Posts Tagged ‘Health 2.0’
The Internet of Things Creeps into Healthcare
July 19, 2013
This post originally appeared on Health Works Collective.
One of the hottest trends in technology today is the Internet of Things or IoT. IoT was recently featured on the cover of Wired magazine for an article titled, “Awake: Welcome to the Programmable World.” The article begins, “When the objects around us can talk to each other, the elements of our physical universe converge and spring to life.” (Wired, June 2013 ).
The authors point out three stages for the IoT:
1) There need to be more devices on the network, everything from sensors to devices with embedded wireless.
2) The devices must coordinate with each other without human intervention.
3) Connected devices become ubiquitous, a programmable platform.
So is this just a techie dream born out of science fiction? And what is its relevance to healthcare?
There are several ways that hospitals are already part of the IoT. One big advance is smart IV pumps and their impact on patient safety. Not only can doses be preset, but the pumps can communicate with electronic medication administration records (eMAR) and bar code technology making them intelligent infusion devices. The use of robotics in hospitals continues to grow. Robotic-assisted surgery isbecoming widespread if not controversial . Other uses of robots include, “packaging drugs or delivering lab results, and telemedicine-based technologies that connect clinicians and patients in ways that previously didn’t exist”. Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is being used to track assets, such as, IV pumps, which can be difficult to find in a busy hospital or even hoarded. Others are using RFID to track medications administered to patients.
Another trend is the use of unique imaging technology, such as, Wireless Capsule Endoscopy, or camera in a pill, where the patient swallows this device and it moves through the GI track taking pictures as an alternative to the tube-based endoscope. (image at right from GIHealth)
It is only a matter of time, as these technologies mature and become ubiquitous, that these devices will begin to talk to each other and inform care throughout the hospital.
At the same time, the IoT is available to patients. The Quantified Self movement believes in monitoring many body functions from blood pressure to sleep and more. This is becoming fertile ground for innovation and startups are offering more consumer devices every week. One recent example is the Scanadu Scout that allows you to quickly check your vital signs by placing the device on your temple. (image below from Scanadu) David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a review of many devices which promote health from companies like FitBit, Nike, Jawbone and Flex. But he also critiques them for lack of Bluetooth connectivity in some cases or less than adequate user interfaces.
It is still early in the development of personal health devices for them to talk to each other or to larger systems through the Internet. In the area of telehealth, there are many devices and systems providing home monitoring of the chronically ill. These can provide an alternative to frequent clinic visits or visits by home health services when the data is reliably sent to the provider and algorithms are available to flag warning signs. The Veterans Administration is moving forward with an extensive program of telehealth to serve veterans everywhere.
Finally, there is the rare startup that is focusing just on the IoT. One company out of Cleveland has even taken on that name, iOTOS. They have developed hardware, a wireless device, which can be imbedded in all kinds of devices which is tightly integrated with their proprietary software platform. iOTOS is just beginning to look at healthcare applications of the device/software from diagnostics to home monitoring. Because it is cloud-based, the devices can display data through mobile devices. (image below from iOTOS)
In conclusion, the Internet of Things is creeping into healthcare, almost unnoticed. But the ubiquitous nature of IoT makes it self almost invisible to humans. Both in hospitals and at home, the possibilities are endless. Although we are early in the maturity of this technology as noted by the Wired article, we will soon connected devices become ubiquitous, a programmable platform, with medical devices talking to each other while improving care provision and our personal health.
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Many Predictions but Which Hit the Mark?
January 6, 2013
I was happy to have the opportunity to contribute to the iHealthbeat titled “11 Experts on Health IT Progress, Frustrations and Hopes for 2013″ with some very good company. I noted the growth of EMR adoption and mHealth. But I neglected an area which I will be more immersed in this year – Clinical Analytics which is one of the strongest growth areas in Health IT.
Another key set of predictions is by Lucien Engelen. Specifically, the trend toward changes in staffing in healthcare, specifically that more women are becoming physicians and more are looking at part-time work and flexible hours. Also, there are changes in location of care as length of hospital stays decrease and more care is done virtually through remote monitoring and remote communication.
Predictions about technology trends like mHealth need to be placed in the context of other changes in healthcare and there are many including the growth of the ePatient movement.
Share this:Games for Health Europe
November 14, 2012
Lucien Engelen of the Radboud ReShape Innovation Center in the Netherlands, had an extensive interview at this innovative conference. In this interview he discusses how his center at Radboud Medical Center will have have a game consultant visit weekly to consult with physicians, patients and others to discuss games for health.
