Striking a blow for common sense, West Sussex’s council and PCT have bought into a service from Wealden and Eastbourne Lifeline to which both council and health staff can refer people. Dee Christie, the county’s operations manager for occupation therapy
Read More
Monthly Archives February 2010
The coming technology innovation drought
An Ars Technica item predicts an technology innovation drought in the next few years owing to big companies making R&D cuts. Intel, 24 venture capital firms and 17 other tech companies want to do something about it with a $3.5
Read More
mHealth: sorting the hype from the here-and-now
Laurie Orlov guest-posts over at Mobihealthnews with a bracing essay on mHealth hype and hysteria, ranging from CNBC’s ‘doomsday boomers’ bankrupting the world to GSMA’s new-found love of mHealth for growth ($6.1 billion by 2012, Datamonitor) and savings ($200 billion worldwide,
Read More
Bosch Health Buddy deployed at Montefiore Medical Center
We haven’t heard much lately from Health Buddy, one of the early telehealth providers acquired by Robert Bosch Healthcare. Their most recent news, which surprisingly hasn’t received much notice, is their large-scale program for up to 6,600 Medicare beneficiaries in the Bronx, New York. The
Read More
FDA considers regulation of 'safety risks' of health IT
The Huffington Post (or HuffPo) isn’t a usual source of eHealth information for this editor (Donna), but this report from their ‘Investigative Fund’ about FDA moving to regulate electronic medical records (EMRs) and HIT companies appears to be a primary report. “Over the past two
Read More
Generating device power from body movements
Still early days for this pointer to the future item, but the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Nano Letters is reporting on development of a super-thin film they call ‘piezo-rubber’ –flexible, biocompatible rubber films for use in implantable or wearable energy harvesting
Read More
DH consults on COPD strategy (UK)
The UK’s Department of Health (DH) today launched a consultation on a national strategy for managing people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Much of the emphasis is on the need to diagnose more people earlier in the disease. The
Read More
Time for a telecare/telehealth investment fund?
It seems lately that most weeks we (Telecare Aware editors) are approached by people seeking sources of funding for businesses with telecare and telehealth products and services. These are usually small startups that have one or more elements of a business but lack the skills and/or sufficient funding to get to where they need to take the next steps to get to market. Most are never going to make it but a few have the potential to be world beaters.
On the funding front, the owners will usually have invested a good deal of their own time and capital and, at the time of looking for help, may be reaching their limit. Their funding requirements at this stage are usually too small to interest venture capital companies but too large to obtain from a bank or family and friends. Approaching funding bodies for grants is too slow and haphazard a process - if they can find the matching funding that is often required, that is. Moreover, they do not want to approach established companies for help because they fear tactics designed to stall them or to steal the 'killer idea'.
We are therefore floating this idea with Telecare Aware readers: would you be interested in pooling resources to support some of these companies?
The aim would be to invest in a small number of companies believed to have to potential to establish themselves in their niches and to grow from there. Please indicate your interest by following the 'Read more...' link below and responding to a poll.
Read More
Interview with AirStrip Technologies' president
The interestingly named and quite individualistic (catch the updates) HIStalk (Health Information Systems talk–what were you thinking??) sits down with Cameron Powell, M.D., president and co-founder of AirStrip Technologies mobile monitoring technology for ob/gyn, cardiology, critical care, imaging and laboratory. (See previous coverage at CTIA and
Read More
Six differences between eHealth and mHealth
Dr. Ted Eytan, M.D., Medical Director for Delivery Systems Operations Improvement for the Permanente Federation (Kaiser Permanente), has a blog post that’s gained notice for drawing the differences between eHealth and mHealth. He classifies the differences by delivery systems: eHealth
Read More