Laurie Orlov blogs about her visit to the Philips Lifeline HQ… listening to calls being received and dealt with at a call centre is indeed a moving experience that deepens anyone’s understanding of the need for such services. But this… Read moreA visit to Philips Lifeline (US)

Eric Dishman, Director of Health Innovation and Policy for Intel’s Digital Health Group will probably gain a large chunk of goodwill for a thoughtful contribution to the healthcare debate raging in the ‘States. Searching for health reform in all the… Read moreSearching for health reform in all the wrong places (US)

Telecommunications equipment with a price tag of more than $35,000 intended to connect rural patients in Friona with specialized doctors in Amarillo “does a better job of collecting dust than its intended purpose”. But a lesson’s been learned.

The Institute for Health Technology Transformation has announced a telehealth webinar and white paper presentation by Honeywell HomMed entitled Dynamic Issues in Telehealth: Reimbursement, Strategic Implementation & Technology to take place August 19, 2009, at noon CST. Follow link for… Read moreHoneywell HomMed telehealth webinar invitation

Those nice people at Scotland’s Connected Practice research unit have put together a short bibliography on ethics, telecare and assistive technology from the last 5 years and made it generally available.

The July/August 2009 newsletter has been published and includes items on the Department of Health’s ‘prevention package’; the next WSDAN regional event in Bristol on 10 September; implications of pandemic flu for services; an Ofcom consultation with relevance to telecare… Read moreDH Care Networks Telecare Newsletter

If you were setting up a social networking site for people interested in telehealth, would you call it ‘Boost.Me’? No, me neither, as there is no obvious connection. However, it is set up under that name and some of the… Read moreTelehealth social networking site

Sensibly, American Medical Alert Corp. (AMAC)’s  press release announcing its new medication dispensing device starts by stating the huge problem of medication non-compliance. (“Medication non-compliance is becoming one of the most expensive and deadly problems in healthcare today. Hospital costs due to patient non-compliance are estimated at $8.5 billion annually. And with more than 300,000 deaths annually resulting from non-compliance…) This is a message co-incidently reinforced in a BMJ article this week by Carl May, Victor M Montori, and Frances S Mair: We need minimally disruptive medicine. (Summary only, except to subscribers.)

So how does the AMAC device improve on the other medication reminder systems available?

Although this article is about nurses in hospitals, it should stimulate thinking about involving community nurses in the design and development of remote patient monitoring devices. Item from Nurse.com.

Jump on the bandwagon by laying out just $10,000 for a pendant alarm franchise operation.  eMed-ID Franchising leads the way with single-cost packages, with a number of up-sell opportunities. See this press release. [Comment: I sense that the parent company… Read moreEmergency medical device franchise launches eMed-Alert