Telecare Awareness Day (UK) – June 1st 2016

This Wednesday, June 1st, is National Telecare Awareness Day in the UK for 2016. This is promoted by the industry body [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/UKTelehealthcare-Awareness.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]UK Telehealthcare.

To mark the day, CAIR, the UK based telecare products supply company, is holding an event at their headquarters in West Yorkshire. According to information available from the Telecare Services Association, twelve of the region’s leading voices in Telecare will gather to “tackle some of the challenges facing the industry”.

Last year several activities took place to mark the day, then called National Telehealthcare Awareness Day, with events being held by CAIR, University of East Anglia’s Norwich Electronic Assistive Technology Centre (NEAT), Welbeing (an independent-living service provider) and many others.

A summary of last year’s events is available via the UK Telehealthcare website here.

TSA Conference – dates for your diary

The TSA’s 2016 Technology Enabled Care (TEC) and digital health sector conference will be taking place on 18 & 19 October in the ICC in Birmingham. It will be chaired for the second year by former Minister of State for Care Services, the Rt Hon Paul Burstow.

It will focus on the theme ‘Connected Care, Connected Homes and Connected Communities’ bringing together organisational leaders and audiences across government, health, social care, housing, home care, industry, third sector and more.

A “packed programme” is apparently being developed with “challenging debates, thought-provoking presentations, interactive workshops and brand new exhibition zones to inspire, inform and drive forward sector collaboration”.

Earlybird booking here.

TSA appoints Paul Burstow as Senior Adviser (UK)

The former Minister of State for Care Services, Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Sutton and Cheam, Rt Hon Paul Burstow, has been appointed as Senior Advisor for the TSA to help drive forward strategy across the technology enabled care industry and shape the organisation’s future work programmes.

He said: “My role with the TSA is to bring my knowledge of the wider health and social care sector, the key players in the National Health Service and use that information to help connect the Association into conversations.

“TSA don’t operate in a vacuum, they have to be put into a context of people’s everyday lives, and also in the context of what other commissioners and service providers in the NHS and in social care and in housing need. What I bring is expertise and knowledge of that landscape and I can help TSA navigate it.”

There’s more here.

TSA’s International Technology Enabled Care Conference (Wales)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/TSA-Event-Site-03_031.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]16-17 November, Celtic Manor Resort Hotel, Newport, South Wales

This Editor notes that the Telecare Services Association will be ‘Inspiring Change and Progress’ in its second annual International TEC conference at the Celtic Manor. The website mentions a host of high profile speakers to give the ‘need to know’ sector picture, with a two day programme packed with stimulating presentations, challenging debates, informative parallel sessions that will include masterclasses and interactive workshops. More information and registration. Chubb Community Care has noted to us that it’s Europe’s largest TEC conference. They will also be featuring at the conference their jewelry-like alert pendant, Onyx, was developed by CAIR of West Yorkshire. It’s also fitted to work with Chubb’s new Care System and CareUnity® assisted living solutions

Chubb also will exhibit its new Chubb Care System, an assisted living solution where Chubb is a single-service provider for installation, service and monitoring, tailoring system features and functionality to the specific requirements of residents. They are at Booth 19.

TSA Annual Conference 16th & 17th November: reminder (UK)

Logo - TSAWe have been asked to post a reminder for the TSA’s Technology-enabled Care Event of 2015. Taking place on the 16th and 17th November 2015 at the Celtic Manor Hotel, South Wales, this is a ‘must-attend’ annual event in the sector calendar.

This year’s conference is entitled Inspiring Change and Progress. It will carry three main themes throughout the two days:

  • Entrepreneurship: How to think differently to make things happen for you, your business and the sector.
  • Education: Preparing for the future of the sector, what do we need to know?
  • Evolution: What’s next for the future of technology-enabled care?

The conference will feature a host of high profile speakers who will be tasked with giving attendees the ‘need to know’ sector picture, including ministers, sector leaders, innovators, business motivators, technology gurus, and the people who benefit from using technology-enabled care.

