Telecare Aware

The Health Informatics Interactive Care Specialist Group of the British Computer Society is holding an open meeting, free of charge, in central London on Tuesday 20th June. It will start at 6.00 (refreshments available from 5.30).

The speaker, Surgeon Captain Peter Buxton, OBE, will be speaking on How the armed forces are using Telemedicine. He was appointed as the Defence Consultant Adviser in Radiology and Telemedicine to Surgeon General in 2002 and is the UK representative on the NATO Telemedicine Working Group. He is a recognised international expert in the application of telemedicine.

Next meeting of the group will be Thursday 12 October.

If you would like to attend, email linda@tehip.org.uk for directions.

Centro de Servizi Montedomini is a state-owned agency dedicated to the care of older people in Florence. It provides health emergency services, rehabilitation, and social and health assistance to older and disabled people. To improve access, control expenses, and reduce the number of hospitalisation and emergency interventions, it initiated the Telecare Project, which uses video contact centres to diagnose and monitor patients without the patient having to travel to the Montedomini site. Through the video contact centre, Montedomini was able to provide broader access, targeting more than 2,000 patients as part of the Telecare Project and providing a platform that the people were comfortable with as a substitute for in-office visits. They are able to use voice and video for monitoring, emergency calls and scheduled check-ups.

Link to Montedomini website for information on the service.

News item noting that Montedomini was one of eight innovative customer service organizations, recognized by a panel of 22 global customer service industry experts for outstanding use of technology. News item.

A group of technology, healthcare and fitness companies have formed the Continua Health Alliance, an open industry group that will establish ‘an ecosystem’ of connected personal health and fitness products and services. Founding members of the group include BodyMedia, Cisco Systems, GEHealthcare, IBM, Intel Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, Medtronic, Motorola, Nonin, Omron Healthcare, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric),Partners HealthCare, Polar Electro, Royal Philips Electronics, RMD Networks, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, The Tunstall Group, Welch Allyn and Zensys. Full story.

Continua Health Alliance’s difficult-to-read website.

At the exhibition, Tunstall are set to reveal a mobile social alarm and will be showing how it will help protect lone workers or people in remote locations. Press item via Wireless Healthcare.

How the CIH can charge people so  much to attend a sponsored exhibition which companies are also paying to attend is a mystery. The rest of us are obviously in the wrong business! Link to Chartered Institute of Housing Exhibition website.

Speaking at the Quality Care for Older People: funding and finance for the future conference, 8 June, Stephen Burke, Chief Executive of Counsel and Care, urged the Government to extend tax exemptions on childcare vouchers to vouchers for care. Tax breaks for childcare vouchers are increasingly popular among employers and employees. Why not for eldercare? Voucher companies and employers say there is a demand. Vouchers could be used for “that bit of help - gardening, repairs, chiropody and befriending, for example - and on equipment and telecare as well as domiciliary care.” Press release.

In Ireland, a falls prevention working group is preparing a report which will potentially guide millions of euro in investments toward falls risk assessment. There are statistics in this article but, what is more interesting, is the medical mind-set that assumes that large expenditure is required owing to the need to establish assessment ‘facilities’ when, surely, this is an area where the majority of assessments could be undertaken as self-assessments if the right software and publicity approach were taken. Irish Medical Times article.

Older and disabled people will be given the right to determine the way they live if Lord Ashley’s Private Member’s Bill becomes law. Under the Independent Living Bill no-one would be forced into residential care against their will. BBC news report.