CEO to CEO: TSA’s Alyson Scurfield interview with Tunstall CEO Gordon Sutherland (updated)

April 25, 2020 | by | 1 Comment

If you are following the changes at Tunstall Healthcare, TSA’s Alyson Scurfield’s talk with Gordon Sutherland has some significant news. The investment from Barings, M&G, and the lender group has been confirmed as a change of ownership. It could be inferred from the release, but was not explicit.

From Mr. Sutherland: “The change in ownership deal is now subject to several legal steps including a European Commission review regarding Competition Law. We expect to be able to address any issues and the deal to be signed in late June/July.” Checking back on the Charterhouse website, Tunstall is still categorized as an unexited portfolio company (or ‘unrealised’ in a more delicate term).

Another reveal in this conversation is a strategic statement that segments care and presumably the company’s direction into four parts, somewhat like Roman Gaul (which was three or five, depending on the history you’re reading):

  1. Reactive care: for instance an alarm bell or PERS press
  2. Proactive care: reactive plus social care and well checks
  3. Predictive care: sensor-based tracking in the home. Presumably this would be rules-based (i.e. time) on ADLs.
  4. Tunstall has added to this Cognitive Care or “Intelli-Care” which would combine presumably #2 and #3 along with other healthcare data from the user which would be analyzed to deliver social or health ‘nudges’. While in its ‘infancy’ according to Mr. Sutherland, this type of system would also detect changes in vital signs which require intervention.

#3 and especially #4 referred to as in ‘infancy’ leave this Editor puzzled. Back in 2006-9, the QuietCare system (still sold by Care Innovations) had changes in ADLs based on a normative model baselined over two weeks pretty much nailed down. There are more advanced systems such as CarePredict that take that motion and movement and have put it on a wrist-based sensor system that is now sold for individuals at home as well as in group living–with fall prediction and a PERS for good measure. Vital signs monitoring can also be done with other personal devices, watches, and smartphone/tablet reporting, but medical grade monitoring is another step further with far more complex integration.

Part 2 of the conversation will discuss what are the anticipated changes to health and social care service sectors and the proposed strategic direction of TSA. Hat tip to one of our Readers

Updated 25 April: A further snippet on how the new investment will play out at Tunstall is found on healthcare business intel provider Laing Buisson’s Care Markets website. In their view, the Barings/M&G investment will be “supporting the restructure, which will see the business recapitalised and debt reduced to £180m….” The rest is unfortunately only available to Care Markets newsletter subscribers, of which we are not. Again, no mention of Charterhouse.

Care Innovations sold to PRA Health Sciences; launches COVID-19 patient monitoring program

April 8, 2020 | by

Care Innovations, formerly Intel Care Innovations, formerly Intel-GE Care Innovations, was apparently sold at the end of 2019 to giant drug CRO PRA Health Sciences of Raleigh, NC.  This is based on an early termination notice published on 17 Dec 2019 of an FTC pre-merger notification . The notice is interesting as Care Innovations is listed as a holding of Hong Kong-based Essence International Financial Holdings Limited, with no mention of Intel.

It also appears from the website and a quick check on LinkedIn that some of the leadership, such as Marcus Grindstaff, the former COO, has been retained by PRA. And yes, they are still marketing QuietCare (developed by Living Independently Group, this Editor’s employer some years ago).

In recent years, CROs have used remote monitoring as part of clinical drug trials, but this may be the first purchase. PRA’s relationship with Care Innovations dates back to 2017 with a strategic partnership for clinical trials.

The latest iteration of Care Innovations’ Health Harmony is as a turnkey remote monitoring system for COVID-19, to be deployed by employers, payers, providers and health systems to track individuals who may be asymptomatic, exposed or diagnosed with coronavirus. It is designed in three stages: education, quarantine, and in-depth monitoring/care coordination with a healthcare professional. Patients report on a tablet or smartphone vitals such as temperature, heart rate, pulse oximetry and COVID-19 symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, and changes in coughing. This information uploads to a dashboard monitored by a clinical call center. Release Hat tip to reader Paul Costello

