Search Telecare Aware
Like it? Share it!
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
sponsorship banners general advertising *special: sponsor a conference report* |
3 Febuary edition of the Telemedicine Reporter International Edition (PDF) for download thanks to US Tele-Medicine. To be emailed when the next is released email their media dept. |
|
| The gist is...If you have a serious comment to make anonymously...email it, don't just post it. |
Truly anonymous comments - where the writer is unknown - are not published unless they are unexceptional.
Comments or articles where the authorship is known but are offered for publication anonymously are considered on their merits. (Email Steve or Donna in confidence.) There are some circumstances where it is necessary to be close to a particular situation to be able to throw light on it but to write about it publicly would jeopardise the author's position. In that case, the decision to publish an item anonymously hinges on the question of whether or not it is informed opinion that will add insight to, or might start, a debate on a particular topic.
Unsubstantiated allegations of illegal behaviour or substandard products, for example, would not be posted unless they could be independently verified, in which case we would probably publish them ourselves.
Just because a post, article or comment, etc. is published on Telecare Aware readers cannot and should not infer that the editors agree with the author, anonymous or not.
Steve Hards
Donna Cusano
Editors
steve.hards@telecareaware.com
donna.cusano@telecareaware.com
Telecare terminology and boatmen |
| Monday, 21 April 2008 00:00 |
|
The benefit of using the term ‘assistive technology’ as an umbrella term to encompass ‘any product or service designed to enable independence for disabled and older people’ is that it highlights the fact that there are common principles and approaches. (King’s Fund consultation 2001 - see www.fastuk.org for more information on this definition.) Those common principles relate to the requirement to closely match person to technology, more so than in other areas of technology. The confusion seems to arise due to the fact that assistive technology is not a term fitted for day-to-day use and that it has been used in very specific (service defined) contexts. It is a term well fitted for strategic planning. An analogy is the term ‘transport’. On the whole people don’t say ‘I’m going to go and take a transport up to the Elephant and Castle’. But you do have transport planners, transportation strategies, etc. On an individual basis people use the term to talk about their options, I might say ‘Living 10 minutes from the Elephant and Castle I have a lot of transport options available to me’. However, if boatmen on the Thames starting calling their boats ‘transports’ it would seem a bit odd. That’s a bit similar from my perspective to people in the education sector calling devices to enable access to computers ‘assistive technology’ or Government ministers referring to the potential of ‘assistive technology’ when they mean telecare and telehealth devices and systems. But I’m optimistic that the worldwide use of the term assistive technology and common sense will prevail (um .. well we can live in hope. ) Cheers. Keren |
