Home Health Technology News

Home Health Technology News

You are here: Home / Archives for Vendors

Reliq Health Technologies shows market what it can do

by Leave a Comment

‘This is the year of execution’

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – After partnering with two home health agencies earlier this year, Reliq Health Technologies recently hit 1,000 patients live on its remote patient monitoring platform.

“Everything we said we would do, we’re doing,” said Giancarlo De Lio, chief visionary officer at Reliq. “This is the year of execution.”

Reliq’s iUGO Health technology platform comprises hardware and software that allows complex patients to receive high quality care in the home, improving health outcomes and reducing the cost of care delivery.

In August, the company announced partnerships with Texas-based Paz Home Health and Rio Grande Valley Health Alliance, which, together, serve more than 40,000 patients. It has also secured pilot programs with several hospitals and organizations not only in the U.S., but also the U.K. and Canada.

Then in September, Reliq began work on developing a mobile health app for the city of San Antonio to help improve public health and awareness. The app will provide a telemedicine platform that connects patients to doctors and nurses anywhere there is Internet access. The mTelecare app will support video consultations for patients with health care professionals from their home, as well as provide automated prescription refills, search tools for health care services, a personalized health calendar with push notifications and a suite of billing and payment tools.

Moving forward, Reliq plans to continue to grow its user and client base. It has set a goal of 1,000 new patients every month.

“For us, it’s all about the current features of what we’re doing,” said De Lio. “We’re trying to stay on the edge of technology and now we get to show off what we do.”

BioSensics receives $2.5M NIH grant for Huntington’s wearable

by Leave a Comment

WATERTOWN, Mass. – Wearable sensor developer BioSensics has received $2.5 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health to develop a wearable monitor for patients with Huntington’s disease.

“HD patients often have to travel long distances to be seen by knowledgeable HD clinicians,” said Dr. George Yohrling, senior director of mission and scientific affairs of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, in a statement. “The development and eventual integration of wearable biosensors into a HD clinic would allow for remote monitoring of a patient’s motor symptoms and could alleviate this unnecessary burden on the entire HD family.”

The device, called HDWear, is powered by BioSensics’ PAMSys sensor technology and enables continuous remote monitoring of Huntington’s disease motor symptoms.

The two-year project will build on pilot work performed in collaboration with the University of Rochester Medical Center and Teva Pharmaceuticals, and published in the Journal of Huntington’s Disease in 2016. The study demonstrated a wearable sensor solution for remotely monitoring the severity of upper extremity chorea in Huntington’s disease.

HDWear will provide real-time, remote access to quantitative motor symptom scores like the Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale, previously only possible through in-clinic assessments.

As a part of the project, BioSensics and the University of Rochester Medical Center will conduct a clinical study to evaluate HDWear for detecting pharmacological response to anti-chorea medication or subtle motor abnormalities in the premanifest stage of Huntington’s disease.

“We are excited to be working with BioSensics on evaluating wearable sensors to obtain objective, high frequency, and potentially sensitive assessments of individuals with Huntington’s disease, both inside and outside the clinic,” said Dr. Ray Dorsey, director of the Center for Health & Technology at University of Rochester Medical Center, in a statement.

“We look forward to creating a comprehensive telecare solution for Huntington’s disease to facilitate clinical research and new drug development, and ultimately to improve and revolutionize HD care and care coordination,” said Dr. Joseph Gwin, vice president of research and development at BioSensics.

Tunstall continues growth with West coast acquisition

by Leave a Comment

‘We want to continue to grow, but not too fast’

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. – Tunstall Healthcare Group is continuing its expansion across the U.S. with the recent acquisition of Oregon-based Providence Lifeline Medical Alert Service.

“We hadn’t done a lot of expansion in the West and we wanted to start filling in geographically,” said Ryan Fix, vice president and general manager of Tunstall Americas. “We knew Providence would be a great partner for us.”

Tunstall Americas provides nationwide 24/7 connected health care monitoring services from multiple call centers. The company also manufacturers connected care and connected health products like PERS devices, telehealth and medication management products.

Fix said choosing Providence as a West coast anchor was a two-year process for Tunstall Americas, and marks its largest acquisition since it purchased New York-based American Medical Alert Corp. in 2011.

