover the costs, a business model that is now gathering momentum in developing countries’ health systems.

Other reports by James Barlow.

In-car health monitoring: a Quantum of Dismay

April 30, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The simple pleasure of a drive, with the cheerful sound of a quiet engine purring and the pleasures of early Spring, are rapidly becoming as obsolete as no cell phone zones. Eye realized it this Sunday whilst driving in Big Blue (left, Cadillac,1955) with Waldo Lydecker to a scenic overlook on the New Jersey Palisades, where other like-minded vintage Cadillac owners unusually take pleasure in parking, eyeballing paint, chrome and upholstery, telling Cadillac tales and generally not doing very much for a few Sunday hours. But it was the drive to and from the garage that gave one pause. Blue must share the road [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/04281312541.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]with fellow vehicles of all sorts, piloted by–to be kind–distracted drivers minding their GPS, smartphones and MP3 players. Now Blue, being a mature lady, has rather a leisurely pace in gliding her 4,500 lbs both forward and to a stop, so she will mind you if you mind her with a little more room and consideration than a nippy Mercedes hussy coupe.

Thus yesterday’s article from the Telegraph (UK) adds to the Quantum of Dismay. The Gimlet Eye has already turned a very dim eye on the phenomenon of the Automotive Dashboard as mHealthy Monitor. Ford’s SYNC apps alerting you to pollen, pollution and your chances of having an asthma attack at the wheel–useful when used before travel, but blinking and beeping at 70 mph in four-lane traffic? A driver’s seat for hypochondriacs that measures blood pressure, pulse, stress and…blood glucose? (don’t ask)…may work well in the lab, but any New York, Washington, LA or London Metropolitan Area Rush Hour will produce a sound arrangement straight from the Raymond Scott book. A BMW steering wheel that measures perspiration? Ah, the Eye thought that driving your Beemer was supposed to make you glow with excitement. Is it TMBD (too much busy dashboard)? Is it TMI (information), especially if the signs are recorded? Would you then would be ‘asked’ to ‘volunteer’ said information to your insurance company and state DOT due to medical causes? Privacy concerns abound. Cars that can monitor your health–are in-car health monitors the way of the future or a step too far? (Telegraph)

Previously in TTA: Eye’s earlier dismay in More cars that will monitor your BP…and brain waves, Ford SYNCs up with Allergy Alert; Editor Donna not much more pleased in Ford’s ‘car that cares’ visits CES, Syncs up Healthrageously; Your car as mHealth platform.

Report: RSM event ‘Using apps to transform healthcare delivery’

April 29, 2013 | by

Many thanks to independent consultant Charles Lowe, President-elect of the Royal Society of Medicine’s (RSM) Telemedicine & eHealth Section for the following report on the one-day conference Using apps to transform healthcare delivery at the RSM, London, 18 April 2013.

Reflecting the importance of the topic, this one-day RSM conference sold out weeks in advance. The audience confirmed the growing trend for RSM Telemedicine Section-organised events to be attended principally by clinicians, in this case mainly hospital-based.

The general themes that emerged from the event included:

The need for greater connectedness among app overseers – the different players in the UK, notably NICE, MHRA, NHS Apps Library and NIHR each have different, often overlapping, concerns about apps before they are able to recommend or approve them for use. There emerged during the day a case to be made for tighter coordination among these bodies and, doubtless, others not represented at the meeting.

Big data doesn’t respond to professional users’ or patients’ needs well – apps are a great way to make big data acceptable to users. The Consent app (ascendinnovations.co.uk) demonstrated was quoted as an excellent example.

Not everyone has to produce apps – by opening up, publishing the APIs to your data, others with the appropriate skill might be able to do the job better than the data owner.

The day began with a presentation by (more…)

Mobile visits in the medical home

April 23, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

This presentation by William C. Thornbury, MD  summarizes his two-year research on ‘virtual patient visits’ in the primary care area. In patient-centered medical homes (PCMH), telemedicine virtual visits fit extremely well with an e-commerce minded, ‘gone mobile’ patient group and their needs for convenience and rapid response. It also fits with patient engagement, superior care delivery and cost efficiencies. This presentation is a lengthy 1 hour 28 minutes (including Q&A, which is also interesting) so you may want to bookmark for the weekend. It frames the essentials of disruptive innovation as it applies to mHealth telemedicine. From a webinar presented by MeVisit and the PCPCC’s Care Delivery and Integration Stakeholder Center via HealthShareTV.

