Put all this data in the cloud, (privacy not included) and personal medicine becomes a reality, tracking our mood, skin temperatures and the analysis of correlated data becomes a new picture we have of ourselves, and a new image we can project unto the world.
“They’re really external extensions of our mind,” said Joseph Tranquillo, associate professor of biomedical and electrical engineering at Bucknell University. (referring to all our networked devices- CNN)
So, vast amounts of data, self-tracking, personal information stock exchange, our own memories in the cloud, implants under our skins transmitting the data continuously.
by @Wildcat2030
Via Peter Vander Auwera, ddrrnt 
This past weekend, Hoa’s Tool Shop and Psykologifabriken, two Swedish sister companies, hosted the Health Hack Day (really three days), an event in Stockholm where computer programmers get to spar in a challenge to develop new medical apps. Via Substance Active 
Big Data is a hot topic in healthcare but what exactly is happening in the field? Where are the opportunities for startups? This article offers an overview of the key opportunities as we see them. We’d love to hear you feedback: do you agree? 
The following is an Ignite talk delivered at Tim O’Reilly’s 2012 Health Foo – Microsoft Research Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts. As I see technology advancing around me, I think about what’s going to become of the physician. Via dbtmobile Presentation delivered at eyeforpharma eMarketing Europe & Mobile 2012, Barcelona. What are the game changers for pharmaceutical digital marketing and communications? Understanding the impact of a socialised world and mapping the social web, mobile and ubiquitous connectivity, the quantified self and health applications, big data and the impact on measuring, predicting and tracking health.
How can games rock the health and pharma world? What is a game? Motivational design, games for health, immersive gaming and narrative based simulation, the virtual world and how we can harness gamers for science. Via Alex Butler, Chaturika Jayadewa 
Startup entrepreneurs live, eat and breathe their companies. Catching a quick catnap under your desk counts as a good night's sleep. But how do you get the same level of commitment from mere employees? Via Didier Roggeri 
Described as an electronic “tattoo”, the device is a wearable patch of circuits, sensors, and wireless transmitters that sticks to the skin like a temporary tattoo and is able to stretch and flex with the skin. The researchers hope that the final product will continuously measure and monitor uterine contractions, fetal heart rate and oxygen, and maternal heart rate and body temperature. How technology will change healthcare for patients, providers, payers and governements. Infographic 
When someone asks how you’re feeling, the typical response is somewhere along the lines of, ‘Oh, fine.’ Not convinced this was true, pharmaceutical company Help Remedies decided to dig a bit further and find out how people were really feeling. Tracking weekly state-level sales data for eight of their over-the counter-products (ranging from anti-nausea to blister remedies), Help created the site ‘What’s Wrong, U.S.?’ that shows the most common ailment affecting a state’s population. The site shows a color-coded, interactive map of the United States; each state’s color matches the Help Remedy with the highest sales during the previous week. When users scroll over a state, they see the breakdown of sales for all eight Help Remedy products and how product sales in that state compare to the national average. Users can click on each state to see an even narrower geographic breakdown of Help Remedies sales, watch videos from regional experts explaining why a state might be experiencing a particular ailment, and are even empowered to make suggestions themselves about why a state has an ailment and how to solve the problem For example, right now South Carolina is light blue, meaning the ‘help I have a blister‘ product has been the most popular Help product. When a user hovers over the state, they can see that people in S.C. are much more likely than the national average to have blisters, and if they click on the state, they’ll notice that people in S.C. living in the ‘low country’ region are more likely to have blisters than those who live in the ‘upstate’ region. While Help Remedies is opening up their sales data to give people knowledge about common ailments, they more importantly want to use the data to see how they can better help people. Help Co-Founder and Creative Director Nathan Frank on creating ‘What’s Wrong, U.S.?:’ via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/05/help-remedies-united-states-health.html#ixzz1v7CRePLN Via Chaturika Jayadewa 
As a flurry of health- and weight loss-focused gadgets and mobile apps flood the market, I.B.M. (International Business Machines), is getting a slice of the pie – the diet pie, that is. After more than 10 years of refining their concept for a program that utilizes data and analytics to help people make better health choices, the company’s patent has finally been approved. The program is very customizable and caters to all diets and lifestyles, and is fashioned around the idea that users can track their food consumption and calories burned to better manage their weight. Once released, the program will be available in a variety of means, including computer, smart phone, and even watch. And it’s primary purpose is to help steer people toward better choices through awareness and incentives. The concept for the program came to be after I.B.M inventor Michael Paolini and a few fellow engineers were eating a greasy meal at Ruby Tuesday’s when they concluded it was their burger and fry diet that was leading to their fuller waistlines. And so, they decided it was time to drop a few pounds. But instead of going it the traditional route, they decided to make it fun – and technical, as engineers do. So, they got to work on a program that not only enabled people to make healthier choices, but also inspired them to do so. Via Chaturika Jayadewa 
