An interesting story on the use of information on MP3 players for people with asthma to listen to when an attack threatens. However, is calling it ‘Telecare for Asthma’ stretching the definition of telecare too far? Do leave a comment on the terminology.
Tunstall starts to stake a claim to the terminology ‘highground’ with the promotion of the term ‘telehealthcare’ to indicate the interconnectedness of telehealth and telecare. Tunstall press release reproduced by eHealth Insider.
Will it catch on? Or does it add confusion rather than clarity? What do you think? Read the item then participate in this poll. After you vote you will be able to see whether other people agree with you.
Apart from the intrinsic interest of the content, this article clearly raises a terminology issue for people who refer to telecare-enabled accommodation as a ’smart home’. (See also this Telecare Soapbox item.)
What better to put the two stories above into perspective than this interview with Dr. Martin Denz, President of the European Health Telematics Association. “A major thing that EHTEL is also trying to do is to bridge the gap between policy makers, IT providers and health professionals who all understand health and health care differently.”
The item also has some terminology implications. Read it here.
These Home Telehealth Clinical Guidelines were adopted by the American Telemedicine Association in 2002. I thought I’d re-publicise them in the light of the Telecare Aware Terminology Campaign. Can you spot the difference between 1.1 Home Telehealth and 1.3 Telemonitoring? The latter is more detailed but they seem to be saying the same thing. ATA Home Telehealth Clinical Guidelines.
Here’s a case that justifies the above post. Wirral Council does itself no favours by asking me (or other editors, presumably) to publish material from such a scrappy press release as this. As far as I can find, a proper version isn’t even posted on the council’s website.
Not only that, you have to read to the fourth paragraph before you realise that they are restricting the use of the term ‘assistive technology’ to mean ‘telecare’ - one of the reasons I started the terminology campaign.
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.
Lengthy article and interview with Prof K. Ganapathy, Head of the Division of Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Apollo Hospitals Chennai, and President of the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation in The Hindu. It describes the current state of telemedicine in India and includes the following question and answer. Q: Is there resistance to telemedicine – from patients and doctors? A: When the concept was discussed in 1999 there was laughter and derision all around. Today the intensity of the laughter has come down! The disbelievers are slowly being converted. However there continue to be sceptics who are cynical of hi-tech methods.
Nottingham PCT aims to monitor around 800 people each year with long-term conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure, using Tunstall equipment. Press release.
[Comment: This is the third press release in recent times to headline the word ‘mainstreaming’ in the context of a deployment that is bigger than the usual pilot study. Is ‘mainstream’ now becoming redefined to mean ‘large scale pilot’? Surely something isn’t mainstream until it is routinely offered to everyone who could benefit from it? I’ve flagged this item for the ‘Terminology’ category because perhaps the meaning of ‘mainstream’ should be part of the terminology debate.]
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.
With a bit of editing and a slightly revamped commentary this video could become a useful introduction to telecare and telehealth for the public. However, people who know me will anticipate that I have a huge problem with Norfolk’s conflation of ‘assistive technology’ with telecare and telehealth, hence I’ve also categorised the video under ‘terminology’.
Let’s get this straight: ‘assistive technology’ is a very broad term for any equipment that helps compensate for some form of functional impairment. Or, as the Foundation for Assistive Technology (FAST) defines it, “Assistive Technology (AT) is any product or service designed to enable independence for disabled and older people.” A few shots at the beginning of the video imply that they understand this, but it soon slips into referring to the telecare and telehealth as AT. Although can be regarded as a subset of AT, there is no implication that AT has a remote component in any way, which is the key defining characteristic of telecare, telehealth, telemedicine, etc. When I was contracted to work at the Department of Health I frequently reminded civil servants and Ministers not to refer to telecare as ‘assistive technology’ and I thought that eventually the message did get through. At least by the time the Preventative Technology Grant conditions were published. And now it raises its head again…
OK, rant over! My thanks to Saneth Wijayaratna of Telemedcare Ltd for alerting me to the 7 minute video.
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’.
Ascom is perfectly entitled to name its nurse call system anything it wants. But does it fit within the range of your construct of ‘telecare’? It doesn’t sit comfortably in mine. Read their Ascom Telecare IP - Nurse Call System information and leave a comment if you want to react.
United Response, a UK charity supporting people with learning disabilities and mental health problems, terms its use of telecare equipment ‘telesupport’. Is this a reasonable, or even a useful, coining, maybe?
As regular Telecare Aware readers will know, Wireless Healthcare is a favourite source of articles, so it is a pity that in this commercial report they have produced they chose to perpetuate the use of the pejorative term ‘elderly’ instead of the less value-laden ‘older people’. Wireless Healthcare’s own story on the report.
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