[This video is no longer available on this site but may be findable via an internet search]

The Boston Marathon tragedy and health tech implications

April 18, 2013 | by

The terrorist bombings at the end of Monday’s Boston Marathon has already stimulated some analysis on what tech did–and could have done–to save lives. MedCityNews’ article analyzes the handling of the casualties–well done in the coordination of multiple hospital ERs (EDs) in caring for over 100 moderately to severely wounded, but showing the present inability in Massachusetts for the state health information exchange (HIE) Mass HIway to exchange patient EHRs under emergency circumstances. “With HIEs that have this capability, emergency department personnel can search for a patient’s record immediately upon his arrival or even as he’s being transported to the hospital. In hospitals connected to the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), for example, the system searches for a patient’s record automatically when he’s registered to the ED.” mHIMSS focuses on emergency response, triage, mobile data collection–and Boston’s Center for Connected Health on how health tech could assist in victims’ recoveries and mental support. But in the short term, the Greatist health and fitness website offers links to ways to help, including blood and financial donations, showing support, finding people and keeping up with news. Also there’s the official email for the FBI on where to send photos of the Boylston Street/finish line area.

But what of the long-term–the recovery from both the physical and mental wounds, and managing long term care issues? Four entrants in the MassChallenge accelerator 2013 startup class  to be announced in early May have medical therapies directly applicable to the survivors:  Advanced Amputee Solutions (shock absorption for the lower limb, Benevolent Technology for Health (adjustable fit for prosthetics), Keradermlab (alternative to skin grafts for burn healing) and Lucirix (connectivity platform for all health providers. MedCityNews

Device vs. Device: a mobile health faceoff

April 5, 2013 | by

MedCityNews pits unrelated mobile health devices and apps against each other in this series you may have overlooked last pre-holiday week. Some surprising winners in these eight short ‘n’ sweet matchups:

AliveCor smartphone ECG vs. DrawMD by Visible Health iPad app for general surgery patient ed

Related news: AliveCor names new CEO, experienced medical device and healthcare entrepreneur Dan Sullivan (Mobihealthnews)

Gauss Pixel App by Gauss Surgical (FDA cleared) to estimate surgical blood loss vs. BurnMedPro by Johns Hopkins Mobile Medicine

Welch Allyn iExaminer Adapter and app that connects to Ophthalmoscope (FDA cleared) vs HemaGo by NovoNordisk

MobiUS SP1 System by MobiSante, ultrasound imaging system (FDA cleared) vs. DoctorMole app by Mark Shippen

iHealth Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor companion app by iHealth Lab Inc (FDA cleared) vs. iBlueButton by Humetrix

Mobile Mim by Mim Software (FDA cleared) for image sharing vs Smartphone Breathalyzer by Breathometer

Diabetes Manager by WellDoc (FDA cleared) vs iTriage by Healthagen

AirStrip ONE by AirStrip Technologies (FDA cleared) vs Lab Counter by ZappyLab

Health tech grows…but where are the investors?

April 2, 2013 | by | 2 Comments

Health tech, digital health, wireless health, telehealth, eHealth, mHealth, connected health…while the terminology proliferates, the hype curve grows ever steeper and the conferences/cocktail parties ever buzzier, where is the investment? David Doherty’s identified 16 billionaires investing in health tech, but David Shaywitz writing in Forbes, who’s been up and down the biotech curve, is noting that VCs who should be gravitating to digital health, aren’t.  This is even though they have the most experience scouting the territory: the medical problems to be solved, the stakeholders, the development curve. This isn’t to say that some are actively investing and others are observing the waters–he cites PureTech Ventures, Venrock, Fidelity Biosciences as the former–but when he cites a principal of a major biotech VC openly tweeting a withering view of most ‘digiHC’ (another term!) as without a real business model, ‘more sizzle than steak’ and ‘merely a bubble’ equivalent to (US) cleantech….it’s ‘perception is reality’ time. So before mHealth starts connecting to genomes, some successful exits need to go on the scoreboard first. Life Science VCs: Definitively Indefinite About Digital Health

Perhaps too much of consumer directed health tech focuses on how novel it all is–which can sell in the short term–with an emphasis on low-cost apps and Quantified Self trackers. But neither right now, with a few exceptions, have the push from the physician–and their advocacy requires multiple steps to achieve: awareness, trial, validation and support. Also from Forbes, Digital Health Strategy: From Novelty to Necessity. An overview of how this can work for apps is what Happtique has accomplished to date in establishing standards, a certification program and a platform to facilitate physicians in prescribing apps and backing them up with patient educational materials. App Prescribing: The Future of Patient-Centered Care (Health Care Blog)

‘Leading the charge in wireless health’–to where?

March 25, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

CNN’s visit to Quantified Selfing Land (though not said) is travelogued in a ‘What’s Next’ blog on innovation, with a piece on and by USC’s Center for Body Computing head Leslie Saxon, MD. What is so surprising to this Editor is that the video piece (note: may not be viewable from all countries)  is so theoretical and future-oriented. Even though real companies and tech are here–AliveCor’s always smart and dapper Dr. David Albert, Sonny Vu’s Misfit Shine, UnderArmour athletic wear, Zephyr–the glossy way it’s presented is that it’s ‘swell stuff that will transform the future.’ Have our ‘grizzled veteran’ readers heard this song before, let’s say about 2006?

