CATCH Launch Event 19 November: report

November 21, 2013 | by

Drs. Kenneth Law and Mutaz Aldawoud, GPs at the Hillside Bridge Health Centre in Bradford, attended the 19 November launch of the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH). Here is their report, with your Editors’ appreciation and thanks!

The Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) was officially launched on 19th November in Millennium Galleries in Sheffield. The launch offered an opportunity to explore the exciting research being undertaken at CATCH, based at the University of Sheffield, to help people live independently. (more…)

NYeC Digital Health Conference 2013: the trends

November 16, 2013 | by

Updated 21 November

The third annual New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Digital Health Conference in New York City attracted several hundred people from the worlds of hospitals, public health, academia, policy makers and health insurers–and the myriad related products and services which will enable these entities to improve their health IT, organization and engage patients in their own health. If there were three buzzword phrases setting the tone, they were interoperability, patient portals and technological innovation. All relate to data–data transfer of patient records between providers to be available regionally (RHIOs) and throughout the state via the SHIN-NY health information exchange (HIE); using data to help people visualize and improve their health;  putting data into ‘whole person’ context for providers, integrating it into workflows and to save lives; using data to serve process improvement and tougher standards. And finally there is that old devil cost: reducing the cost of care, reducing expensive readmissions plus co-morbidities and making those tools to do this job more affordable for providers and patients.

NYeC has developed considerably since its early days seven years ago (more…)

A change of guard at GrandCare Systems

November 14, 2013 | by

This Editor has often referred to her former competitor GrandCare Systems as one of the ‘grizzled pioneers’ on the Conestoga Wagons of Telecare–even more grizzled than QuietCare (circa 2003-4) since their ur-system dates back to 1995-6, when it kept track of founder and CEO Charlie Hillman’s mother Clara. In the years since, the closely-held company has broadened its original telecare and activity monitoring tech into telehealth, socialization and home automation/monitoring into the most fully featured system in telecare/telehealth for older adults. Without making huge splashes, being beholden to VCs or moving from bucolic West Bend, Wisconsin, the company has grown through multiple alliances, the most unusual being home automation association CEDIA. GrandCare has a residential base of customers but has also developed a solid footing in senior communities both in assisted and independent living. Earlier this year, they reached into UK to partner with Saga [TTA 24 Jan, 10 Jan] and received the CE Mark for approval of its telehealth features for EU distribution.

The news is that they have a new CEO–Daniel Maynard, who is joining from (more…)

Telecare for monitoring temperature, power outage (UK/EU)

November 12, 2013 | by | 4 Comments
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Envirotxt-plugging-in-1-small.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]With winter very near, and the UK already having a bout of wild weather, something necessary to know but often overlooked until there’s a problem for carers is if the heat or power is on in an older or disabled person’s home. Thus a press release sent to Founder Steve got this Editor’s attention. This simple plug-in device, Envirotxt, detects whether the temperature falls below a set low or high temperature, rises suddenly (possible fire) or the power is out. It then alerts via one of three pre-set text messages sent via GSM to a mobile phone of your choice (family member, local authority). The cost is a little high (£99) but there does not appear to be any additional monthly subscription cost. South Derbyshire-based Tekview has several similar devices for both UK and EU users (Envirotxt appears to be UK only at present; they do not have US-suitable versions). For larger installations they have management software with some enhanced features. Worth looking into for your local authority or simply for your personal use. Website page. Press release. Video. If you know of or have used similar notification devices, please add them in Comments.

Health tech enthusiasm ≠ implementation and scale

November 5, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Laurie Orlov’s impressions of this year’s Connected Health Symposium, hosted as usual by Partners HealthCare in Boston, presents the conundrum that telehealth and health tech faces beyond the consumer segment, booming fitness trackers and the apps bought one day, discarded the next. How do you get telehealth beyond the pilot to a permanent program in a health system? Do these systems really want to move healthcare to the home? According to Ms. Orlov, there’s amazingly no change from last year on these questions. They are still testing, not broadly deploying (how do companies like Ideal Life and Care Innovations [ever-funded? really?] which aren’t near substantial adoption continue?); and health systems are moving care from brick-and-mortar to the home but slowly, still. Continuing too is the lack of focus on how technology can work best with older adults.  (more…)

Is this Tunstall’s ‘taxgate’? Maybe not.