Virus-(almost) free news: Cera’s $70m raise, Rx.Health’s RxStitch, remote teledentistry to rescue, Alcuris responds, Caravan buys Wellpepper, and Teladoc’s heavy reading

March 21, 2020 | by

Keeping calm and carrying on (but taking precautions, staying inside, and keyboarding with hands that resemble gator hide), yes, there IS some news that isn’t entirely about COVID-19:

This Editor had put aside the $70 million funding by the UK’s Cera at end of February. What is interesting is that Cera Care is a hybrid–specializing in both supplying home-based care, including dementia care, and providing tech-enabled services for older adults. The funding announcement was timed with the intro of SmartCare, a sensor-based analytics platform that uses machine learning and data analytics on recorded behaviors to personalize care and detect health risks with a reported 93 percent accuracy. It then can advise carers and family members about a plan of action. This sounds all so familiar as Living Independently’s QuietCare also did much the same–in 2006, but without the smartphone app and in the Ur-era of machine learning (what we called algorithms back then).

The major raise supports a few major opportunities: 50 public sector contracts with local authorities and NHS, the rollout of SmartCare, its operations in England and Wales, and some home healthcare acquisitions. Leading the round was KairosHQ, a US-based startup builder, along with investors Yabeo, Guinness Asset Management, and a New York family office. Could a US acquisition be up next?  Mobihealthnews, TechEU

Located on NYC’s Great Blank Way (a/k/a Broadway), Rx.Health has developed what they call digital navigation programs in a SaaS platform that connect various programs and feed information into EHRs. The interestingly named RxStitch engine uses text messages (Next Gen Reminder and Activation Program) or patient portals to support episodes of care (EOC), surgeries, transitions of care (TOC), increasing access to care, telehealth, and closure of care gaps. Their most recent partnership is with Valley Health in northern NJ. Of course they’ve pitched this for COVID-19 as the COVereD initiative that supports education, triage, telehealth, and home-based surveillance as part of the workflow. Rx.Health’s execs include quite a few active for years in the NY digital health scene, including Ashish Atreja, MD.

Teledentistry to the rescue! Last summer, we focused on what this Editor thought was the first real effort to use telemedicine in dentistry, The TeleDentists can support dentists who are largely closing shop for health reasons to communicate with their own patients for follow up visits, screen new patients, e-prescribe, and refer those who are feeling sick to other telehealth providers. For the next six weeks, patients pay only $49 a visit. More information in their release. Hat tip to Howard Reis.

What actions are smaller telehealth companies taking now? Reader and commenter Adrian Scaife writes from Alcuris about how their assistive technology responds to the need to keep in touch with older people living alone at home. Last week their preparations started with giving their customers the option to switch to audio/video conferencing with their market teams. This week, they reviewed how their assistive technology and ADL monitoring can keep older people safe in their homes where they may have to be alone, especially after discharge, yet families and caregivers can keep tabs on them based on activity data. A smart way for a small company to respond to the biggest healthcare challenge of the last 30 years. Release. 

Even Caravan Health, a management services company for groups of physicians or health systems organizing as accountable care organizations (ACOs) in value-based care programs, is getting into digital health with their purchase of Wellpepper. The eight-year-old company based in Seattle works with health plans to provide members with outpatient digital treatment plans, messaging services, and an alert system to boost communication between care teams and patients. Purchase price was not disclosed, but Wellpepper had raised only $1.2 million in debt financing back in 2016 so one assumes they largely bootstrapped. Mobihealthnews

And if you’re stuck at home and are trying to avoid chores, you can read all 140 pages of Teladoc’s Investor Day presentation, courtesy of Seeking Alpha. 

Best Buy buys Critical Signal Technologies, increasing telehealth footprint

June 13, 2019 | by | 3 Comments

Late last month, Best Buy with little fanfare bought Critical Signal Technologies (CST) of Novi, Michigan. CST is a device-agnostic telehealth monitoring and social work services platform through its Care Center, covering services such as PERS monitoring, medication management, and remote patient monitoring. Terms were not disclosed for this private company founded in 2006, but CST cares for 100,000 patients and has partnerships with 1,500 payers, including many Medicare Advantage plans. 

