Video Gallery

Not telecare, but this will interest a lot of Telecare Aware readers. RSLSteeper, a well-respected UK company in the assistive technology arena has started to show off its new, sensitive 'bionic' hand. BeBionic website. [It's a pity the site does not render well in Firefox browser.]

In the video below, see the visitor to an exhibition last month use the hand for the first time... and tie his shoelace. (About 3 mins in.)

If there's one thing I'd recommend all Telecare Aware readers to do this week it's to set aside 13 minutes to watch a video from the UK's Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE - pronounced 'sky'). It's not just because SCIE is one of those institutions set up by the previous Government which may not survive changes that will be brought in by the new one, but because the video, entitled Telecare - The ethical debate is excellent. [Note, it autoplays.]

There is an element of 'looking at both sides' to it, but the real value, as with the previously mentioned case studies from Newham, is in seeing how the telecare services are being used sensitively in the UK to support people who in previous generations would have been in institutions where everything was done for, and to, them.

If you have a further 10 minutes to watch another video, Telecare - providing more personalised care can be accessed from the Related Videos tab, to the bottom right of the above page. It puts telecare technologies into the general context of assistive technology for older and disabled people. (Readers from the USA will, no doubt, wince when they hear the technologies being referred to as AT&T.)

There is accompanying text and other materials on the SCIE video web page and, linked to the SCIE material, is an article in Community Care this week, Ethical issues in the use of telecare.

2 minutes 40 seconds

Telehealth guru Harry Wang, of Parks Associates, does an off-the-cuff interview at the Broadband Properties Summit 28 April 2010.

8 minutes

Good YouTube videos are hard to make. They should be informative, good-natured and, if not out-and-out funny, unintentionally amusing. This one, by Pittsburgh-based Secure Telehealth hits the spot.

IALC: The Telecare and Telehealth Market. 10 minutes

Excerpt of Dr Kevin Doughty speaking at the Independent Assistive Living Conference. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, he reflects on timescales, the difficulty of using people to solve care delivery problems, and house design. "The window of opportunity is forever."

16 minutes
"It would be a step backwards to work without telehealth now" says one of the nurses in this excellent overview of telehealth as it implemented now, in the Hebrides islands off the north west coast of Scotland. (Also has a passing reference to telehealth in Sheffield - not in the Hebrides) Nice work by the video's maker, Ged Yeates.

17 minutes

Eric Dishman gave an impassioned presentation at TEDMED in November 2009 but the video has just been released. He focuses on the need to bring much of healthcare out of the hospital and into the home by illustrating the research that Intel has been doing for the past 10 years. The video is an informative - and possibly inspiring - 16 minutes, after which you might want to go to the TEDMED site and scroll down to read the comments. Some are pertinent, some miss the point and at least one is decidedly cranky. They are a useful reminder of what we are up against.

Essentially the same presentation as his week-earlier keynote at last October's Connected Health Symposium (see this editor's report here), but you can now see this important presentation for yourself:  from ePatient Connections, Jason Hwang, M.D. on disruptive innovations in healthcare decentralizing care, and the historical futility of cramming new technology into old business models.  Dr. Hwang is Executive Director of the Innosight Institute and co-author of The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care, with Professor Clayton M. Christensen and the late Jerome H. Grossman.  Thanks to Paul Sonnier of CommNexus (San Diego) for bringing this to our attention (and Kru Research for posting on their site).