As AT&T continues to expand its services into the telehealth market, the company has signed an agreement with Valued Relationships Inc. (VRI) to deliver a remote patient monitoring service to more effectively manage chronic diseases and help reduce hospital readmissions. The end-to-end managed service is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2012. Via Chaturika Jayadewa 
Brian S. McGowan (@CMEAdvocate) on:
* The value of social learning Social media as 'the natural evolution of the social learning that takes place in hallways and lecture halls' for healthcare professionals
* How medical practices can utilize social media - Provision and co-ordination of patient care - Engaging the public in discussion of preventative health and disease management - Education and staff development
* How patients can use social media - For peer discovery - To offer and receive support and counsel - To share experiences - Perhaps, in the right places and from the right people, to be directed to appropriate health information^
[AS: ^this is my add; I'm extrapolating from Brian's suggestion that users may encouter representatives of or links to high-quality resources like ACOR where they will also encounter 'in-depth conversations when Twitter character limits won't suffice' (although personally, I always challenge the 'can't say this in 140' idea. You can! Be concise. Then publish another tweet.] Via Andrew Spong, dbtmobile 
Giving cheap smartphones to patients living in remote and rural areas has been suggested as a way of providing faster and more cost effective care. App designer Geoff Wilcock told BBC Radio Scotland's Out of Doors programme it would give people access to software that could be created for the NHS. Mr Wilcox said apps could aid in consultations and cut waiting times. The Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare said patients expected greater use of technology. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) held a workshop on mobile phone applications last month. The agency said that by 2014 it was expected that some 77 billion apps will have been downloaded from the Android and Apple phone markets. Mr Wilcock, who took part in the workshop, said the NHS could provide patients with low-cost smartphones. He said: "I am a diabetic and I quite easily sympathise with anyone who has to go on a two to three hour trip for a 20 minute meeting with a clinical nurse, or a doctor. "Very expensive or valuable clinicians are also driving out for long periods to spend equally short times with the patient." Mr Wilcock said some of the journeys could be avoided by conducting consultations using apps. "If someone provided me with an application to fill out with information that will mean you will get treated in three weeks, or you can do it the other way which is three months, I know which I would choose." Dwynwen Hopcroft, from Connecting Carers, said it was looking at a number of ideas for apps that would help carers better understand services available to them and the people they look after. Anne Reoch, of the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare, which is part of NHS 24, predicted the use of apps by the health service would become increasingly important. She said: "People expect it and want it. They go into banks, things are run very efficiently technically. You go into other services that the public use on a regular basis and things are run by technical means. We do expect it." Via Chaturika Jayadewa |
The Mindwave Mobile Brainwave Headset is a $130 EEG headset that’s compatible with iOS devices, Android phones, and, yes, even desktop computers. The headset measures brainwaves from your forehead — changes in electrical activity, really — which it then filters with complex algorithms to eliminate any interference from other electronic sources, and narrow down what those brainwaves really mean. Currently, the system can detect concentration, meditation and blinks, and uses these cues to control simple iOS and Android games. Via ddrrnt 
A multi-institution proof-of-concept funding program for life science projects is seeking applications for digital health projects for the first time. Read more. Via Andrew Spong 
For at least the last 50 years, different to other industries, technological advancements in medicine have increased, rather than decreased costs. This has occurred for reasons whose analysis is outside the purpose of this paper. It’s sufficient, therefore, to note the truth of it and move on. Recent developments in mobile health technology, known as “mHealth” to its adherents, give us hope that perhaps the technological tide is finally turning. It is our hope that these trends will cause tech to improve care (which it has always done) and drive down costs. What gives us this hope? First, let’s examine a few interesting statistics. A recent Information Week article stated that 70% of polled hospitals and/or healthcare organizations plan to deploy the iPad by the end of 2012. This matches with market research that indicates that some 81% of physicians will own a smart phone