For those seeking the sunnier uplands of digital health, it’s surprising but gratifying to see Best Buy place another sizable bet in the home health area. The recent acquisition of GreatCall for $800 million is larger, but GreatCall is a turnkey, profitable company. The partnership with Tyto Care [TTA 17 April] to retail their system is relatively low risk, limited in scope, and follows their Midwest intro pattern (followed over 12 years ago with, believe it or not, QuietCare when owned by Living Independently).

Best Buy has gained kudos for moving into specialty areas in healthcare when its fellow retailers have been falling by the wayside. It covers both their bricks-and-mortar–where older adults still like to shop–and online, delivering a large slice of health tech directly to consumers. One asset, the tech-oriented Geek Squad, is a ready made unit for installing and walking older adults through using home tech. MedCityNews, MarketWatch

IBM gives sensor-based in-home behavioral tracking a self-driving car ‘spin’ in the UK with Cera Care

May 30, 2019 | by

In-home behavioral tracking of older adults, which was a significant portion of telecare circa 2007 up until a few years ago, may be getting a new lease on life. The technology in this round is the same as what guides self-driving vehicles–LiDAR or Light Detection and Ranging, which uses laser light pulses to map images of movement and surroundings. 

In this model, IBM Research will use the LiDAR information and their machine learning to establish normal patterns and also to observe behaviors that may indicate a potentially dangerous condition or situation. The LiDAR pilot will be in 10-15 households in the UK starting in June. IBM is partnering with early-stage UK home care company Cera Care on the reporting and linking with care staff on alerts on changes in behavior that may predict a more acute condition. 

Many of the privacy issues that dogged predictive behavioral telemonitoring via networked infrared motion sensors, as well as in-home cameras, are present with LiDAR monitoring. Unlike 2007, five states have ‘nanny cam’ laws that prohibit cameras within skilled nursing facilities without patient consent (Senior Housing News) Another issue: expense. LiDAR sensor setups cost up to $1,000 each, and at least one per room is needed. Far cheaper setups are available from the Editor’s long-ago former company, QuietCare, if one can still purchase them for the home from Care Innovations; Alarm.com, UK’s Hive Link, and Google may get into the act with their Nest connected home tech.

Senior housing may open up a new market for LiDAR, which is wilting in the autonomous vehicle (AV) area as it’s proven to be rather buggy on real roads with real drivers. Certainly the housing and care market is growing and destined to be huge, with over-60s growing from 900 million in 2015 to 2 billion worldwide in 2050, while for-hire caregivers are shrinking by the millions.  Business Insider, Reuters

Best Buy update: ‘Assured Living’ assuredly up and running. And was this Editor’s in-store experience not typical?

September 14, 2018 | by

Reader and Opinionator Laurie Orlov wrote this Editor to advise her that Assured Living was most definitely alive and well in Best Buy-land. The Assured Living page presents a variety of services, starting with a personal monitoring service (video) for an older adult that starts with a fairly standard pendant PERS (two way) and also creates an in-home network of motion sensors for doors, windows, and furniture installed by Geek Squad. These sensors send activity to a control panel which tracks activity and wellness patterns (sic!–as we know it’s algorithms and rules in the software). Within about a month, the system will send real-time automated alerts if something is out of the ordinary. The video then promises the usual ‘deeper insights’ into wellness and potential issues with the older person.

What doesn’t sound like QuietCare circa 2006, down to the need for installation, are the Wi-Fi camera in the doorbell and the automated remote door locks, the tie ins with the Mayo Clinic and UnitedHealthcare. 

We both speculated on the motion sensor set as being Lively Home (from GreatCall) –Laurie added possibly Alarm.com’s BeClose, which has supplied Best Buy in the past.

Assured Living is available only in limited markets (not listed) but you can get 10 percent off with AARP! But product packages go up to nearly $189.97 for a one time fee plus $29.99/month, not inclusive of that nifty doorbell camera and remote door locks.

One wonders if the reluctance of older adults to admit they need monitoring and consent to the installation is less than in 2006, when QuietCare’s and ADT’s sales people had difficulty overcoming the reluctance of a person living home on their own to be monitored by their (usually) child. Sometimes a sale would be made, the installer would come, and the installer would be shooed out after second thoughts. The genius of GreatCall was in making technology palatable to this market by assigning it a positive use, such as communicating with friends and direct personal safety, not someone minding her. Right now, the template is 2006 with a tech twist.

