New diabetes telehealth trial in Mississippi (US)

January 30, 2014 | by

A new telehealth trial for diabetes patients will be recruiting patients in Mississippi this spring. Known [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ummc_aerial.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]as the Diabetes Telehealth Network, the trial is planned to provide a classic telehealth service for up to 200 patients for a period of 18 months.

This trial is a result of a collaboration between several public and private organizations: the Mississippi Governor’s office, University of Mississippi, North Sunflower Medical Center, GE Healthcare, Intel-GE Care Innovations and C Spire.

The recruited trialists will be provided with a broadband connected tablet PC which will have software to enable daily medical measurements to be transmitted to a specialist team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. A press release states that the measurements will include weight, blood pressure, and glucose level and these will be monitored by the clinical staff at (more…)

Startup develops online telepsychiatry platform

January 30, 2014 | by

A Chattanooga based startup has launched an online videoconferencing facility for providing remote counselling services.  WeCounsel (wecounsel.com) claim their browser based application is “HIPPA compliant”, a key selling point for their product, although it  is not obvious from their website what specific aspcts of HIPPA they have addressed with their platform. WeCounsel claim to have around 75 clients using the platform to provide direct counselling services to patients.

The Chattanooga Times recently reported that WeCounsel has been signed up by a larger telepsychiatry facility provider InSight to resell the WeCounsel online platform as a lower cost alternative to the traditional videoconferencing facilities which requires relatively expensive equipment.

Telehealth counselling program expands in Texas

January 27, 2014 | by

Following on from our article on the school telehealth scheme in Michigan  (Smaller scale telehealth and telecare sucesses, [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/videoconf-Texas.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]TTA Jan 4), we report now how a remote counselling clinic started by Texas A&M to provide psychological counselling to rural population has expanded. The Telehealth Counselling Clinic in Centerville, Leon County, was started from a grant in 2007 to the Center of Community Health Development (Texas A&M) and Leon County, and provides counselling using Texas A&M faculty and graduate students in the counselling psychology program, supervised by licensed psychologists.

The service has now been expanded to Madison and Washington counties based on the success seen in Leon County. Two more sites are planned for opening  in 2014. (more…)

Telehealth leads to same health outcomes as face-to-face consultations

January 16, 2014 | by

Researchers working for the US military National Centre for Telehealth and Technology (T2) have concluded that telehealth based on [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/National-Center-for-Telehealth-and-technology-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]videoconferencing leads to the same health outcomes as treatment by traditional face to face consultations for treatment of depression. In an analysis of care for depression symptoms Janyce Osenbach and colleagues found that there was no statistically significant difference in effectiveness between telehealth based consultations and face-to-face consultations.

The conclusions were drawn from an anlysis of 14 previous studies and has been published in Depression and Anxiety the official journal of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Osenbach says in an article on the Defence Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury website that another study (albeit a very small one with 7 participants) by T2 into the usability and feasability of using FaceTime with active-duty service members produced mostly positive results.

Smaller scale telehealth and telecare successes

January 4, 2014 | by

It is usually the large scale telehealth and telecare projects that hit the news, be it for their successes or, indeed, failures. So as the new year starts, let’s celebrate a couple of  smaller scale projects which have made progress recently.

From Coldwater, Michigan, we have a student telehealth scheme opening this month. With significant funding from the Michigan Department of Community Health, clinics will be opened in two schools in Branch County to provide primary healthcare services from a central Adolescent and Pediatric Center which has four physicians and a nurse practioner. A school based nurse provides physical assessment of students in need and, if appropriate, links via video to the Center to consult a physician or the nurse practitioner. Diagnostic equipment at the schools are also networked so the Center staff have access to these in real time. Prescriptions, if needed are sent direct to a convenient pharmacy. The state funding provides the majority of costs for equipment, a nurse at each school and operation for 3 years. See Branch County CHC website for more details.

From the other side of the Atlantic, in Doncaster, England, the local council’s telecare service reported that it has reached its 1,000th user. Doncaster’s service povides access to a comprehensive range of sensors from simple fall detectors to other sensors placed discreetly around the home on ceilings, doors, walls, beds and chairs. The 24-hour monitoring service attracts a weekly charge under £4 and there is no charge for the equipment. The benefit to the user is obvious and the Council benefits too, as it has an obligation to provide care services to residents who are unable to live at home.

Yet another House Bill on Telehealth (US)

December 20, 2013 | by

House Bills supporting telehealth and telecare are coming thick and fast with a third bill in just over a month being introduced on Tuesday, 17 December. The Telehealth Modernization Act of 2013 (H.R. 3750) introduced by two Representatives from California and Ohio [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/US-Congress.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]follows the 21st Century Care for Military & Veterans Act (H.R. 3507) (see our item Bill to expand military telehealth services introduced (US) on November 19) and the Health Savings Through Technology Act (H.R. 3577) (see our article Another House bill supporting telehealth and telemedicine (US) on November 22).

