The attention of lone workers, care home managers and end users is being drawn to the advantages of the GSM and GPS person location systems from UK-based company Verify & Locate. Instead of the user being restricted to home he or she can go where they like, “safe in the knowledge that their whereabouts could be located by their loved ones or professionals in a central control centre.”
Verify & Locate makes full use of current web technologies on its site to get its message across. For examples, (see the demos here) and take a look at the ‘cool’ way it presents its product brochure.
It’s come a long way since its launch, reported in Telecare Aware two years ago.
The system, called Health Guide, integrates vital sign collection, patient reminders, multimedia educational content and feedback and communications tools such as video conferencing and e-mail. It can connect to specific models of wired and wireless medical devices, including blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, pulse oximeters, peak flow meters and weight scales. It also stores and displays the collected information on a touch screen and sends it to a secure host server, where healthcare professionals can review the information.
Intel expects the Health Guide to be available from healthcare providers in the United States and the United Kingdom later this year or early next. Press release from Reuters.
NuPhysicia has incorporated ATI’s CareTone Ultra digital stethoscope into the B3Zero Telemedicine Suitcase System. CareTone Ultra, one of ATI’s patented CareTone Telephonic Stethoscopes, transfers high-quality, real-time auscultation sounds from the hearts, lungs and abdomens of remote patients. Press release.
Alert, a relatively small newcomer in the UK’s personal safety market is, with the introduction of two new alarm services, throwing down a challenge to councils and the established community alarm companies. Until now its offerings have been in the area of personal and lone worker safety (service overview here) but the two new services it is offering to the public, Phone4 Safe-T and Checking Safe-T are also being offered to councils with prices starting from £120 per person per year based on 50 users for a pilot scheme.
The three products are: a wireless automatic blood pressure monitor; wireless precision scale, and a wireless activity monitor, as part of its Lifesource range. Press release.
Recora now offers gold plated steel contacts, as well as the standard stainless steel. The gold acts as a shield against corrosion, increasing the life of the sensor. The sensors also have adjustable sensitivity. Press release.
Biotronik (search Telecare Aware for previous story) continues to get its cardiac telehealth system before potential purchasers with an informative item from E-Health Europe.
The Disabled Living Foundation (DLF) launched a new site with focused advice for the public this week: Telecare Made Easy. (Press release). It has some excellent features including:
- advice pages and panels
- a wide range of products
- supplier information
- case studies
- the facility for visitors to comment
- an extensive glossary
- a very good ethics section
Most importantly, and uniquely in the telecare world, the site gives you the ability to select similar products and see side-by-side comparisons.
Negatives? Well, I hope it will not be dubbed ‘Tunstall Made Easy’ because of its prevailing presence on the site. Whether the balance changes now depends to a large extent on the efforts of other suppliers to support the DLF’s initiative.
Telecare Made Easy fills a huge gap in telecare information for the public. Like all DLF sites, it will be a continual work in progress and will develop strongly over time. The DLF’s team will welcome constructive feedback to help them do this. My suggestion is that when you first browse the site you scribble notes and comments and pass them on via their Contact Us link which you will find at the bottom of pages.
Telecare Made Easy is a welcome and long-needed development - and a good one. With your feedback it will become a great one.
It’s not often I use the ‘e’ word about a product, as you may have noticed, but I think it may be justified in this case. Sentinel Healthcare Solutions launched a new product and associated system called MyAmego in the UK yesterday. The company is focusing initially on the care home market.
MyAmego stand at Naidex2008 Exhibition
At last someone has come up with something that is, I suspect, highly acceptable to users. The person chooses a small wearable electronic device such as a brooch, necklace, bracelet or watch that contains a microchip. Data from the microchip is captured by unobtrusive wireless monitors placed around the care home. The user, working with their carer, can decide which aspects of their living environment they would like monitored and in what situations they would like their carer to be alerted.
The service analyses the user’s location, activity and potential risk and will automatically page carers for assistance only when appropriate or when instructed. The rest of the time the individual is able to do as they please.
Here is a link to the MyAmego website, but first download the press release to read more, with case study.
For the last three years, Leap of Faith Technologies (www.leapoffaith.com) has been developing a software application, called eMedonline (www.emedonline.com), designed to help monitor your medications by sending you a call to remind you of your next dose. And that’s not all it can do… Read this item to find out more.
Cambridge Consultants have announced breakthrough software on a single chip that allows medical devices such as blood pressure monitors to transmit data wirelessly. It uses low-cost wireless technology - with a potential cost of less than US $10 at the appropriate volumes and could be available in devices by the end of 2008. Read the full story.
A new Seattle-based company called Healthphone has been formed to market the system in the US and elsewhere. Healthphone general manager Pam Fowler explained: “You get all the documentation, care plans, treatments, and images in one place. Other wounds are documented in the same patient profile. And you can look at the wounds over time. Many elderly patients have the same wounds for years. This improves the communication and heal rates, but it also helps with the patient seeing the progression and improvement.” More here.
TeleMedCare has launched an advanced alerting system which lets the person talk to the designated monitoring centre or any of ten personal preset telephone numbers, such as a friend or relative, from the actual pendant. Details here or visit website.
Last Autumn, Paul Gee, Chief Executive of the UK’s Telecare Services Association, got on the Soapbox and asked the question Tesco Telecare – How far away?
Well, it looks to me that the consumer-demand led future for telecare has already taken another step closer.
The UK’s largest home improvement retailer, B&Q, has just launched a new initiative called Living Made Easier. Over 500 products in its stores and online catalogue are stickered with a ‘Can do’ logo indicating that the product the person is looking at has been identified as making life easier for… everyone. (”To ensure that they can be used by as many people as possible” as B&Q puts it.) It’s a great example of inclusive design mentality in action and should, if it takes off, encourage more designers to consider the needs of older and less physically able people for products that are stylish but are also lightweight, easy to grip, easier to see, etc.
The Living Made Easier branding is an example of B&Q’s older person- and disabled person-friendly policies in action. The scheme features on its current website home page: www.diy.com
When you follow the link you also find that B&Q has incorporated the DLF’s AskSARA self-assessment program!
That’s great thinking!
When you come across a product selected for the Living Made Easier branding online, it is clearly marked
and there are in-store brochures for people who do not find the items online.
Telecare gets a toe dipping
Yes, there is one product that edges its way into telecare territory. It is the Distress Alert System by Yale. A panic button auto-dials up to three pre-programmed numbers with a recorded message.
What are the implications?
First, it will be interesting to see whether people receiving social services help by way of an individual budget [the UK Government wants councils to give people they help budgets to spend on their care, in place of providing their services] will opt to spend a one-off £45.98 of their budget on a system like Yale’s Distress Alert System rather than a more expensive telecare system with monthly costs, and put the money saved to other uses.
Second, if you work in social services, do your utmost to publicise B&Q’s Living made easier initiative to all council staff who come into contact with older and disabled people. If it is a roaring success B&Q will, no doubt, be encouraged to seek out new products to add. I have a few suggestions! Download the pdf version of the brochure if you want to see what is listed so far, then add your suggestions as a comment below and I will send them a list.
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