Telehealth-RPM-Virtual Visits-Voice Health

The investment industry is covering their eyes about trends in money, health and aging. Visible awareness of the current swelling ranks of an aging (and not so healthy) population has yet to seriously penetrate the portfolios of the top venture capitalists, despite their rip-roaring second quarter. Yet the health industry employs 1 in 8 Americans. Costs are skyrocketing. No other industry has ever lowered the cost curve without technology. Instead, mobile health has a bit of VC attention -- those $3 mobile self-absorption apps for the naval-gazing young, marginally employed, and phone-obsessed. Ah, but did you know that the 18-29 year olds have less spending power than their parents? Did you know that families are spending all of their money on their smart phones instead of on consumer goods (the engine of the US economy?)

Stick versus carrot: re-admission penalties emerge October 1st.  This may be much ado about nothing – but October is the month that hospitals begin being 'penalized' for readmitting the same patients within 30 days of discharge. What’s that mean in dollars and cents?  Well, by forcing hospitals to focus on what are euphemistically called 'transitions' -- cuts of anywhere from 0.42 percent to 1 percent in revenue loom. Or look at the flip side: CMS gets back $280 million from 2200 hospitals immediately.  And who are those pesky people who have been re-admitted? Surprise, they are disproportionately comprised of seniors, initially with diseases like pneumonia, heart attack and heart failure, with more diagnoses added each year.

Rounding up from a series of press releases over the past two months, here are some new (and very new!) technologies and/or services that may be new to you for use by or in support of older adults.  All material is from vendor published information:

Care Technology Systems and Qualcomm Life Join Forces.  "A cloud-based system, Qualcomm Life's 2net Platform enables companies, providers and users to capture data from any wireless medical device and deliver it to integrated portals or databases, storing it in a secure and reliable system.  Information can be easily retrieved by physicians, caregivers or other critical audiences, such as designated healthcare service companies, providers, payors, pharmaceutical companies and application/device collaborators, for use in healthcare decisions. CTS utilizes the 2net Platform to provide PERS, ADL monitoring and biometrics." Learn more at Care Technology Systems.

About those ad words – can we outsmart them?  Just read an approving and syndicated Times article about the latest data-driven tech that uses what we access online to present us with more of the same. Given my predilection to write e-mails about the age-related technology space, the all-knowing Google regularly presents me with ads for products based on the messages I send and receive. Some ads are for vendors who are my clients, none of them are my suppliers.  As is typical, I don’t notice for a while and then – in a flash, out of the corner of my eye, I see – duh, there’s a pattern here.  So I do what you all should do regularly – tell Google these not only aren’t relevant, YOU are not who they think you are, you are someone else.  You can opt out – but, sigh, "Google may still show relevant ads based on the content of a web page" that you are viewing. But it will not ‘collect’ your interest-based information to show you more relevant content. Whew. By looking at your ads preference manager page, you can, however, change your demographic profile – making yourself older/younger than you actually are (or what Google thinks you are). This may be a wise move.