Congratulations to the Adaptive Business Leaders Organization’s 2011 Innovations in Healthcare (SM) ABBY Award winners: Blausen Medical Communications, IDEAL LIFE, Teladoc, Inc., and Vertos Medical Inc., as well as this year’s “Leadership in Innovation” Award Winner, Daniel Kraft, MD, Founder and CEO of IntelliMedicine.
Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 415, the Telehealth Advancement Act of 2011, Friday opening the door for far-reaching expansion of telehealth services in California.
Okay, okay, we get it – everyone wants to age at home. How do we know? AARP say so. Forget that AARP’s survey sample might be skewed towards the younger end of fifty- and sixty-somethings, not 80-90 year olds. Forget that life expectancy is lengthening -- the good life or the not-so-good – apparently indistinguishable among the life expectancy extender-types, aka the healthcare system. Forget that this is a gloomy and isolating picture for those with limited transportation in their 80’s and 90’s, those living alone with mild to moderate dementia, and those for whom it is a great chore just to get up and about.
The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) recently announced that Best Buy is the founding consortium member of a new “living lab” in the Charter House, a Rochester continuing care retirement community.
The xHealths prefer to ignore the elephant in the room. Every day I am treated to a plethora of updates (remember my 24 LinkedIn Groups) about this conference and that event for Health 451.0, Connected YouKnowWhat, Wireless WhatsUp, and Mobile Name-that-disease. The very word ‘health’ connotes opportunity (avoid 30-day hospital readmissions!), visions of reimbursement, and smiling clinicians on the far side of webcams. After all, shouldn’t the xHealths target employer-funded health insurance programs, monitoring ailments among employees and their kids’ childhood diseases? And doesn’t the ‘m’ in mHealth mean mobile, mean smart phone, always-on, on-the-go and on-the-run? Tweet your stats to your friends and get a friendly e-mail from your doctor’s iPad.