California-based Karen Routt has devised a system to use a web browser and a telephone. Home care agencies using her service can arrange for patients to receive customized, scheduled, recorded messages. Such messages may reinforce a nurse’s instructions or remind a patient about medication side effects and whether to take them with food or not. Routt calls her product TeleBeneficiary Service. The patient needs only a land line or a cell phone. “I think of it as a stripped-down version of telehealth in that agencies can enable two-way communication but no equipment needs to be installed…As it is less involved, ramp-up time and costs are minimal.” she said. Full item from homecaretechreport.com: New Device-Free Telehealth System Emerges, Combines Internet with Telephone. Website.
[Ed. Donna note: This has a lot of elements with which our readers will be familiar–IVR (interactive voice response) is the US term–and bears similarities to the family caregiver-oriented FineThanx (TA 12 Apr 10) in the US and other services (see comments). Notable in that they have joined AgeTek, the senior care tech association, and have gained funding from the micro-fund Twilio Fund (Magnolia is built on the Twilio voice/SMS group messaging back-end–see New York Times article here on the advent of these services at the last SXSW)]