or tablet by the end of 2012. Of those, move than 50% will use mHealth apps daily in 2012. Globally, it is predicted 500 million people will be using mobile healthcare applications by 2015. We think these estimates are low. The proliferation of iPads and iPhones among healthcare personnel literally makes these devices a Trojan Horse into GE- and Phillips-dominated healthcare. All of these numbers are signs of a sort of sea change that is affecting not just the healthcare industry, but also the world. Competition has driven down the overall costs of these powerful pocket computers (tablets and smartphones) to the point that they are becoming as ubiquitous as simple cell phones were just 5 years ago. We should point out that part of the reason this excites us is not just for the potential to reduce costs in the United States, but because of the ability of mHealth to improve care and outcomes in developing nations. These countries have neither the time, nor the resources, to build the healthcare infrastructure developed over the last 60 years in the industrialized world. Via dbtmobile 
The Internet of Things was an idea. Now it’s a reality. Right now on the Cosm platform, developers and companies are connecting devices and apps to securely store and exchange data. It’s the one solution that brings big ideas about the world to the world. Via ddrrnt 
There are some interesting telehealth monitoring facts, figures and conclusions lurking in a recently published report by the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School: Health for All, Care for You: Unlocking the value of Personalised Healthcare in Europe. (PDF download). It is a review of a number of studies and is worth adding to the 'evidence' file. 
This article suggests that you health future may contain:
* GPS pacemakers and defibrillators. * Targeted medicine using nanorobots. * Embedded tracking chips. * Artificial intelligence to boost lost human function. * Rare visits to healthcare professionals
[AS: AI and wearable tech we already have. However, IMO embedded tech is going to have a short history, if it has one at all. Non-invasive technologies, scans and triggers seem more likely.] Via Andrew Spong tōd (pronounced "toad") is an exciting and powerful new way to connect your mobile device* to the world around and right in front of you, using our bite-sized ultra low power Bluetooth 4.0 enabled Smart Beacons.
Simply attach or place a tōd Smart Beacon, that can run for years on a single coin-cell battery onto anything, anywhere you want to extend mobile device or web functionality. Or, you can interact with Smart Beacons placed by others that you are allowed to connect with. Via ddrrnt 
InterSystems has launched a new version of its HealthSense platform that features data-modeling and enhanced analytics to allow doctors to search through unstructured data. InterSystems, an IT vendor that powers many state health information exchange (HIE) platforms, has introduced a new version of its HealthSense record-exchange software that adds new data modeling and analytics capabilities. Announced May 14, the latest version features InterSystems' iKnow technology, which allows doctors to search through unstructured narratives of patient histories. Most clinical data, such as images and text, are unstructured and in multiple file formats. In fact, about 90 percent of all clinical information is unstructured, according to Paul Grabscheid, vice president of strategic planning for InterSystems. A common platform for data sharing is necessary for the information to be accessible, he told eWEEK. iKnow can search more than 100 screens of text for concepts and topics that trend across patient records, said Grabscheid. These areas may include records for smokers or diabetics. The technology can also search for patterns in lab tests, symptoms, diagnoses and treatment. The iKnow tool could search a population of patients with coronary problems or find patterns in how treatment of asthmatics in the past compares with how a doctor is treating a current asthmatic patient, Grabscheid explained. "[iKnow] can find key concepts the info contains without a lot of upfront effort to train the system," Grabscheid told eWEEK. Via Chaturika Jayadewa 
Susannah Fox (@SusannahFox) writes:
Internet users who have experienced a recent medical emergency, their own or someone else’s, are also more likely than other internet users to go online to try to find someone who shares their situation: 23%, compared with 16%.
This fits the pattern observed in Pew Internet’s other research that people going through a medical crisis are voracious information consumers: 85% say they look online for health information, compared with 77% of internet users who have not had that experience in the past year. Via Andrew Spong Pebble and Twine: two great connected objects that go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Twine, the easiest way to connect your objects to the Internet, will integrate the Pebble smartwatch as an output to rules. Via ddrrnt 
[The abstract concludes:]
An mHealth diabetes app with the use of gamification incentives showed an improvement in the frequency of blood glucose monitoring in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
Extending this to improved health outcomes will require the incentives to be tied not only to frequency of blood glucose monitoring but also to patient actions and decision making based on those readings such that glycemic control can be improved.
J Med Internet Res 2012;14(3):e70 Via Andrew Spong |
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