According to the press release Representatives Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Bill Johnson (R-OH), (more…)

In-home activity monitoring telecare trial launched in the US

December 20, 2013 | by | 10 Comments

A year-long trial to monitor the day-to-day activities of elderly Medicare members is being launched in the US. The 100-participant trial [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Humana-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]will monitor eating, sleeping, physical activity and toileting according to a press release from Humana. The trial appears to be a collaboration between Humana and a sensor provider Healthsense.

The idea of using bed occupancy sensors, weight (more…)

‘The big picture’, minus hype, of mobile in health

February 21, 2013 | by

Refreshingly free of hype, and in fact rather dry, is the commentary of  Deborah Estrin, professor of computer science at Cornell NYC Tech (soon to be your Editor’s neighbor), at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston chaired by Google’s Vint Cerf. Essentially any phone can be a data platform; her focus is on converting apps to data streams, gauging frequency of use and GPS data for movement. Sensibly, she advises ‘scaling down’ apps to make them useful to individual patients. Undoubtedly she’s read the statistics on abandoned apps, estimated at about 95%–and that most everyone uses the same old apps, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Gmail etc. for about the same time as in 2011. But then she goes into how mobile can keep track of ‘digital exhaust’ a/k/a pollution…. Mobile Devices Linked to Better Health (BioScienceTechnology.com)  App Usage Has Stalled As Smartphone Users Hit Burnout (Business Insider)

Revealed: Hospital EHRs lobbied for stimulus funding (US)

February 20, 2013 | by

Man Bites Dog! The New York Times just discovered that not only did large EHR companies lobby for the health records mandatories that were part of the 2009 Federal ‘stimulus’ bill–along with ‘Meaningful Use’ subsidies–but also they also won big in hospital sales. This article focuses on Cerner, Allscripts (which bought Eclipsys) and Epic, and the 60% + gain these companies have made in sales since. It touches on the sticking point of non-interoperability, but not at all on the chaos at the practice level where the Big Three (nor the unmentioned GE Centricity) largely do not play. Here is where 600-odd companies, many of them offshored IT outfits, also around 2005 started to peddle various EHRs which were first software, now cloud-based. It took off after 2009 as well, to primary care doctors worried about Federal regulations–or missing out on years of subsidies and MU payouts. (more…)

Baby boomers? Older people? Senior citizens? Elders?

December 3, 2008 | by | 1 Comment

Not telecare, but a terminology issue as it refers to the target client group for telecare/telehealth companies. When I read about ‘the elderly’ or worse, the near-meaningless, ‘the vulnerable’, I imagine that the writer is probably hardly out of their twenties or thirties, or still has that mindset. If you want to alienate your potential clients, this is the language to use.

A brief read, with an American perspective, but with interesting survey results. Baby boomers? Older people? Senior citizens? Elders? What would you like to be called in your middle and later years? by Rita R. Robison.

For the advanced in age, easy-to-use technology (US)

September 11, 2008 | by

This item brings together news of some technologies appropriate for older people. “The companies that are successfully marketing new technologies to older people are not those that have created high-tech ways for seniors to open jars. Rather, they are the ones that have learned to create products that span generations, providing style and utility to a range of age groups.” Food for thought from the NY Times.

Policy on telehealth practice by ASHA (US)

April 7, 2008 | by

Janet Brown, for the American Speech Language Hearing Association made this comment about its policy on ‘telehealth’, posted on Google Video. It’s good to see that she shows a sensitivity to the uncertainties of the terminology.

What a great way to make policy announcements!

Two free reports

February 28, 2008 | by

Here are two free reports you should consider downloading.

First, The Center for ConnectedHealth’s 2007 Progress Report. Good if you want a wide-ranging look at current remote health monitoring and care delivery trends in the US. [And in Second Life…I wonder if not being able to fly or grow a tail count as health problems in that virtual world?] Interesting stuff, and you can download it from this page on the Center’s website.

Second, there’s the S2S (Strategies to Solutions) discussion paper, called Technology to Support the Ageing Global Population 2007 to 2027. It is 25 pages of balanced, well written information that ranges over assistive technology [a term used in its broad sense – compare with this post] including health- and care-related AT, and highlights various issues for society and emerging technology. You have to join the S2S mailing list to get it, but don’t let that put you off. Get it here.

Terminology: Telehealth, telemedicine, telehomecare and telespeech

February 8, 2008 | by

This post continues the focus on the terminology problems.

Watch this 6½ minute video of US Senator for South Dakota John Thune advocating (successfully) an increase in funding for telehealth in October 2007. It is interesting to observe his superordinate use of the term ‘telehealth’, with ‘telemedicine’ sometimes seeming to be used interchangeably, and sometimes subordinately to it when contrasted with ‘telehomecare”.

I’m grateful to Marnee Brick, a speech therapist, for spotting this video. As an ex-speech and language therapist I am delighted to see that she is promoting online therapy. See her site: TinyEYE.

However, I do have a problem with her construction of online speech therapy under ‘telehealth’ in her blog. As I’ve mentioned previously, the terminology issue here is not with ‘tele’. It’s what comes after: is speech therapy is a health or an education-related discipline – or something else? This was a debate going on in the UK from at least the ’60s. She also uses the term ‘telespeech’ and ‘telepractice’.