Google Health, a solution for a problem you didn't know you had. Why did Google launch Google Health in 2008 -- and shut it down this week? I picture folks there imagining in our health-conscious, self-care oriented Internet searchers, yearning for a place to park our personal records, and that the advertisers, knowing this, would ultimately layer in oodles of ads that related specifically our growing health self-management needs and wants. Sorting and organizing our personal health (or elder care) information on an online website -- it sounds like a good idea. From the Times article in 2008: "The companies all hope to capitalize eventually on the trend of increasingly seeking health information online, and the potential of Internet tools to help consumers manage their own health care and medical spending."  Well, they got the former quite right. With more than 60,000 sites to look for a name-that-diagnosis factoid, we are both desperately and patiently seeking health information (sadly not necessarily correlating with our improved health). But unless our insurance companies mandated and incented us to enter data online -- or our post-clipboard era doctors required it, do we really want to put our med lists (or any other personal information lists) on advertising-sponsored sites (including WebMD)? If our credit card files can be hacked and siphoned away, even just thinking our health information (or that our aging parents) is out there, reusable, intentionally or not, should give vendors pause -- and so it did -- bye bye, Google Health. >>> Read more . . .

Do some professionals think we're speaking another language? Maybe it's just my particular experience. But have you ever tried to discuss aging in place technology with a home care agency or other caregiver group and watched them morph into that blank stare, I-don’t-like-or-trust-technology catatonic state? A while ago, I was at a presentation given by the West Wireless Health Institute.  In the room were dozens of caregiver organizations – home care agencies, disease affinity groups, senior centers, etc. The presentation was fascinating – GloCaps, Band-Aid heart monitors -- all kinds of neat health gadgets as well as the challenges that lie ahead with deployment and acceptance. >>> Read more . . .

Technologies to keep those with dementia safe at home.   How you ask the question changes the answer. A few weeks ago, I revised my thinking about dementia care technology. The catalyst:An interviewer with the Cincinnati Enquirer called me a few weeks ago for a story she was doing -- and asked me about the technologies that could enable those with Alzheimer's or other dementias to remain safely in their homes.  When asked the question that way, I realized that there were quite a few and worth summarizing and referencing more of the vendors in this blog post -- none were in the article to the degree that a previous blog posts on caegiving tech and Azheimer's tracking technologies (2009). So here is an expansion on the Cincinnati Enquirer's published story including statements from the interview/article and expansion: >>> Read more . . .

Hospitals say don't come back -- but do they mean it? Apparently hospitals needed the current push from the government to figure out a way to keep patients, especially the elderly, from being re-admitted within 30 days of their departure.  So now many hospitals are on the case, working their way through individual pilot programs designed the way they see fit, one pilot program at a time. In an article whimsically titled 'Don't Come Back, Hospitals Say,' today's WSJ offered up Boston University's 'Louise', a 'virtual discharge advocate' wheeled up to bedside (aka a software app) to offer discharge instructions to patients (post hospital regimens, including lists of meds) as they ready to leave the hospital.  BU's Project RED (Re-Engineered Discharge) converts into a packet of materials that offer up a medication dosage package and instructions. >>> Read more . . .