October 25, 2013 | by | 2 Comments
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/taxman_logo.jpg” thumb_width=”170″ /]On Monday, The Independent, one of the UK’s major national papers, turned its attention in a ‘Tax Special Investigation’ to nine healthcare companies which are using a corporation tax reducing scheme, the ‘Quoted Eurobond Exemption’, where they pay loan interest at high rates to their parent companies through a mechanism via the Channel Islands Stock Exchange, rather than their owners further investing by taking additional equity. (How it works–infographic from The Independent)

One of the companies the article focused on was Tunstall and its owners Charterhouse and Bridgepoint. Tunstall’s profits–like the other healthcare companies profiled, Partnerships In Care, Independent Clinical Services, Priory Group, Acorn Care, Lifeways, Healthcare At Home, Spire Healthcare and Care UK–come largely from the public sector and, by using this means to pay less tax, less money is recycled back to the Treasury. The article estimates the amount for each company which would have been paid had this tax exemption not been in place. This Editor notes that a number of the companies profiled have had significant inspection problems and numerous complaints–Tunstall is not one of them, but it is the second largest ‘tax avoider’ (after Spire) listed.

There seem to be three ways to regard this:
1) it’s a commendably clever contrivance
2) it’s a suspiciously shady stratagem
3) it’s a non-story because it is something imposed on Tunstall by its owners

Whatever it may be, we are left wondering if Tunstall’s customers benefit in any way from this tax saving. We will be interested in our readers’ views.

Independent article: Tax Special Investigation: Firms running NHS care services avoiding millions in tax It is equally popular with well known high street (US=Main Street) retailers and restaurant chains: Eurobonds scandal: The high street giants avoiding millions in tax    (more…)

Telecare-assisted AL resident monitoring: study

October 25, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

Research on telecare in the US has been rare of late. Thus this qualitative analysis of focus groups with twelve housing managers from twelve different Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society (GSS) assisted living communities in the LivingWell@Home (LW@H) program should be looked at carefully for both benefits of and issues with sensor-based monitoring of residents’ significant activities of daily living (ADLs). On the ten most prevalent themes, the most positive were:

  • Benefits: marketing in bridging home to AL and enhanced quality of care; validation of information helping with resident medical status and overall safety; proactive detection of health events
  • Sleep patterns: quality of sleep was perceived as important, and disturbance as an advance indicator of a change in resident health
  • Family member assurance: family members understand the value of technology-assisted care in advanced alerting to potential health problems. In fact using the system at home was possibly more attractive to them than in AL.

However, issues with the LW@H program ranged from perceptual ones (resident privacy)  (more…)

mHealth for Behaviour Change

October 24, 2013 | by

4 December 2013, Holiday Inn Regent’s Park, Central London, UK

SMi’s masterclass hosted by David Doherty of 3G Doctor will cover the following:

• Introduction to how mobile is changing behaviour (positive & negative)
• Overview of available mHealth technologies
• Lessons from previous research efforts
• Ways Healthcare Providers are leveraging Mobile Technology to change behaviour
• Deep dive on world leading program that uses mHealth tech to manage Chronic Disease
• Insights into how to design for sustainable behaviour change

Information and registration.

Wireless Health 2013 (US)

October 24, 2013 | by

1-3 November 2013, Johns Hopkins University-Carey Business School, Baltimore, Maryland

Presented by the San Diego-based Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA), the trans-disciplinary focus of the conference, crossing research, development and implementation lines, will bring together members of the medical and health research community, device manufacturers, clinical and health services providers, government leaders and policy makers. Peer-reviewed papers and abstracts, interactive workshops, emerging application demonstrations, and distinguished speakers will be featured. 1 November features pre-conference workshops. Keynoters include Dr. Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer and Wellness Institute Chair at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Peter Tippet, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of the Verizon Innovation Incubator, and computer/healthcare scientist Deborah Estrin of Cornell NYC Tech. Release.  Information and registration here.

