AgeTech

The Internet of "Healthy" Things.  The Internet of Things (IoT) has provided material for many markets, so the acronym begs for reuse and recycle. Consider the Internet of Caring Things, (gadgets that note worrisome changes in wellbeing). Then there’s the Internet of Everyday Things (think vacuuming and thermostats), the Internet of Transportation Things (that's cars and truck stuff), the Internet of Medical Things (old term: Health IT), etc. The 2015 Connected Health Symposium was sponsored by Boston’s sprawling care delivery system, Partners Healthcare. So last week's IoT boomlet was sub-titled: The Internet of Healthy Things, and included improving patient digital experience through 'better understanding of their emotions' through the use of facial, voice, and other indicators.

Louisville, Kentucky is the aging-industry capital of the United States. The city is a very big player in long-term care, host to a variety of "headquarters in nursing home, rehabilitation, assisted living and home health administration." Last week the city (and a variety of its long-term care industry sponsors) ran an industry summit that included two days of sessions and a bevy of live pitches. It is striking to contemplate the simultaneous growing blur and yet near-complete disconnect between health-related innovations involving doctors and the world of aging care. There has long been a need for disruptive innovation in the long-term care industry -- which, like the health care industry overall, struggles with lower reimbursements, which in turn have resulted in further industry consolidation.

How retro: Bed sensors come into the mainstream.  These days, we seem to be really obsessed with tracking our sleep. Or rather, tech firms like Samsung want to track our sleep with their tech. SLEEPSense will give you a sleep score (Yay!) and even turn off the TV if you've fallen asleep while watching. That's why they invested in EarlySense, an Israeli company, and made an effort to learn ways to improve sleep quality. But this isn't really new:  tech trying to improve sleep has been around the wearables market for a while, along with white noise generators and the like. BamLabs, for example, was noted (or notable) at least four years ago with its bed sensor offering.