healthcare

[Here is the first of five excerpts from notes I took at Connected Health Symposium in Boston a few weeks ago]

You'd think a symposium on 'connected health', a Boston conference with 1000 attendees that included investors (who warned that there was going to be a bloodbath of failed startups) as well as vendors and tech-aware doctors would be inspiring, but the actual experience was quite the opposite.

Monitoring your health at home looks like an incredible opportunity for big and small vendors -- including Zume Life, which just announced the 'Zuri' -- a hand-held device which prompts users to take their pills and keeps track of health-related issues, including upload to a Web page that can be shared. It will cost around $200 when it is available in the spring, plus $40-50/month for Web services.

This makes me very angry -- I hope it will enrage you as well. I must post this study about violations found in nursing homes, even though I am a long-term care ombudsman (volunteer -- we don't certify nursing homes!).

GE Heathcare announced this week "that it will distribute and co-market Living Independently's QuietCare products globally." QuietCare "alerts caregivers to behavioral changes that may signal potential health issues or emergency situations." My view -- this represents an intersection between the health and aging in place marketplaces. How it gets categorized may significantly influence market adoption.

Folks are thinking about how to help seniors remember their to take their medication-- but have they got it right?  Clearly, there's a problem, with a 700% increase in deaths from medication errors at home, and of course the risk from not complying with prescription guidance and frequency has escalated risk of complications and hospitalizations.

Forrester analyst Elizabeth Boehm just wrote last week about the Fifth Annual Healthcare Unbound Conference — her conclusion, that attendees are frustrated at the lack of market uptake on all of these cool new products, among them wearable diagnostic offerings (CardioNet).