Drop in and visit Laurie Orlov on her Website We Like, Aging in Place Technology Watch. (She’s alarmed about chipping people too and frames it as more of a security and a moral issue than this Editor did, who prefers her chips to be chocolate and her cars to be driven by her alone.)

As to this Editor’s ghostly experience buying a TV in store, perhaps I should have invited a Best Buy rep over! Reader, former Marine flyboy, eldercare expert, and full time grandfather John Boden did and got a simple solution to an annoying problem. Read about it in comments on our prior article here.

Fall prevention: the technology–and Dutch–cures

January 10, 2018 | by

The ‘Holy Grail’ of fall detection is, of course, fall prevention. The CDC statistics for the US are well known: One in four Americans aged 65+ falls each year. Every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults–2.8 million injuries treated in emergency departments annually, including over 800,000 hospitalizations and more than 27,000 deaths. In 2014, the total cost of fall injuries was $31 billion. In the UK, AgeUK‘s stats are that falls represent the most frequent and serious type of accident in people aged 65 and over, the main cause of disability and the leading cause of death from injury among those aged 75+. 

The technology ‘cures’ as noted in this NextAvenue/Forbes article centers around predicting if and when a person will fall.

  • The ‘overall’ approach, which is constant monitoring of ADLs through activity sensing and modeling/machine learning to detect early signs of decline or health change. Companies in this area are Care Innovations’ QuietCare (sensor arrays) and CarePredict (wrist worn).
  • Gait detection. Relatively small changes in gait and walking speed are an accurate, fast, and straightforward indicator of fall risk. Ten years of research performed at TigerPlace in Missouri showed that people whose gait slowed by 5 centimeters per second within a week had an 86% probability of falling during the next three weeks. Shortening of stride had a 50 percent probability of fall within three weeks.
  • Read the brain. Research at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in NYC indicates that in otherwise high-functioning older people, high levels of frontal brain activity while walking and talking can predict higher long term fall risk, up to 32 percent.
  • Balance impairment. Tests using VR to simulate falling in healthy subjects and tracking their muscular response also could be used to roadmap a person’s balance impairments and future fall risk–along with training and targeted physical rehabilitation.

The Netherlands has taken this last point and gone ‘low tech’ with physical training courses that teach older adults both not to fall and to fall correctly if they do. Students negotiate obstacle courses and uneven surfaces, then learn to fall properly on thick inflated mats. Many of those attending use walkers or canes, but complete the courses which reduce the fear of falling or getting up–and provide both fun and socialization. The courses have become popular enough that they are government rated with insurance often defraying the cost. New York Times

3rings goes Internet of Things with ‘Things That Care’ (UK)

October 18, 2017 | by

3rings is launching another extension of its smart plug sensor that monitors daily use of a key appliance like a tea kettle or TV with a multi-sensor IoT system. [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/3rings-IoT-hub-and-Sensors.jpeg” thumb_width=”250″ /]’Things That Care‘ uses proprietary ‘things’ (sensors) to monitor patterns of activity and the home environment to create a safety net for an older adult, perhaps growing frailer, usually living at home alone, so that family or caregivers can ‘look in’ to see if all is fine. It also integrates the Amazon Echo interactive personal assistant as announced in June [TTA 27 June].

The other 3rings development is the system’s ability to analyze data for trends and insights (screenshots below). The introduction of self-learning algorithms to detect potential changes in activity that may be early signs of a change in health is a proactive care advance similar to capabilities in the far more complex and expensive QuietCare and Healthsense (now Lively) but affordable for families. It also puts the 3rings system into the professional space for councils and sheltered housing. According to 3rings CEO Steve Purdham, “our new platform gives professionals real time information to support efficient care planning and delivery, and provides a cost effective means of managing risks and providing tailored care to people to enable them to stay independent at home.” Again, we wish 3rings the best with these new developments. Release (PDF)  

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/patterns.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]   [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/trend-analysis.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]