“What clicked for us was Providence’s mission as it related to customers and service,” he said. “We’ve spent the past 12 months with a deeper focus on company culture being front and center.”

Providence Lifeline Medical Alert, a service line of Providence Health & Services, which is part of Providence St. Joseph Health, provides access to emergency care around-the-clock to thousands of subscribers through wearable devices and wireless communication base units. As part of the acquisition, all Providence Lifeline Medical Alert employees who were part of the service’s business lines were offered employment with Tunstall Americas.

For now, Tunstall Americas will continue to consider additional acquisitions and is looking to expand into other markets.

“We’re comfortable with our services right now so we’ll consider strategic opportunities where they come, while being able to maintain our call centers,” Fix said. “We want to continue to grow, but not too fast.”

Kanega watch coming to market this year

by Leave a Comment

‘We really need to be exactly what people want’

AUSTIN, Texas – It’s been a long road to market for UnaliWear, maker of the Kanega voice-controlled watch, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter as the company looks to launch the device in 2017.

“We hope to be in production in the fourth quarter this year,” said JeanAnne Booth, CEO and founder of UnaliWear.

A $100,000 Kickstarter campaign launched in 2015 originally called for the device to be available last year, but Booth wanted to be sure the Kanega was something users needed, so adjustments to the timeline were made along the way.

“We really need to be exactly what people want,” she said.

The Kanega watch is a voice-controlled device that features fall detection, medication reminders, emergency assistance, voice-activated directions and Guide Me Home assistance if the user gets lost. The waterproof device works independently of a home-based system or smartphone and has no buttons to push.

The watch uses artificial intelligence to learn the wearer’s lifestyle, and that information is updated each night.

The company has spent the past five months deep into a user experience test on the latest version of the device. Users included about 100 people across the country ages 23 to 97 with Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gherig’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, Down’s Syndrome, blindness, disabled veterans and seniors.

Booth said the user experience test was invaluable to the company, as it brought to light some issues only a user would experience like battery charging and instruction language.

“The user experience test was fantastic—we knew it was the right thing to do,” she said.

Booth said UnaliWear will look to add biometrics to the Kanega device in the future.

“We want to wait on the biometrics until we have enough money to get through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration process independently, without having to rely on investors,” she said.

The company is continuing with a smaller user experience test on the final production version over the coming weeks.

Q&A: Dedi Gilad of TytoCare

by Leave a Comment

‘If patients want to have access to digital health options, they will need to demand access to these tools’

NEW YORK – As the co-founder and CEO of telehealth company TytoCare, Dedi Gilad believes a broader adoption of digital health will happen when consumers demand it. He said physicians can help this process by changing their own perceptions of how digital health will impact their practices. Read on for more of Gilad’s thoughts on the challenge of making digital health ubiquitous.

HHTN: What are some of the biggest challenges to a broader adoption of digital health?

Gilad: A key challenge is consumer awareness, though awareness and willingness to try telehealth are growing significantly. A recent survey by The Advisory Board found that 77% of patients want access to virtual care and telehealth, but many have reservations about the services, with the biggest concerns being quality of care and trust. Once consumers grow more aware that telehealth services are available to them with the same quality of care and diagnostic potential, the growing demand will encourage physicians to adopt digital health tools and services. Another obstacle is physician resistance to changing how they practice medicine and receive reimbursement. Health care has traditionally been slow to take full advantage of what today’s technology has to offer, typically preferring to see the impact before adopting. Thirty-four states now have laws requiring insurance plans to cover telehealth, which will help encourage adoption, but some clinicians still question whether or not a telehealth visit can replicate an in-person visit.

HHTN: What are some of the most important developments in digital health to date?

Gilad: Video technology has been an extremely important technological development enabling the growth of digital health. The ability to be seen by a doctor remotely set the digital health field on a path toward further innovation, and due to the advanced development of a variety of sensors, health care can now go beyond just video visits with a physician by providing consumers with medical-grade tools like an otoscope, stethoscope, thermometer and high-quality camera, allowing consumers to not only be seen by a physician, but to actually capture exam data from home and provide everything the doctor needs to offer a diagnosis remotely.

HHTN: What is the patient’s role in the delivery of digital health?