The two day programme will be packed with stimulating presentations, challenging debates, and informative parallel sessions that will include masterclasses & interactive workshops.

The complete programme is . A limited number of Early Bird booking rates are now available; .

Events dear boy, events: a roundup of UK digital health stuff this autumn

This editor accumulated vast piles of notifications when on a two week holiday recently – here is the cream of the events notified. More to follow on resources shortly.

Between 4-6th September, SECC Glasgow is holding what it claims is the first ever medical education hackathon.

On the 14th September the free-to-attend London Health Technology Forum, organised by this editor, has an evening devoted to Exits (of the financially very lucrative kind). Baker Botts’ experienced lawyers will describe with examples the different exits available to the successful entrepreneur, why it’s important to plan ahead, and what the plusses and minuses are of each type of exit. Essential knowledge if you hope to become rich from your hard work & dedication.

On 17th September, KPMG are holding a free all-day event entitled ‘Information Protection in Digital Health’ at (more…)

Events for your diary, your CV and perhaps your bottom line

This editor has recently been overwhelmed by important dates near and far that readers needs to be aware of. Beginning with July, the first networking event for the Long Term Care Revolution SBRI National Challenge will take place in Birmingham on 21st July at the Menzies Hotel, Birmingham. Click here to register. The second networking event will take place on the 28th July at The Thistle Marble Arch. Register here

This SBRI competition aims to stimulate the development of innovative new products, services and systems that disrupt the institutional long-term care model, ensuring that UK businesses are well placed to take advantage of this growing market opportunity. A total of £4m is up for grabs so (more…)

Cumbria Technology Enabled Care Event Thursday 18 June

This event will showcase the latest developments in technology enabled health & social care products & services. There will be discussions about how professionals can use technology in the redesign of Health and Social Care in Cumbria. This will build on the telecare work already undertaken by Cumbria County Council as well as the telehealth pilots that have taken place around the county and further afield.

It will be held at the Rheged Centre Redhills, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 0DQ, between 13:30 – 16:00 on Thursday 18th June.

Topics to be discussed include:

  • New tools available from the NHS Commissioning Assembly – the Technology Enabled Care Services Resource;
  • How to use technology to enhance health and social care priorities such as prevention and well-being, remote consultations, managing long term conditions, independent living at home, winter pressures, mental health and dementia care.

(more…)

2015: a few predictions (UK-biased)

As intimated in our review of last year’s predictions, we feel little need to change course significantly, however some are now done & dusted, whereas others have a way to go. The latter include a concern about doctors, especially those in hospitals, continuing to use high-risk uncertified apps where the chance of injury or death of a patient is high if there is an error in them. Uncertified dosage calculators are considered particularly concerning.

Of necessity this is an area where clinicians are unwilling to be quoted, and meetings impose Chatham House rules. Suffice to say therefore that the point has now been well taken, and the MHRA are well aware of general concerns. Our first prediction therefore is that:

One or more Royal College/College will advise or instruct its members only to use CE-certified or otherwise risk-assessed medical apps.

The challenge here of course is that a restriction to CE-certified apps-only would be a disaster as many, if not most, apps used by clinicians do not meet the definition of a Medical Device and so could not justifiably be CE-certified. And apps are now a major source of efficiencies in hospitals – (more…)

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

Looking back over our predictions made on 31st December last year, it’s hard to quibble with any, and worth hanging on to those that didn’t come good this year.

Our first was

Security and data privacy issues will become a serious mHealth issue in 2014; developers failing to take great care over security and privacy issues will risk very adverse publicity and worse.

