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Join the discussion about wearable technology

The thing about the Internet is that you never know when something is going to go viral or spark heated debate. (Actually, it’s a fairly sure bet that anything involving politics, religion or sports will lead to heated debate, generally of the lowbrow variety.)

Less common is informed, intelligent discussion on the Internet. Something I wrote early yesterday for Forbes.com has, happily, fallen into this category.

My post, “Hype Around Healthcare Wearables Runs Into Reality,” is far from the most inflammatory piece I’ve written about overblown hype in healthcare innovation, or, as Dr. Joseph Kvedar called it, “irrational exuberance,” borrowing a line from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

It’s also far from the most-viewed item I’ve had on the Forbes.com platform since I started about six months ago. However, it’s generating a lot of discussion on Paul Sonnier’s Digital Health group on LinkedIn. As of this writing, there are 28 comments, or more than one per hour since the original post went up at 9:54 am EST Wednesday.

If you’re one of the more than 30,000 members of that group, I encourage you to join the discussion. If not, you might want to join the group, or comment on the original post at Forbes.com.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll throw in an additional two cents, since I did, you know, already give my opinion in the actual post.

December 11, 2014 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Still no consensus on digital/mobile/connected health

A while back — three months, to be exact — I asked readers if they had a preferred term to describe “the application of new, personalized technologies to healthcare.” I gave you the choice of digital health, connected health, wireless health, mobile health and telehealth, and surmised that the results would not be conclusive. On that part, I was right:

digital health poll resultsHowever, I was surprised that connected health, a relatively underutilized term, did so well and that telehealth got but one vote. Wireless health certainly has kind of become passé, but I was surprised nobody picked it at all.

In any case, these results, however unscientific they may be, are representative of the fact that it is so hard to reach consensus on anything in health IT. They also are symbolic of the silos that still exist in newer technologies.

May 6, 2014 I Written By

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Poll: Which term do you prefer?

My last post earlier today got me thinking: we still haven’t reached a consensus on how to describe what some people have dubbed wireless health, mobile health, telehealth, digital health and connected health. Digital health has gotten popular in the past year or two, and the new issue of Health Affairs goes with connected health, but, as I noted, Dr. Joseph Kvedar, founder and director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare in Boston, had a lot to do with the topic selection, so there is some inherent bias.

Now that I know how to add polls to blog posts, I figured I’d ask the question. I doubt the results will be scientific and I’m sure they won’t be conclusive, but it will be fun to know what others are thinking.

 

February 4, 2014 I Written By

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‘Dilbert’ takes on wireless health

Perhaps I’m getting loopy, or just distracted, but I’ve been reading the funnies again. (Hey, we all need a laugh from time to time, right?) But here goes my second consecutive post involving  a comic strip, this time a certain one called “Dilbert.” Today, Scott Adams, who spoke at HIMSS in 2005, addresses digital health, specifically wearable sensors and how unscrupulous employers like Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss might exploit all the new health data being generated.

Dilbert, ©2013 Scott Adams

All of our bosses can’t be so intrusive, can they?

 

August 15, 2013 I Written By

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Is this Cisco commercial reflective of the real world?

Cisco Systems is running this commercial about the “Internet of everything,” with a focus on connected healthcare.

 

It all sounds great, but how much of this is grounded in the real world today and how much is wishful thinking? I mean, connected medical records? It sounds so idealistic.

May 19, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

So many types of telehealth

Here’s a short video (720p HD) I put together from the just-concluded American Telemedicine Association’s annual conference in Austin, Texas. No wonder it’s so hard to get a real sense of the size of the telehealth and telemedicine market when there are so many components and so many different definitions. This is a row of banners outside the meeting rooms highlighting the various types, not to mention some of the ATA’s constituencies and important topics at the conference. I did the voice-over at 1:30 in the morning.

May 8, 2013 I Written By

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Dr. Eric Topol on NBC’s ‘Rock Center’

Digital health’s rock star, Dr. Eric Topol, appeared Thursday night on “Rock Center with Brian Williams” to discuss the potential of wireless and mobile health technology with NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman. I have a full recap in MobiHealthNews that will appear Friday morning, but I also have the full video of the segment right here:

 

I have a feeling it will open some eyes among those in the general public who think the status quo in medicine is acceptable and really the best we can do. Obviously, we can do better. We should do better. We must do better.

UPDATE: Here’s the MobiHealthNews story I wrote.