150 Health 2.0 presentations online

October 24, 2013 | by

Last month’s Health 2.0 three-day conference in San Francisco appears to be almost totally on video, with presentations ranging from 5 minutes to over 1/2 hour. The 15 pages include demos, keynotes and interviews. Warning–don’t use the categories at the upper right hand corner or the sidebar to try to sort through them, because these group together multiple meetings by topic. Everything you wanted to know about Quantified Selfing, patient communities (PatientsLikeMe, Medivizor), HIT, EMRs, employer wellness programs (Keas), discussing end of life care (Blaine Warkentine’s Vimty) as well as other ‘unmentionables’ like vulnerability, caregiving, social support, death, sex, taxes. Quite a few on the US health insurance exchange which was going to lead Americans to The New Healthcare Jerusalem in a few days. Somehow GetInsured.com manages to calculate possible individual insurance savings in two-three screens, though you have to call about insurance. Tim Kelsey, the NHS National Director for Patients and Information, announces £1 billion in a technology fund here. Health 2.0 San Francisco 2013.

Wanted: Connected Health Symposium correspondents 23-25 October-Boston

October 15, 2013 | by

With our successful request for CATCH at Sheffield, TTA is asking for one or more of our readers who are already attending the Symposium to be volunteer correspondents for the Connected Health Symposium in Boston from Wednesday 23 October through Friday 25 October. If you are willing to write up an article or a compilation of impressions within 72 hours of the event or even as the days end or start, please email EIC Donna here (donna.cusano@telecareaware.com). It is a large event so it’s expected that you can be selective and interesting rather than comprehensive. You will be credited of course but expenses and article will not be covered.

Delays in ‘game-changing’ PERS

October 14, 2013 | by

Both Philips GoSafe and Lifecomm have apparently blown past at least two in-market dates.

Philips Lifeline GoSafe: Announced at CES in January [TTA 11 Jan], it is a mobile, souped-up PERS chunky neck-worn pendant with the fall detection features of Lifeline Auto-Alert plus GPS detection through multiple systems such as Skyhook, Wi-Fi and ‘intelligent bread crumbing’. The CES-announced debut was March, reconfirmed in February to Leading Age [TTA 14 Feb]. Then a small blog, The Senior List, confirmed with Philips in June that in-market would be delayed till fall. Now that fall is here, an industry insider tipped us to the further delay till December, confirmed by a later article in the The Senior List blog. Notably Philips is beefing up its website and video demo presence, apparently building up to an announcement near the end of the year. In the PERS category, one of the peak selling seasons is post-New Year’s, after holiday get-togethers bring the realization that a loved one is getting frailer and in need of some protection.

On the polar opposite, the Lifecomm PERS (from the Qualcomm/Hughes Telematics-now-Verizon/AMAC-now-Tunstall JV) seems to be hanging in limbo–again. (more…)

Another change at Care Innovations

October 8, 2013 | by

Louis Burns, CEO of Care Innovations since its founding in 2011, announced his retirement at the end of this year. His immediate successor starting 7 October as CEO (on his LinkedIn profile, but not on the CI website) is Sean Slovenski, formerly VP for Health and Productivity Solutions at Humana and founder of Hummingbird Coaching Services, a provider of online wellness coaching and behavior management services purchased by Humana in 2010. This follows the retirement earlier this year of Intel-er Doug Busch, formerly COO. Neil Versel interviews Mr. Slovenski for Mobihealthnews, but what strikes this Editor in the interview are three things: his background and demeanor could not be more different than Mr. Burns; his expertise in population health and consumer-directed wellness may indicate a significant directional change for long-term-care focused Care Innovations–certainly away from the Intel/GE mindset; and the outlook continues to be ‘mañana’ for telehealth and telecare. Care Innovations release.

KeepUs–smartphone-based senior activity monitoring and telecare

October 4, 2013 | by

KeepUs is a new, free app developed in the UK that when installed on an older person’s or a child’s Android smartphone, allows a family member to monitor that person’s both indoor and outdoor activity. Using geolocation, the family member can see that person’s visits (locations can be labeled), level of activity on any given day, alerts (being idle for too long), how much time was spent at each named location over the past two weeks (if Uncle Ted is spending three hours every day at the pub), and trends over two months. It requires no action from the person being tracked other than to carry the smartphone (certainly less obtrusive than a bulky non-removable watch). The family member/carer installs the app on both phones and controls permissions to view the other person’s activity. The app is in beta, free for individual use in the UK. (more…)