Telecare Aware

Steve Spurrier, from the North Worcestershire Care and Repair Agency, teamed up with Accessible Homes to develop the flat-pack pod, a new way of providing care for disabled people who require an extension to their home.

The pod, which can be fitted to the rear of a council house or private property, can act as a shower room or a double bedroom with ensuite shower room. When it is no longer needed, it can be taken apart and stored or re-sited at another property. Redditch Advertiser story that deserves much wider publicity.

Invicta Telecare, the largest independent provider of telecare services in the UK, has passed the Telecare Services Association’s (TSA) stringent audit for the sixth year in a row. The TSA Code encourages the provision of good quality customer service by giving official recognition to service providers who meet its demanding criteria. To become code compliant, organisations need to have detailed procedures covering all aspects of their operations, and demonstrate that service delivery is in accordance with these procedures. Independent audits carried out on behalf of the TSA lead to appropriate service providers being awarded ‘code compliance’. The audit process is repeated annually.

Steve Davies, Managing Director of Invicta Telecare said: “We are thrilled to once again receive such a prestigious endorsement reflecting the hard work and professionalism of all our staff. This has given us the impetus to continue to develop our organisation and provide the highest possible level of service to all our customers.” Invicta Website.

Report of a symposium at the University of California, San Francisco. It includes an outline of what Intel is up to in the telecare field and also has information about iMetrikus, a Rutter-founded company that specializes in interactive health management and remote patient monitoring.

Fortunately, I suspect that the Granagotchi, apart from having an instantly dislikable name, is still very much just a concept while the design company Smallfry fishes around for investor interest. Smallfry’s Director Steve May-Russell is reported by Engineering Talk as saying “Although some work has been done on high-tech patient monitoring systems, no-one in our view has yet paid sufficient attention to what ‘the customer’ wants and brought all the technology together in a user-friendly device.”

Wow! How’s that for patronising and alienating two sets of stakeholders all at the same time? I can hear quite a few people snorting at that claim, and talking about the potential end-users of such a device as ‘patients’ hardly indicates that he has done his homework. Curiously, Smallfry’s own irritatingly unsearchable flash-based website seems to contain no news about it. Engineering Talk article.

Report from The European Homecare Conference which took place 4 December, reveals some interesting perspectives on home healthcare monitoring from various EU countries. Useful links at the bottom of the article too.

And a related item on the EU’s initiative on an all-inclusive digital society answers such questions as: What does the EU mean by an all-inclusive digital society? Why is it important? See the PublicTechnolgy.net’s Frequently Asked Questions Page which, in effect, forms a comprehensive briefing on the topic. In particular, I noted “The Commission will issue in 2008 a Recommendation on e-Health interoperability (addressing core e-Health infrastructure data of patient summary and emergency data set) and launch in 2008 a new European initiative on telemedicine.” (Alternative url for the item.)

A phone-connected medication dispenser. See the description here and watch the more interesting demo, linked to from the menu on the left. Not a device for people with visual or cognitive problems, it seems.

Toyota’s violin-playing robot takes manual dexterity to a new level. See robot item in the video library too.

One of the occasional non-telecare stories that strike me as being of interest to Telecare Aware readers. It contains some extreme examples to illustrate the changing attitude towards older people.

This is probably the strangest item ever noted on Telecare Aware. A vascular surgeon who developed a touch-sensitive ‘vest’ to facilitate the hands-on part of the examination for remote diagnosis has turned to the video game industry to fund the development. Read an interview with him here.

At the Telecare Services Association’s Telecare and Telehealth conference in Cardiff yesterday Mediagrids announced that its ‘CareMATE Online’ teleconferencing system works with Medic4all wireless blood pressure monitors and Initial Intellilink Executive community alarms, thus demonstrating a significant step towards Mediagrids’ avowed aim to do away with the need for telecare/telehealth users to have multiple base units in their homes. The CareMATE Online can be owned, managed and used by small care teams as well as large care centres.

Mediagrids believes that developing an open platform upon which third party devices can work means saving asset costs for carers, care services and primary care trusts. Rob Bijkerk, CEO of Mediagrids said “We hope to show that there is no need for many care units sitting in your home communicating independently of each other to different agencies.”

CareMATE Online website.

Free report by the US trade group the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed). Much of the focus is the Veterans Association experience, and there is a useful list of references at the end. Comment by Government Health IT: Device makers push Medicare reimbursement for remote patient care.

Web pdf of the Telehomecare and Remote Monitoring report itself.

Mainstreaming Telemedicine: Understanding Sustained Operations (US)

Better late than never, info on this conference in Galveston, Texas next week.

RAATE Conference and Exhibition (UK)

Recent Advances in Assistive Technology & Engineering is holding its annual event in Sheffield 26 - 27 November.

Med-e-Tel calls for abstracts (Luxembourg)

The UK was noticeably under-represented at this European conference whose official language is English. Here’s a chance to change that for April 2008.

Their proposal for the next generation of telecare technology was named the top entry in the UK Satellite Navigation 2007 Challenge. I hope someone will tell us what’s so new about it. Wireless Healthcare report.

Interesting alternative format for a press release - post it on the internet using forum software. The gist is that t+medical has raised £4m to fund its expansion.