You can buy the book (GBP £):

You can buy the book (USD $):

The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care

For your weekend viewing:
1) RTT News interviews Jonathan Linkous of the American Telemedicine Association on how technology and healthcare are converging (4 mins)
2) Larry Chu interviews Chuck Parker, Executive Director of Continua about the alliance, for HCPlive. (7 mins)
3) Tech journo Scott Mace visits the Continua Alliance booth at CES last week--the 'child's garden of wonders' we referred to. The video quality is only fair, but Mr Mace lets the demos speak for themselves. You'll also get an idea of the Digital Health part of the expo floor. This one includes IBM demonstrating the 'end-to-end' solution including A&D, Roche, Eurotech; Nonin Medical and Vignet. (7 mins)
4) Also by Scott Mace, this features Tunstall, Storento (sp?) med monitoring packaging, MedApps and a chronic disease management demo by a Continua representative that includes A&D, LNI Health Link uploading to a Google Health PNR. (10 mins)
5) A crystal clear MedApps demo using a pulse oximetry reading (the subject lived.) (1 min)

Length: Unknown

LocalGovTV interviews James Ferguson, clinical lead at the SCT who, according to the publicity, "discusses how a nationwide hi-tech drive is enabling people to communicate with consultants remotely to prevent hospitalization and support carbon reduction targets...Scottish residents can now benefit from video-conferencing and photo assessments to streamline access to healthcare wherever they are located...Mr Ferguson also addresses how to overcome barriers to adopting this technology so that other trusts and local authoritites can realise the enormous benefits."

The catch is that to view the video you have to give up contact information that will be used for marketing by the video's unnamed sponsor - and there is no privacy policy on the site which spells out just what else LocalGovTV will or will not do with that information. http://www.localgov.tv/JamesFerguson

20 minutes: Health 2.0 Conference

This video is over a year old and was posted as a lead-in to this year's Health 2.0 conference. I hope they leave it online because he has some important messages for health services and telehealth/telecare providers that care to listen. It's a thought-provoking 20 minutes. Get coffee and a pen and paper to jot down your responses - then post them here. Clay Shirky Health 2.0 2008 keynote speech video.

5 mins 20 seconds: Medgadget

Not remote patient monitoring, but activity monitoring for wider health/fitness purposes. Interesting marketing tagline: Every Movement Counts.

Five videos (approx 15 mins total viewing) Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia

'Terrible' web page, but links to interesting videos at the bottom - persevere if they do not play easily. [The first seems particularly problematic, and complain to the site, not me, if they do not work for you!]. The 'magic carpet' will interest most Telecare Aware readers. Aging in place.

3 mins: Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect at Home - Strengthening Relationships

Given that this is the way most of the public would expect an electronic health record to work, including this video should be unremarkable. However, that patients can access it themselves and communicate about it with their physicians via their home internet is a step forward. This community, of course, would be looking for it to be possible to upload remote health monitoring data too. And, if you are anticipating that the interviewed patient will say that her doctor 'is there for her', you won't be disappointed.

Related videos available here. [Heads-up thanks to Bob Pyke.]

4 minutes 49 seconds. Cambridge Consultants

'Cool video' in that bouncy YouTube way, BUT a pointer to the near future that you need to watch, nonetheless. It's light years from the time when pendant technology was cutting edge.

9 minuites. US Department of Veterans Affairs

Excellent video showing three examples of health delivery at a distance and its benefits to patients and staff. After watching, you may want to read an article about the telehealth facility at Craig, which gives some more information and a nursing perspective.

5 minuites. UTS Health

The following website is an interesting concept that points to a possible future for user-controlled health information.

Set up by UTS Health, a subsidiary of software company Indigo Byte Systems (UTS = Universal Tracking System), the site is a combination of user networking/health information sharing/mutual support and health information provided by the company, and a place to track your health monitoring data (privately, if you wish). The best way to grasp it before visiting the UTS website is to view their introductory video:

3 mins 31 secs. Zenda Technologies Startup

Zenda Technologies (www.zendatech.com) has developed a headset technology that allows primary care physicians to diagnose Alzheimer's within 10 minutes, instead of the one-hour paper-based test that has to be given by a trained administrator.

More information, including headset, in following video...

2 mins 36 seconds. Title: GE/Intel: A commitment to the future of home healthcare

Excellent, non hyped-up, explanation of how telecare should, and can, work. In this case in an assisted living setting.