In-home video monitoring acceptable to 90 percent of dementia carers: Age NI study

May 23, 2017 | by

What used to be the ‘third rail’ of caring may no longer be. The idea of cameras in the home to view activity of an older family member was so abhorrent to caregiving relatives that it was a key in selling purely sensor-based monitoring systems from the early 2000s on, such as QuietCare, GrandCare, Alarm.com Wellness, Healthsense, Lively, Tynetec/Legrand and many others. Today, in the age of selfies and video on social networks, video surveillance doesn’t seem so foreign. Age NI‘s study conducted through Ulster University had the surprising finding that over 90 percent of participants in several focus groups supported it, with two important caveats; that there was initial consent from the older person being monitored, and that only family members could view the video. With that, they found it ‘useful’, ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’. It would support the person’s safety in aging at home longer, and provide peace of mind for carers. Hat tip to Toni Bunting of TASK Ltd. PharmaTimes, Ulster University News

Here’s Howz: now electricity consumption as elder minder (UK)

February 28, 2017 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HOWZ-20Oct2016-668-768×576.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]Intelesant’s latest project, Howz, has added electricity consumption to the monitoring set of Activities of Daily Living. The Howz set of multiple sensors generally monitors activity in the home, home temperature, lights on/off, and exterior door opening/closing, depending on their placement, but one sensor monitors electricity consumption by directly going into the meter to determine whether appliances are being used as an indicator of activity. These activities are reported over a smartphone app to those who have permission for reports. After a trending baseline over a few days is established via algorithms, the Howz system tracks departures from that norm and alerts via the smartphone app. This bears resemblances to this Editor’s former company which developed the behavioral telecare (first and still in market) QuietCare system, but the ‘meter reader’ is a new and smart twist.

Intelesant is testing Howz in 100 Manchester homes and is scheduled to be in a pilot with dementia patients at home in partnership with the Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. In December, they also announced that they are a finalist with the EDF Energy Blue Lab Acceleration Programme.

Howz is more comprehensive (and expensive) than 3rings‘ single appliance plug which keys into specific activities (tea kettle, TV on) [TTA articles here] but the objective for family peace of mind for older adults, especially those living alone, is the same. Available consumer direct from their website in the UK only (unfortunately) from £199 for the starter kit. New Scientist, Howz video on YouTube Hat tip to former Northern Ireland Editor Toni Bunting

VA awards over $1 billion in Home Telehealth contracts–at long last (updated)

February 6, 2017 | by | 15 Comments

Breaking News, Updated  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on 1 Feb issued over $1 billion in awards to four companies to provide Home Telehealth vital signs monitoring technologies to veterans in home care and monitoring. The four companies are Medtronic, Care Innovations, Iron Bow Technologies, and 1Vision LLC. The $1 billion is split evenly between the four ($258 million for each company over the five-year duration). The contracts are for an initial year (31 Jan 2018 end date listed on GovTribe.com), renewable annually for five years total. The bid process started in 2015 and the award had originally been scheduled for early-to-mid 2016.

On the suppliers:

  • Medtronic is the incumbent as a supplier since 2011, dating back to Cardiocom’s 2011 award for its home monitoring units (Cardiocom was acquired in August 2013). Medtronic is a Dublin, Ireland HQ’d company with a US headquarters in Minnesota.
  • Care Innovations is well known to our Readers as the developer of Health Harmony and the acquirer of the QuietCare telecare/behavioral monitoring used in senior housing. Their parent is Intel.
  • Iron Bow Technologies is a supplier to VA in other healthcare areas (telemedicine and store-and-forward) and is a large, privately held IT company with multiple Federal contracts and deep Federal contractor roots. Their revenue has been reported at over $462 million (Washington Technology Top 100 2016).
  • 1Vision LLC is a new company formed as a joint venture between HMS Technologies, Inc. and MBL Technologies, Inc. Neither are previously engaged as home telehealth providers, but both are Federal contractors. According to their individual websites, HMS is an IT systems integrator and MBL is engaged primarily in cybersecurity.