Twitter stream on the conference is at #GFH12EU
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Medical Informatics 2.0
September 8, 2012
Informatics 2.0 is the title of an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). Subtitled, “implications of social media, mobile health, and patient-reported outcomes for healthcare and individual privacy”, this article reviews some of the recent work published in the journal including social media and mHealth. But what really is Informatics 2.0. We already have multiple definitions of medicine 2.0 and health 2.0. Is this an indication that Medical Informatics is broadening their horizons? Precise definitions are hard to find, but one should inlcude:
- consumer health informatics as evidenced by social media in health care
- e-Patient movement and participatory health care
- online interventions for healthcare
- Mobile devices and mobile apps for healthcare
- Use of social media in research recruitment
- Social networks and social media for medical informatics collaboration
- The semantic web in healthcare
- Patient Center Medical Outcomes enabled by online tools
- Reference wikis in medical informatics
As you can see, the scope of Medical Informatics is broad as the use of Web 2.0 technologies spreads to many opportunities and transforms medical informatics into a more dynamic endeavor.
Share this:Conference Season Approaching – Prepare for Landing
August 7, 2012
While it may not be as exciting as landing on Mars, there are several conferences this Fall worth noting:
- Medicine 2.0 Boston with over 300 presenters and a wide range of topics from mobile and social media to education and personal monitoring devices from every continent. I attended last year at Stanford but will not this year. Will miss the colleagues I have met over the years. Good to see ePatient Dave doing a followup on “Give Me My Damn Data”
- Health 2.0 San Francisco – the ultimate showcase for health startups will including preconference workshops on Patients 2.0,Health Law 2.0, Employers 2.0 and Doctorrs 2.0. Would like to see Clinical Trials 2.0 some year as well.
- StrataRx conference by O’Reilly on health data. Looks like an excellent line up of speakers and topics although light on providers and EMR vendors.
- AMIA 2012 Symposium in Chicago - Mayor Rahm Emanuel Declares October 30 to November 7, 2012 Informatics Week in Chicago. I will be attending and speaking at a preconfence workshop on Clinical Research Informatics Infrastructure.
I am sure there are many more, this is just a highlight of the Fall schedule.
Share this:Virtual Presentation in Bilbao, Spain at Salud 2.0
July 9, 2012
Salud 2.0 is simply Health 2.0 in Spanish. This conference brings together speakers to discuss Web 2.0 technologies in health care. My presentation was Social Media in Health Care: A Reasoned Approach.
I received several questions and will repeat them here to give more complete answers:
- What to you mean about the risk of conflict of interest?
Because social media is largely brief communication, a physician or other healthcare professional could promote a product or service without a disclaimer that they have a financial interest in this product. To be transparent about potential conflicts of interest in social media, one must add a link to a webpage with full disclosure. Drug and device companies must be clear about any claims they make on social media and should link to more complete information. - There are so many social media outlets, how do you choose where to start?
Find the best tool for what you need. It is not necessary to use multiple social media tools. For instance, if you are a physician or healthcare professional and want to communicate with colleagues, use Twitter if you are comfortable with more open communications, use a private social network for your group only if you would rather keep private. If you are a hospital and want to interact with patients, consider Facebook because it is an open, widely used platform which allows comments from patients. - In Spain there is a publicly supported healthcare system, unlike the US. How should the approach to social media be different?
I would think hospitals would still want to hear from patients but would not use social media as a means to attract new patients unless there was a specialty service that more patients should be made aware of. A good example of this is http://www.guiametabolica.org/ which is also being presented at the conference. Social media could also have more of a public health approach – how to keep the population healthier and identify diseases earlier for intervention.
Here are the slides from the presentation. And the video is below:
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How Europe is Growing Health Apps
February 13, 2012
My post on HealthWorksCollective last week. I am sure there are many more apps being built in the EU but wanted to call attention to a few I am familiar with.
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Health and medical apps are growing at an incredible pace in the US. But what about Europe? Are there equally creative ideas going on across the pond? Fortunately, there are plenty of examples.
One hot spot is Nijmegen, Netherlands at the Radboud Reshape and Innovation Centerat UMC St. Radboud University Medical Center. Under the leadership of Lucien Engelen, the center has already produced 4 apps. First is AEDS4.US which enables the user to find the nearest defibrillator devices at a moment’s notice using this iPhone/Android app which integrates maps and location services. It has over 50,000 downloads but is still most heavily used in the Netherlands. Anyone with a smartphone can add AEDs to the app. Second is AYA4 – community for young cancer patients. Third is aniPad app to enable communication between patients, families and the healthcare team. Fourth is Hospital Visitor Planning to coordinate visitors coming the hospital. The newest app is REshape HealthTalk which enables translation during healthcare visits for non-native speakers. The ReShape Center also sponsorsTEDxMaastricht which will take place April 2, 2012.
In Belgium, there is a growing number of startups and a startup incubator specifically for health. HealthStartUp“organises events in Europe that bring together entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, policy makers and investors.” Like many of us, HealthStartUp seeks to empower patients and improve the quality, efficiency and accessibility of healthcare. Check out their interview with miMedication which not only describes their product but also discusses being an entrepreneur. miMedication is a niche PHR product in English developed by Mitchell Silva, who is an epatient in his own right.