The human star of the video is ex-school teacher Honor Hacker who has featured in a number of pro-technology articles, and spoke last year at a briefing of the US Senate’s Special Committee on Aging. It's good to see she is still going strong. Here are a few of her stories from previous years:

Technology helps seniors live independently. Minnesota Public Radio, December 2005

Silent Guardians. Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St Paul, February 2007

Capitol Hill Briefing Features Technologies That Could Transform the Lives of Seniors. American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, January 2008

4 minutes. Title: MedApps Telehealth/Telemedicine Mobile Solution

What I like about this is that once the devices are connected, the user doesn't have to press any buttons.

Also has brief overview of the HealthCom monitoring interface. Medapps company website

Thanks to Bob Pyke

The American-Israel Chamber of Commerce recently held a meeting in Atlanta to expose Israeli companies to the American market and vice versa. Here are some videos from the event, including one of Newt Gingrich stressing the importance of devices being user-friendly. Videos courtesy of Leff & Associates.

Did those of us who didn't attend the Silver Summit at CES this year miss anything significant? Watch this 6 minute YouTube video and make up your own mind. You will find the other videos here.

This item is an eye-opener worth 20 minutes of anyone's time. Apart from that, you may find yourself re-thinking the current potential of the global telehealth market... Professor of Global Health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, Hans Rosling at the TED event in 2006. (More information)

3 minutes 21 seconds. Title: Telehealth in Hackney

This is the clearest explanation I have seen of how remote patient health monitoring is managed in the NHS, what patients do, and its benefits. The 3.21 minute video on YouTube does not hide its Docobo origin, but that fact is not 'in-your-face'.

Video 1: 1 minute 44 seconds
Video2: 1 minutes 48 seconds.

7 minutes. 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...

30 minutes. Presentation by Margaret Cary, Senior VP for Vox Medica in 2001. Interesting content from the telehealth perspective. Main message - it's not about the technology, which is just part of the care delivery process.

6 minutes 30 seconds. Title: Senator John Thune advocating an increase in funding for telehealth

This post continues the focus on the terminology problems (see 'Opinion' above)...

1 minute 18 seconds. Video about the RF ECG sensor - "the worlds smallest, high-speed wireless biosensor kit" - from the Japanese Medical Electronic Science Institute Co. Ltd

1min 34sec 15 Aug 2006.  Older people benefit from home alarms (West Lothian) View here
1min 32sec 23 May 2007.  New healthcare system piloted (Kent) View here
1min 47sec 29 Jan 2008.  Bed sensor helps elderly couple View here
2min 18 sec 30 Jan 2008. Advances in telecare devices (People with Learning Difficulties and Older People) View here

3 minutes 36 seconds. Title: CarePro Movie

WELbeing uses Nokia Near Field Communication (NFC) technology supplied by Over-C.

7 minutes. Title: Guardian Alert 911

Small phone device that links to US 911 services. Click here to view.

4 minutes. Title: ISSYS: A Hallmark of Success Company.

ISSYS researches and manufactures microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). These sensors are so small that they can be implanted to monitor pressure directly within blood vessels, the eyes and brain and communicate results wirelessly.

3 minutes. Title: A Digital Revolution for the World's Remotest Regions

Insight into Intel's ambition to connect the next 1 billion new users to the internet. It shows some examples where the 'revolution' is underway in Egypt and Brazil. Not a telehealth video directly...

6 minutes 30 seconds.

Title: Westminster - The Wireless City: Improving Business and Services with WIFI.
This addition to the video library should give ammunition to all who are looking for substantial investment in telecare. The video itself shows how Westminster invested many millions in wireless CCT systems to help keep its citizens and visitors safe on the streets. How about a similar spend to keep them safe in their homes? View the video on the Cisco site via the above link.

1 minute. Title: A great service for older people. Council and health telecare projects should be seeking similar local TV publicity to stimulate interest in their telecare programmes...

6 minutes.  Reinventing the ambulance, this amazing vehicle carries state-of-the-art teledicine diagnostics over the roughest terrain...