The question for this Editor is how Iron Bow and 1Vision, which are not telehealth (vital signs) monitoring companies but telemedicine and IT service providers respectively, will execute Home Telehealth with the VA. Have they partnered with yet-to-be disclosed providers in providing home telehealth services to the VA? (Watch this space)

While the award is the largest in US telehealth, the VA is, by this Editor’s experience in her last position with Viterion Corporation, extremely demanding on its service providers and will be even more so in the future. The future reasons are clear: 1) President Trump has put a Klieg light on the VA and 2) he’s named a new VA secretary, Dr David Shulkin, who is currently VA Undersecretary for Health (confirmation hearing notes courtesy of POLITICO, nomination approved by the Senate committee Tuesday, and easily confirmed Monday night 13 Feb), who has been highly engaged with HIT issues, including both the VistA EHR modernization/replacement and initiatives such as the recently unveiled Digital Health Platform [TTA 12 Jan]. (more…)

GreatCall enlarges remote monitoring profile with Healthsense acquisition (US) (Updated)

December 21, 2016 | by

Updated. GreatCall, the older adult-targeted mobile phone/PERS company, on 20 December announced the acquisition of telecare/RPM developer Healthsense. Terms were not disclosed. Healthsense was one of the earliest developers (close after Living Independently Group’s, now Intel Care Innovations’, QuietCare) of a sensor-based residential system, eNeighbor, to monitor ADLs for activity and safety. It has been primarily marketed to senior living communities after an early start in home sales, and currently monitors 20,000 lives according to the press release. Healthsense acquired a similar system, WellAWARE, in 2013.

GreatCall is best known for its older adult-targeted mobile phone line, but in recent years they have expanded into mPERS services on phone and devices, including an emergency call center. The San Diego-based company acquired the remnants of the Lively in-home monitoring system a year ago and incorporated its watch-wearables into its medical alert product line.

This Editor speculates that one direction GreatCall may take is to expand into the senior community monitoring and home care business beyond mPERS. To date, GreatCall has been a highly successful, direct-to-consumer driven company which has popularized not only products to make technology simpler and more usable for older adults, but also led in a non-condescending approach to them. If the company decides to enter senior housing and home care, it presents a different and new marketing challenge, as both have been to date late technology adopters. Another concern is the cost/financial model, usability and reliability of Healthsense’s remote monitoring system.

The other direction is more conventional–GreatCall could incorporate the Healthsense technology and ADL algorithms into home monitoring, with a design resembling Lively’s original self-installed, attractively designed in-home telecare system.

Minnesota-based Healthsense in 15 years of operation raised what some would term a paltry $46 million of equity and debt financing in ten rounds (Crunchbase). Over this time, Healthsense’s investors were a small group, including New York-based Radius Ventures, Mansa Capital, West Health and Fallon Community Health Plan. After the $10 million venture round in 2014, the last investment was a small $2.6 million in February. Early investor Ziegler HealthVest Management, which purchased a significant interest in 2007, is not listed in Crunchbase’s roster, though one of their senior financial managers is on their board. This Editor senses (sic) that the investors were seeking to exit after a long time in.

The release has a summary of an earlier Healthsense study of interest to marketers of telehealth and telecare as a reference:

An independent 12-month study with Fallon Health (an investor–Ed.) found that using Healthsense remote monitoring in connection with Fallon’s model of care for seniors reduced total medical expenses by $687 per member per month — a nearly 16 percent reduction for pilot members as compared to a control group. The Fallon population using Healthsense demonstrated a 32.2 percent reduction in fees for inpatient hospital visits, a 39.4 percent reduction in emergency department costs and a 67.7 percent reduction in expenses for long term care vs. the control during the year-long study.

More in Mobihealthnews, MedCityNews, Minneapolis-St Paul Business Journal

(Updated with further information on early investor Ziegler and the senior housing market; hat tip to reader Andrea Swayne)

Care Innovations gets into the behavior change training business

October 28, 2016 | by | 3 Comments

An under-the-radar move by Intel-owned Care Innovations, which markets the Health Harmony telehealth and the QuietCare behavioral telemonitoring systems, is their entrance in the behavior change training business.

Care Innovations developed an accredited (CE eligible) training course for nurses to effect behavior change in patient beyond what may be a limited telehealth engagement. According to their release, the training will help them with coaching patients to increase their engagement with their health and identifying areas for improvement, along with the appropriate technology.

