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Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care

In politics, every serious candidate for the White House has a health care plan. So too in business, where the two leading candidates for Web supremacy, Google and Microsoft, are working up their plans to improve the nation’s health care.

By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

“What’s behind this is the mass consumerization of health information,” said Dr. David J. Brailer, the former health information technology coordinator in the Bush administration, who now heads a firm that invests in health ventures.

Read the whole article on The New York Times

Technological advances could stem future demand for nursing homes

At least that is his hope, given that improved mobility, independence and ability to remain safely at home improve long-term happiness and even life span for the aged.

All of which suggests that aging baby boomers someday will live like the Jetsons, with technology keeping track of their health and providing ready assistance in everyday life, including helping them to drive and shop.

Dr. Resnick, chief of University of Pittsburgh's Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and director of Pitt's Institute on Aging, outlined technological ideas, many in the works in his own departments, to allow older people to stay home longer without risking their health and safety.

Read about advanaced heart monitoring, pill reminders, automated doctor to mobile phone perscriptions, vital statistics monitoring and more on the post-gazette

Forget the nursing home, talk to the television

My Dad was laughing the other week at one of those naff car stickers that read: Be nice to your children, they choose your nursing home.

As he chortled I pointed out that he'd really better heed this message with as much gravitas as his advancing years could muster.

But if a UK technology start-up gets its way, the nursing home could become an increasingly rare phenomenon.

Care homes could be replaced with a broadband-based platform that its makers claim will enable the elderly and the sick to stay in their homes much longer than is currently possible.
Mediagrids has developed a platform that uses broadband, 3G and eventually WiMax, to provide telecare services.

It says its technology goes far beyond the realms of panic buttons and voice-only call centres and will include intelligent monitoring of people in their home to provide preventative care.
People needing care or medical attention will be able to have their homes connected to the system that will monitor their health and check they are not in trouble using digital cameras and interactive communication technology.

So in theory, an elderly person could fall over and the care workers manning the system would know immediately because they could see into the home and talk to the person to assess how much help they need.

It will also apparently be able to remind people to take medication, provide virtual links to medical staff, and allow users and their friends and family to have interactive video chats through their television sets. While the company has yet to sign-up any UK customers, it has appointed a reseller that is piloting the technology with two unnamed NHS trusts.

The idea sounds great in practice but is dependent on healthcare organisations, and individuals, having the requisite broadband connections, and perhaps more importantly being willing to trust such advanced methods of care. As the nation increasingly rebels against 'Big Brother' culture, there are bound to be questions about the invasive nature of the technology. And then there is the challenge of getting elderly people who have never used a computer to accept that they are being looked after by a camera on the bookshelf.

It could take some convincing.

Source: Fromthenewdesk

AgeSpan offers Virtual Visitation for family members in Nursing Homes, Assisted Living Centers, and Veterans Administration Hospitals

AgeSpan, a senior Internet enabling solution for seniors in the United States, unveiled their SAM (Senior Assisted Monitoring) Cam solution for combating nursing home abuse and monitoring health conditions in VA Hospitals. Working on this solution for the past 6 years, AgeSpan had to overcome the many cons associated with the use of cameras in assisted living centers and nursing homes. Complicated daily maintenance tasks, high hardware costs, and infringement of privacy are examples of the obstacles that groups against video surveillance in nursing homes repeated over and over again as things that needed to be addressed and fixed. Fortunately for them, as the technology progressed these obstacles were eliminated.

While working on the camera solution, AgeSpan also discovered that the camera is a perfect solution for satisfying virtual visitation needs by the family members and nurses that are contracted to visit the elderly in their homes while overseeing such things as their eating and medicinal habits. This solution allows seniors to continue an independent life in their current home, reduce their future living expenses, and make it possible for seniors to live near their families, but not with them.

With this advanced camera technology, complimented by AgeSpan's in-house ability to engineer, furnish, and install the customer's requested configuration for a turnkey solution, these negatives have turned into positives. Craig German, an AgeSpan representative, recently said: "The latest camera technology allows the end-user to see in low to no-light conditions allowing for night time viewing, much like we've seen in video sent to us by CNN of the Gulf War. In addition, this same camera can take a picture at a prescribed time or an event, via it built-in motion detection features, and then e-mail the picture to a responsible party so that they can view it on the new cell phones, PCs, or laptops anywhere in the world! With the camera's fast video frame rates you won't get those robotic-like video pictures anymore that web cameras provide."

Source: eMediaWire

Mayo Clinic goes to mobile phones

Mayo Clinic and Digital Cyclone (a subsidiary of Garmin) have collaborated to develop a software application that delivers an array of health information and tools directly to cellular phones. The Mayo Clinic InTouch wireless health program will be available next week offering wireless phone subscribers a rich health resource directly on their phone with immediate access to step-by-step first aid tips, a symptom checker that provides self-care guidelines or advises emergency care for more than 45 common symptoms in adults and children, health news videos, health alerts and drug watches.

"Mayo Clinic's mission has three elements: quality patient care, research to help cure diseases and education," says Roger Harms, M.D., a Mayo Clinic obstetrician and gynecologist and the medical editor-in-chief for MayoClinic.com. "Our education function is not limited to training the next generation of physicians and other medical providers, though. We also see providing health information to consumers as essential. Through this new project we're able to make it available to them wherever they are."

In addition, subscribers may enter their city or ZIP code to search for nearby emergency and urgent care facilities from a list of over 3,800 accredited providers. If the cell phone has global positioning system (GPS) capability, it automatically finds nearby accredited facilities without typing the city or ZIP code. The care center's information is displayed in list format and shows the facility's name, address and estimated distance.

Content for the Mayo Clinic InTouch program primarily comes from MayoClinic.com and Mayo Clinic's Medical Edge syndicated news products. Customers can subscribe to the Mayo Clinic InTouch program for US$2.99 per month. A list of wireless carriers and phones supported can be found here. http://www.digitalcyclone.com/mayo. http://www.mayoclinic.com/

From Gizmag