It's never too late to Tweet.  So says the Evercare 100@100 survey, which found 3 centernarians who use Twitter. I can neither endorse nor reject that as being a bad use of time. But I do hope when I am 100 that there is a more useful tool than Twitter out there, which has the look and feel of millions of people all standing on separate islands screaming 'hello-o-o...is anyone out there?' in a short-hand dialect that only they speak. 

Some interesting conversations this month with:

Dr. Danny Sands, Cisco HealthPresence.  It was great to speak with Cisco's Dr. Danny Sands. He is the Senior Medical Informatics Director within the Internet Business Systems Group (IBSG). Dr. Sands is an evangelist for the use of Cisco TelePresence technology for HealthPresence -- to help patients consult with doctors remotely, in regions where there may be a shortage of primary care physicians or particular specialists (nursing homes, for example). HealthPresence will be useful in any location that it may be impractical to have a doctor on site. And he can envision a time when you might go to a local walk-in clinic or post office, register with a concierge and enter a secure room powered with HealthPresence. You will describe your symptoms to a physician who is many miles from where you live. Someday we may even have Distance Medicine Physicians (DMPs?) who prefer to practice this way rather than face-to-face. Cisco's current initiative with HealthPresence is to provide a mobile telehealth capabilitity to rural New Mexico through Project Hope.

Dr. Paul Grundy, IBM Healthcare Transformation.  Speaking of United Health, they are one of the insurers piloting the Patient Centered Medical Home, promoted by a broad-based collaborative of advocates, including IBM. In the PCMH approach, coordinated primary care is focused on quality and matching the right method of care with the need -- supported by electronic record keeping. Dr. Grundy believes that our current upside-down reimbursement model is due for overhaul -- today most physicians are reimbursed for quantity than quality of care. Instead, the care model will be overhauled and replaced with the PCMH model, which has proved extremely effective, for example, in Denmark. Dr. Grundy: "In Denmark, healthcare is characterized by more prevention, robust self-care in the home, electronic records support, electronic monitoring with alerts to physicians, and team-based delivery of care at the right time, right place. The result has been hospital closings, not to save money, but because they aren't used. At a minimum, the PCMH approach will drop costs and enable doctors to practice at the height of their license."

Rick Grimes, CEO, ALFA.  Speaking of Twitter, I chatted with Rick Grimes, CEO of the Assisted Living Federation of America (ALFA) who regularly tweets items of interest to Twitterers interested in the topic of  aging and independence (http://twitter.com/RickGrimes) -- which he observed, ironically, really isn't a federation, isn't limited to assisted living, and isn't even limited to the USA. Instead, members are intent as an organization at finding ways to help seniors stay independent, including helping them with services in their own homes, and battling various state regulations that make it difficult. Like AARP (which dropped the words that made up its title abbreviation), ALFA may be due for a name change or at least word evaporation. Rick sees how social technologies and multiple interaction channels is changing the way members interact -- the ALFA website reflects it.

Finally, in keeping with the 2009 Aging and Health Technology report to be published on this site on September 8th (called Calibrated Care is Closer to Home), our vendor of the month is ConsultADoctor, Wolf Shlagman, CEO. This is part of the growing market category within 'telemedicine' in which doctors provide e-mail and telephone consultations, 24x7. More about that approach and how it matters to boomers and seniors in the upcoming report.

Key blog entries from the past month:

Fragmented thinking (gov and industry) hobbles technology enablement. The pace of technology evolution to support multiple interaction models for the delivery of health care is aggressive, but there are few signs of a coordinated process to take advantage of it.

Google Voice trumps Skype for boomers and seniors. As Chris Anderson's book Free hammers home and Google repeatedly demonstrates, free long distance calling (anywhere in the USA) is a powerful lure.

Lots more insights, observations in the blog (for example, about the Philips Lifeline call center and Amazon's Kindle). I hope you wend your way around it yourself -- please watch the 'Related News Articles' and 'Vendor Press Releases' section and send ideas and updates as you have them. That's it for August!

Remember, you can sign up for blog post notifications on www.ageinplacetech.com by putting your e-mail address into a Subscribe 'Feedburner' box on the left. (Of course within the posts you receive, you can unsubscribe as well.)  Registering on the site enables download of the 2009 Market Overview and -- very soon! -- download of the 2009 Aging and Health Technology report.

All the best wishes for end of summer,

Laurie Orlov

Founder, Principal Analyst, Aging in Place Technology Watch