January 25, 2013 I Written By

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Colbert lampoons Proteus digital pill

Last week, I was the first to have the story that Proteus Digital Health, formerly known as Proteus Biomedical, got de novo FDA 510(k) clearance for its ingestible “chip on a pill,” intended to promote medication adherence. National media have since picked up on the groundbreaking news.

Last night, the product became the subject of parody, courtesy of Stephen Colbert.

 

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cheating Death – Sensor-Enabled Pills & Facelift Bungee Cords
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

At least Colbert’s version featured a wireless tablet computer.

August 9, 2012 I Written By

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New technology for the 90-plus set

Meet my grandmother.

She is less than two weeks away from her 93rd birthday. She lives alone, in the same apartment she and my grandfather retired to in 1984 (my grandfather died in 2001). Her closest relative is 100 miles away. Her children and her grandchildren all live more than 1,400 miles away.

Her bones are brittle from osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. She is losing her hearing. Her vision has been bad for as long as I’ve known her. She lives on the second floor of a walk-up building, with no elevator.

Last weekend, she had to be hospitalized for a fall she took when the car she was getting out of moved slightly while she was removing something from the back seat. She had had another fall in her home less than two months earlier. She is out of the hospital now, in a rehab facility, where she is supposed to stay for as long as three weeks while she gets physical therapy so she can stand and walk without pain. But what happens after that?

In the past, she has flat-out refused to move to be closer to one of her children because she doesn’t want to deal with winter weather anymore, and, as she says, “This is my home.” She has also said she does not want to go into assisted living or nursing home because she has always been stubbornly independent.

I know this story is not unique to my family. I’m sure many of you have faced similar dilemmas with elderly relatives.

My mom and my aunt have both suggested that my grandma get some sort of “panic button,” more formally known as a personal emergency response system. They were thinking of the old “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” variety, which requires the user to push the button to summon help. Of course, that does no good if the wearer is unconscious or is disoriented.

I explained, based on my coverage of health IT and wireless health technologies, that there are some new types of personal emergency response devices that are passive, i.e., they can automatically detect a fall and call for help, no matter what condition the user is in. Some more comprehensive systems monitor vital signs and movement.

Most of my family did not know about these options.

When I visited back in December, I showed my grandma videos of a few technologies. She wasn’t interested in anything that looks like a computer or a touch-screen tablet because, frankly, new technology is confusing. I mean, she doesn’t even know how to use her DVD player, and has no interest in learning. Caller ID was a big step for her.

She also did not seem too interested in wearing a vitals monitor, even something as simple as a chest strap. Her heart is fine. While she did survive cancer twice in the past 15 years (!), I am not aware of any chronic ailments other than the arthritis and osteoporosis. There is no Internet access in her home, and she does not have a cell phone. She begrudgingly said that she would be OK with wearing a sort of panic button. I have a feeling she would also agree to have a motion sensor installed in the apartment, but only if the landlord would allow it. (I’m pretty sure the landlord would, and that she was just making excuses.)

So, what would you suggest? Vendors, whatcha got?

I’m not looking for any handouts or freebies here by virtue of the fact that I have this public forum. My family would be willing to pay the regular price for your products and services. But I am going to use my soapbox to do the right thing for my grandma.

January 26, 2012 I Written By

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Podcast: Intel’s Eric Dishman on connected care management

Did you miss Eric Dishman’s keynote address Tuesday at the Medical Group Management Association‘s annual conference in Las Vegas? That’s OK, because I secured a few minutes with Dishman, director of health innovation and policy at Intel, immediately after his talk, and the results are right here.

This podcast, recorded in the somewhat noisy press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center, is a companion piece of sorts to my coverage in MobiHealthNews on Thursday, so I hope you have a chance to check out both.

Podcast details: Intel’s Eric Dishman on connected care management, recorded Oct. 26, 2011, at MGMA annual conference in Las Vegas. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 5.2 MB. Running time 11:08.

0:30 Virtual care coordination in nontraditional settings
1:05 Overlap/collaboration with Care Innovations joint venture
2:10 Prototype device for monitoring symptoms of Parkinson’s patients
4:00 Home monitoring of “classic” chronic diseases
4:55 Tracking behavioral changes for prevention and early detection
6:05 Realizing the potential of mobile health
6:55 Care coordination and health reform
8:30 ACOs and payment for quality
9:35 Intel’s future providing “strategic blueprints” for healthcare
10:20 How to share ideas with him

October 26, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.