What is more disturbing is how dismissive Dr. Saxon’s article is of evident skepticism and of her own colleagues who are, after all, going to be part of and help drive this change. She dismisses medicine as “working from a 2,000 year old paternalistic doctor-patient model” as if nothing has happened in the past few years. Oddly she juxtaposes a 2007 conference with last week’s Congressional hearings leading with “The reactions interested me because, in my experience, where there is anger, there is also fear and irrationality.” Aside from being an extreme and disparaging view of her colleagues’ (and users) motives (and perhaps some bad editing), it simply wasn’t there in the hearings. Based on reports extensively compiled here, it was exactly the opposite–acceptance. (more…)

FDA regulating medical apps–or not? The Hearings. (US)

March 22, 2013 | by

Much coverage of this past Tuesday-Thursday’s US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee hearings on how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be regulating developing mobile health technologies.  Some key issues are if the 2.3 percent Obamacare medical device tax will apply to apps (after chilling development on surgical devices–see day 1 hearings), whether FDA will ever get around to publishing a final guidance (end of year), will FDA consider smartphones medical devices (no) and if FDA should share some of the responsibility with–or give it over entirely to–the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information (ONC) under Health and Human Services (HHS). Can FDA even keep up at this stage? (it takes them about three months on average review) and How much will regulation add to the price? are major questions. The representatives have heard from numerous leaders in the field: Tuesday, Happtique’s CEO Ben Chodor and the mHealth Regulatory Coalition’s Bradley Merrill Thompson; Wednesday, West Wireless Institute’s chief medical officer Joseph Smith; Thursday, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator, Health Information Technology, HHS and Ms. Christy Foreman of FDA. Mobihealthnews’ Brian Dolan live blogged from the hearings; there are also testimony statements. From these reports, the hearings have decided exactly nothing and revealed little about FDA’s inaction, but at least the issues have received some fresh air from those in the industry.

An overview of the articles/blogs to date.  Updated 23 March  (more…)

O2: First Help at Hand, now Health at Home (UK)

March 14, 2013 | by | 3 Comments

Two major launches for O2 in two weeks… First Help at Hand and now, at the Healthcare Innovations Expo, Health at Home – no wonder there were no ‘health’ mentions at the earlier launch. According to the press release, Health at Home’s secure platform allows health care professionals to “monitor patients’ readings, set bespoke symptom surveys, provide educational materials and communicate with them directly. Patients are provided with a tablet computer connected to the mobile network and pre-loaded with the Health at Home software as well as relevant smart monitoring devices including pulse oximeters, weight scales and blood pressure monitors.” Data is uploaded to O2’s servers where it is accessible to the professionals and to the patients “to learn more about their condition and how to manage it”. The charge is per patient per month with no upfront cost. Press release (PDF). Health at Home website.

O2 being what it is, we assume that the in-tablet software is CE marked (as it sounds like it would be counted as a medical device) and that O2 has all patent issues covered with the likes of Bosch. It would be nice to have those points confirmed.

Quantified Self fail: nighty-night for Zeo

March 13, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Brian Dolan in Mobihealthnews exclusively broke the news this morning that Quantified Self darling and pioneer (2009) Zeo has likely shut down, turning in not just for the evening but for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for the founders, employees, investors and users, it illustrates how Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation works fast, fast, fast in the real world. Its sleep monitor/coach was perhaps too good or complex for the market, and certainly too expensive at $400. Consumers traded off sophistication and features for less expensive (Lark at $160) and better value in the wider ‘jobs to be done’ in health tracking (fully mobile, multiple activity monitors/trackers such as FitBit and Jawbone Up now include sleep.)

It also demonstrates how the ‘better mousetrap’ does not trump a (more…)

Eric Topol, M.D. to appear on ‘Colbert Report’ (US)

March 9, 2013 | by

For our US readers, health tech/mHealth advocate and cardiologist Eric Topol, M.D. will be guesting on the Stephen Colbert talk show/humor (?) program on Comedy Central Tuesday 26 March. Check your local listings for times. For our ex-US readers, it will probably hit YouTube in a flash. Some good mainstream publicity for mHealth, but one hopes that Dr. Topol will avoid the ‘celeb doc’ syndrome that’s working against Dr. Mehmet Oz. San Diego U-T. This was in the news the same week as Dr. Topol’s whipping out his trusty AliveCor heart monitor on a New Orleans-Houston flight to aid a woman in distress; the AliveCor snap-on electrode ‘case’ to the iPhone+app provides a clinical-grade ECG (snapshot of the actual ECG below). At $199 why this isn’t part of the medical kit on commercial aircraft escapes your Editor.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/heart_1_t940.png” thumb_width=”200″ /]