From Spain, there is a new app called Doctoralia, a service to find, rate and contact medical services in 14 countries. In addition to the website search by country there is an iPhone app in the App Store. The combination of international search, rating and actual scheduling information makes the service unique.
Also from Spain we have Medical Exchange Medting which includes collaboration platforms and medical viewers. It is a comprehensive tool set which enables elearning, social networking for physicians and medical students. The Medting Media Manager enables the management of medical images including DICOM and pathology standards. Medviewer is a lightweight version of the image viewer which can be imbedded into websites and web applications for continuing medical education, etc. The products can be used for free and the primary business model is licensing for enterprise use for which they also provide customization and services. While not yet a mobile app, it will display on the iPad.
From Hungary there is Webicina founded by Bertalan Mesko, MD, is a curated social media resource tool in multiple languages. The solution has two paths: one for the medical professional which is cataloged by medical specialties from anesthesia to transplantation. The path for the “Empowered Patient” goes to specific diagnoses from pregnancy to psoriasis.This is also available as an mobile app in the iPhone Store and Android version. Webicina also has a tool called PeRSSonalized Medicine with an emphasis on curated RSS feeds for medical resources including major medical journals, blog and news. It enables the busy health professional to scan multiple articles for relevance to their practice at a glace and drill down on topics of interest. Again, this too is in multiple languages and curated by real people, not algorithms. Dr. Mesko who goes by @Berci on Twitter is a popular speaker internationally and continues his medical research while maintaining this service. Webicina has recently partnered with Basil Strategies of Paris, France and sponsor of the Doctors 2.0 Conference there.
There are a growing number of annual conferences on Web 2.0 in healthcare in Europe.
- TEDxMaastricht in the Netherlands in April is in the true TED tradition with fast paced presentations but a focus on innovation in health care. The program includes speakers from throughout Europe but also the US. The program includes patients and their dynamic stories of survival as well medical professionals focused on patient-centered care.
- Doctors 2.0 and You in Paris in May billed as “an international healthcare social media and web 2.0 conference,” is sponsored by Basil Strategies which is now in partnership with Webicina. The conference has a strong emphasis on mobile apps as well as social media and patient and professional communities. A contest for startups rounds out the program. Check out the videos from last year.
- Salud 2.0 meets in Bilbao, Spain in July. It includes international and Spanish presenters on topics from Health 2.0 administration and clinical practice. Last year’s presentations are online throughSlideShare. Preliminary information on this year’s program is available.
- Last year was also the first Health 2.0 Europe in Berlin sponsored by the US Health 2.0 conference group of Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya. It included their usual format of individual speakers on the latest apps and interviews with entrepreneurs and quick paced demos.
Bottom line, Europe is alive with activity – building apps, experimenting with social media in healthcare and a growing number of conferences to show it off. This small sampling should give you a taste of some exciting developments worth keeping tabs on.
Share this:What am I working on? Check my Bookmarks
January 7, 2012
I am glad that Delicious is still around and being enhanced. I have used it for years to organize and tag my bookmarks. Now with almost 1200 bookmarks and several hundred tags, I often search my links to find a resource for a presentation or article. Recent links include:
- West Wireless Health Institute which has a good handle on new care delivery models
- Secondary Uses Service, description and and access. | The NHS Information Centre - glad to see the National Health Services is utilizing EMR data for quality and research
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or NCATS - the new NIH center replacing the NCRR which inlcudes the Clinical and Translational Science Awards which I am now a part of
- A post on O’Reilly Radar - Epatients: The hackers of the healthcare world
- Eye on FDA - the new FDA blog
- CIRD – Partners HealthCare Clinical Informatics R & D
More on Health Apps
August 18, 2011
The Mobile Health LaunchPad will be announce winners who will pitch their products on September 19. They want apps that are more than content, in an early stage and ones that can actualize utilize capital.
The Blue Button initiative from the VA will award $50,000 for a non’government provider to add the Blue Button on a PHR website or create a PHR with one. The blue button is a function to allow patients to download their medical records. Submissions open until Oct. 19th.
The Cleveland Clinic announced a incubator for Health Care Apps. This according to according to Scott Linabarger, the Clinic’s director of Internet marketing, speaking at the World Congress Leadership Summit on mHealth.
Jen McCabe is making news with combine HealthMonth and Contagion Health to make a new company, Habit Labs. She even got attention on TechCrunch for funding from Y Combinator.
Health apps are popping up everywhere. Hoping that the market will sort out or create aggregators to manage our health with multiple tools. Health apps are eclipsing PHRs. The future looks promising.
Share this:Rock Health Report on the State of Digital Health
August 1, 2011
Rock Health has a great slideshare on their survey of health tech startups including the status of funding for Health 2.0 companies.
