Telecare Aware

In a Telecare Soapbox item, James Batchelor, MD of Alertacall, raises a serious issue for councils and other telecare suppliers: what risk is a council running when its employee substitutes a ’standard’ but inappropriate equipment package for a privately-funded one that was more suitable for the client? Would the person’s consent to the course of action be a defence if the consent were based on inappropriate advice?

Health Care Unplugged: The Evolving Role of Wireless Technology. This free-to-download report was written by Richard Adler for the California HealthCare Foundation. The report is based on interviews with more than two dozen researchers, clinicians, and application developers, along with a review of a broad range of published papers and articles, web resources, and other materials. It includes an overview of who is using wireless technology and how it is evolving, as well as the wide variety of wireless health care applications that are already available or under development.

Vince Kuraitis, in his e-caremanagement blog, says about the report: “If you wanted to read just one report to get up to speed on the state-of-the-art and the promise of wireless patient focused health care applications, this is the one I’d recommend.” And anything Vince recommends is a good recommendation.
Free download: Health Care Unplugged: The Evolving Role of Wireless Technology.

[I noticed after posting today’s items that this follows one where equipment was literally unplugged!]

Orange Healthcare, a division of France Telecom dedicated exclusively to health services, has signed an agreement with Medical Mobile SAS for the commercialization in France of the Columba bracelet for people with dementia. Under the brand Columba by Orange they aim to get to the institutional healthcare market.

No news from Tunstall on bringing the Columba bracelet to the UK market following their letter of intent with Medical Intelligence Technologies Inc. (See Telecare Aware item 6 November last year, and search Telecare Aware for ‘Columba’ for other related items.)

Read the Orange story on TMCnet.

This E-Health Insider article reveals Cisco’s ambitious plans to make us all more responsible for our health. At the Telco 2.0 3rd Executive Brainstorm in London, Cisco’s healthcare director for internet business solutions, Nicholas Augustinos, said: “With HealthPresence patients will be able to seek medical advice from anywhere; booths can be fitted anywhere from shopping malls to hotels to post offices. Ultimately, we’d like to see it packaged up and brought into the home.” An interesting article, and see related item in sister publication e-health Europe.

It would also be nice to see them put the Disabled Living Foundation’s ‘Ask SARA‘ system into the pod - assuming it is fully wheelchair accessible, of course.

Telecare Briefing on the Darzi Review, by Dr Simon Brownsell available here.

Forthcoming CSIP telecare events: London (24 Jan 2008), Leeds (29 Jan), Manchester (4 Feb), Taunton (7 Feb) and Birmingham (12 Feb). Book for the telecare events here. [But make sure you turn up or you will be ‘fined’!]

A press release from the Department for Communities and Local Government yesterday entitled Government ramps up funding for home adaptations (yeah, we get it) sets out additional funding for Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) next year and more support planned for Home Improvement Agencies (HIAs). Read the announcement here.

This item about a hospital-based remote video link system in Newfoundland is not just interesting in its own right, but highlights the problems around terminology that we have all lived with and which shows no sign of resolving itself through patterns of common usage. Maybe the Continua Alliance should have a go at developing some standards around terminology.

ResponseLINK is now a contracted provider of PERS (Personal Emergency Response Systems) to Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Services (DSHS) clients. Press release.

Another item from E-Health Insider, reporting Southampton PCT’s adoption of the Broomwell Healthwatch Heartview Professional service.

Visit Broomwell’s website.

“Because cancer therapies can be highly toxic, early detection of symptoms and timely treatment is vital. What is exciting to us about online self-reporting is that patients can alert clinicians to crucial symptoms in real time.” Ethan Basch, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The research team developed a Web-based system that patients in the study could access using computers in waiting-room kiosks and at home to communicate their symptoms directly to clinicians. Story on system that uses the internet.

I like this local story that begins “Pensioner Vera Chapman believes she would not be alive today if it was not for Worcestershire Telecare.” Despite somewhat perpetuating the idea that telecare is just a pendant alarm, fall detector, smoke detector, etc. it has the ring of an article that has arisen because a reporter had a real story to develop with the local service, rather than working from a manufacturer’s standard media pack. Read it here.

The full report is in the Care Services Improvement Partnership’s August Telecare Newsletter (2 September 2007) and well-summarised by e-Health Insider Primary Care’s item Target met for 60,000 new telecare users. For the full analysis go to the telecare newsletter (4.3Mb download). Sections 1d and e (page 5 on) give detailed discussion of the ‘factors affecting collection and accuracy of data’ and discussion of the conclusions’.

This is clearly welcome news, but just how much of the count comprises people who received old-style community alarms or key safes is still a concern. It will be interesting to hear suppliers’ view on these findings.

Also of interest in the newsletter is a report (p40) of work at the University of York’s Centre for Usable Home Technology (CUHTec) which includes a description of the work of jewellery designer Jayne Wallace and a pair of necklaces that, when one is handled, signals to the other wearer. The aim is “to explore the notion of shared presence”.

Some relatively recent local stories, in alphabetical order:

Bolton: Help at hand for elderly

Harrow: New emergency care system for elederly [sic]

Hertfordshire: Information days for older people

South Lakelands (Barrow in Furness): Hi-tech system to help keep OAPs out of care

Southwark, London: ‘Telecare’ to help elderly be independent

Wigan: Hi-tech help for the elderly

York: OAP group supports hi-tech aid
(’Smart flat’ reference. Also read Telecare Soapbox item “When ‘Smart’ is not smart enough” if you haven’t yet)

And for contrast, one from the ‘States:
Buffalo, New York: Congressman Higgins Makes Virtual Home Care Visit

These two illustrate how a well-intentioned remark can be turned into a headline with a negative spin and a rather stolid quote into a positive one. The ‘problem’ for the news-giver is that there is no control on what the reporter or headline-writer (often different people) will put on a story. But for small stories for which they are not going to do any additional research, they are only going to work with the material that’s given to them.

Green light for big brother scheme (Warwickshire)

Elderly benefiting from new alarm system (Cumbria)

Comment on these or any media stories in the Telecare Forum.