Job done: that certainly proved correct, with many being exposed as either selling or potentially selling private information. Clinicians were not immune from privacy invasion eitherHere is a US summary of the issues. Attention was drawn to an EU Article 29 data protection opinion (actually published in 2013) that sought to clarify the legal framework applicable to the processing of personal data in the development, distribution and usage of apps on smart devices, and the obligations to take adequate security measures.   Many apps got hacked too, including FDA-approved ones. There were also items, such as this one, demonstrating how complex the law is in this area in the US. In the EU, the arrival of the Data Protection Regulation in 2015 (now some say 2016) will undoubtedly improve data privacy significantly, though the failure to treat data used for health purposes differently from (more…)

TSA Conference a great success (UK)

The two day 2014 TSA conference held at the Celtic Manor proved to be a great success for their new Chief Executive Alyson Bell who masterminded the event.

That this was to be a conference like no other was very apparent from the start when a solo performance from Gracie of the Zimmers opened the conference, followed by a performance by the whole group. Plenary sessions by luminaries in the digital health and care world followed, interspersed by refreshment breaks and a breakout session. Sir Bruce Keogh was sadly unable to attend in person though gave a hugely inspiring talk to camera encouraging all to use technology to deliver better care, more efficiently. (In a show of hands however, responding to a question from the conference chair, Nick Goodwin, the audience did not agree that Sir Bruce’s “fertile permissive environment for technology” was in place).

The other standout of the first afternoon was (more…)

New TSA Chief Executive appointed shortly before their conference begins (UK)

The TSA has provided us with the following announcement this morning:

TSA GEARS UP FOR EVOLVING SECTOR WITH NEW LEADERSHIP

Telecare Services Association is excited to announce that Alyson Bell will be taking over leadership of the industry body, as part of radical changes to lead, represent and promote the evolving sector.

After 4 and a half years of leading TSA, its current Chief Executive Trevor Single, will be leaving to pursue other opportunities. Trevor commented: “The organisation (more…)

The sun is in his heaven and all’s well with the world?

It’s tempting to think that nothing much has changed in the world of telehealth & telecare recently. For example the quality of healthcare PR looks to be unchanged, if the recent announcement by Telehealth Sensors is anything to go by. They claim to have developed  an incontinence sensor that is “a revolutionary advancement in the home healthcare and post-acute care monitoring market.” Careful reading suggests this “revolutionary advancement” is based on the property of water, apparently only recently recognised by Telehealth Sensors,  that it conducts electricity (especially if its impure) – so advanced in fact that such sensors with a rather longer lifetime than the 30 days claimed by Telehealth Sensors, have (more…)

TSA chair selection critiqued

Today’s Must Read  Published today in Roy Lilley’s influential NHSManagers.net newsletter (by free subscription, click on link) is Paul Harper’s commentary on the appointment of TSA Chair Andrew Gardner. Mr Harper’s view is informed by considerable experience in the UK health services concentrating on telehealth and telemedicine. His key point is that an ‘independent chair’ should be exactly that. Moreover, standards of public governance should apply (the Nolan Principles of Public Life), as these private companies are largely doing public sector business. Your Editor will let Mr Harper state the rest; a PDF of his article is attached.

In the US, where your Editor is from, it is commonplace to have an association chair from ‘inside the industry’ whether healthcare or in other areas where I’ve worked, (more…)

TSA appoints new chair

Significant comments follow, including a response from the TSA’s Managing Director

Following their earlier request for applications that we covered, the Telecare Services Association today announced the appointment of Andrew Gardner as its new chair, saying that by appointing from among the giants of the healthcare industry it has taken another big step towards making its vision for health, housing and social care a reality.

The statement continues: “The move came shortly after TSA set out a bold 3-year growth plan to challenge the ‘status quo’ in health and social care by leading, representing and promoting Technology Enabled Care & Support (“TECS”) services including telecare and telehealth. New Chair Andrew Gardner has worked as CEO for the largest independent provider of primary care to the NHS, and is currently Managing Director of a group including Careline UK, Cirrus Communication Systems and Appello Telehealth.  He will help to drive the growth of TECS in his new position as Chair at TSA:

“TSA’s focus on solutions for the 21st Century and improving self-management really excites me.  It’s in everyone’s interests to get (more…)