The three-hour course work, designed primarily for telehealth nurses but open to all, has three key learning sections:

  1. Six steps to take to achieve behavior change in healthcare
  2. Learning four coaching skills: crafting open-ended questions, sharing words of affirmation, demonstrating reflective listening and crafting summary statements
  3. Discussing the most common challenges associated with acting as the coach, which are avoidance, ambivalence, resistance and compliance.

There are three sessions before the end of the year, priced at a relatively modest below $300 rate, with group discounts. Information is on their website here.

It’s an interesting move in that the training seemingly is not exclusive to CI clients, although this Editor would expect that 1) it would fit best with CI’s system and 2) is a way of cultivating prospective clients in an academic, value-added way.

For CI, it is another association with the ‘intersection of behavior change and technology’ (more…)

Tunstall Americas introducing Vi+ telecare home monitoring

August 3, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /]We don’t hear much from Tunstall Healthcare in the US other than their traditional/mobile PERS business (formerly AMAC‘s). That may be changing with their introduction (finally) of the Vi+ telecare home unit. It has medical alert, fall detection (via ‘intelligent pendant’) and integrates with home monitoring an array of what they call ‘Virtual Sensors’–motion and other sensors to monitor activity in the home, including wireless sensors for fire, flood and gas leaks. They do make a point of having an integral ambient temperature sensor which will alert their response center if an unsafe high or low temperature is detected.

Other than the press release, no information on Vi+ is on the Americas website yet, including pricing. (Vi without the sensor array has been sold for some time.) Vi+ is marketed in most Tunstall countries in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The fact sheet from Ireland is representative of Vi+ in most markets.

It’s interesting that Tunstall Americas has chosen to enhance their PERS/call center services with sensors, versus entering the hotter telehealth area. Sensor-based activity/danger monitoring is hardly new. (more…)

81 percent interested in tech for older adult fall detection: Carnegie-Mellon

March 23, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/fall.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Carnegie-Mellon University-College of Engineering recently conducted a survey of 1,900 US adults on care for their aging parents, as background for a project in fall prevention.

  • 81 percent are interested in sensor technology to prevent falls, particularly among their aging parents
  • 54 percent worry about an elderly parent falling
  • 70 percent of this group have this fear at least once a week, if not daily; regardless of whether the parent lives alone or not

Checking in with parents is a ‘top of mind’ anxiety for most of those surveyed, with most taking a team approach:

  • 44 percent personally or have a sibling check in on their parent daily;  33 percent check in weekly; 12 percent stop by as needed
  • 56 percent have neighbors or staff physically check on their parent daily

Not coincidentally, a team of engineers from Carnegie-Mellon are also researching active sensor technologies that gauge gait stability, dizziness and fatigue to predict and prevent falling–what at a former company we called the ‘Holy Grail’ of fall detection that can keep older adults active and well. No mention though of technology aids for ‘check in’ (see 3rings and also the original notion of QuietCare‘s behavioral telemonitoring.) MedCityNews, Carnegie-Mellon release

3rings enters the Dragons’ Den, comes out with strategic investor

March 10, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/steve-purdham-3rings-david-capper-westfield-health-with-3rings-plug.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]About two years ago, we started following 3rings, a Stoke-on-Trent (UK) company that develope an appliance plug that automatically ‘checks in’ an older person based on their morning behavior of turning on a tea kettle, TV or other appliance. We’ve received word from their CEO Steve Purdham that they’ve announced today (Thursday) a substantial strategic investment from not-for-profit insurer Westfield Health. Mr Purdham (picture left) had appeared on the BBC program Dragons’ Den with mum Iris (prominently featured in their ads) to raise £300,000 for a 10 percent share in the company. (For our US readers, Dragons’ Den is similar to Shark Tank or Project Startup.) According to the website release, Westfield Health was attracted to the company through the show, has invested more than twice the funding requested by Mr Purdham from the Dragons, and will be offering the 3rings plug to their current and future customers.

David Capper, their Commercial Director (picture right), acknowledged the attraction of technology in their first major external investment in this type of health tech.  (more…)