Gilad: If patients want to have access to digital health options, they will need to demand access to these tools from their providers to encourage wider adoption. This will require that consumers develop trust in digital health products and demand that quality health care be delivered to them in the home, when they need it. As consumers become more used to having many services available on-demand, they should make no exception for health care. As telehealth becomes more widely available and awareness increases, patients will be choosing health care providers based on whether they provide these kinds of services, and the shift toward more virtual care will take place in the industry.

HHTN: What do you think home health technology will look like in the next five years?

Gilad: We expect to see growing demand from consumers and increasing adoption by health providers of digital health tools that enable a certain level of health care to take place at home. This shift will improve convenience and access to quality care for consumers while easing the burden on health systems. Patients who are homebound or have travel constraints can now be given quality medical attention without leaving their homes. We envision a future in which patients and consumers in every home, school or office can use telehealth services to connect to the physician or specialist of their choice for services like remote exams, lab work and other tests like electrocardiograms and body scans. This technology already exists; it is just a matter time before we see more adoption. The continued adoption will depend upon both direct-to-consumer and provider-to-provider telehealth services, as more health systems begin to incorporate connected health solutions.

Q&A: Christian Stammel of WT/Wearable Technologies Group

by Leave a Comment

‘Wearables could make treatment significantly easier and less stigmatic for patients’

SAN FRANCISCO –WT/Wearables Technologies Group has been watching the growth of wearable devices and their advance into the health care space. Christian Stammel, founder and CEO, believes wearables are much more than fitness trackers—they are essential to the digitization of health care. Here are some of his thoughts on the transformative power of wearable devices.

HHTN: How are wearable devices impacting the delivery of health care?

Stammel: They are impacting new treatment methods and are actually creating new methods of diagnosis monitoring and medication across all aspects of medical care—from prevention and inpatient/outpatient care to rehabilitation. The spectrum ranges from intelligent band-aids for measuring blood sugar levels to patches that deliver the individually required quantity of drugs to intelligent pills that are able to monitor the correct drug administration. Wearables have become an everyday item and are available for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and asthma, and make life much easier for patients and provide physicians with a lot more information about their conditions than conventional methods.

HHTN: What makes wearable technology so transformative?

Stammel: The monitoring of vital data is central to helping people who are suffering from chronic and acute illnesses. This is where wearables can deliver optimum solutions for monitoring almost any type of complaint at home or in clinics. Precisely tailored wearables are also available for specific diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, asthma, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, and are becoming new options for monitoring newborns and pregnant women.

HHTN: Is the growth of the wearables market keeping pace with the booming growth of other health care technologies?

Stammel: There is certainly an indication of the continuously growing demand for wearables. More than 150 million wearable products were sold across the world last year, making it a market that will have doubled by 2020. Initial forecasts estimate that 400 million wearables will be sold in 2020, and a good 50% of this figure will be medical wearables. The market for smart patches, in particular, will probably make up a very high share of this market.

HHTN: What do you expect to see in the future for wearable technology?

Stammel: Advancing miniaturization technology is going to deliver solutions for medical monitoring that are increasingly small and more pleasant for patients to use. Medical wearables are being increasingly developed in the form of smart patches that will enable patients to use long-term monitoring products and even receive medication in such a way that is almost invisible to others. This means that wearables could make treatment significantly easier and less stigmatic for patients.

K4Connect taps into Garmin

by Leave a Comment

RALEIGH, N.C. – K4Connect, a health technology company that focuses on serving the senior population, has teamed up with Garmin to integrate wearable devices into its connected life platform.

The platform, K4Community, is designed for adults living in apartments at senior living communities, and uses a tablet to connect a variety of home wellness and lifestyle devices, which now includes Garmin’s vivofit 3 device.

“We’ve deployed the devices to several senior living communities we serve and they love it,” said Scott Moody, co-founder, CEO and chief client advocate of K4Connect, in a recent discussion of the program at the New York Stock Exchange.

The positive reception backs up a recent report by the American Association of Retired Persons that found that more than 75% of participants in a study reported health and wellness trackers to be useful.

For Garmin, the partnership with K4Connect pivots the company, which is best known for its GPS tracking devices, to the home health technology market. Its vivofit 3 device, launched in April, monitors heart rate and tracks sleep and other health and fitness metrics.

“We wanted to collaborate with someone who was doing innovative things in an area we were interested in,” said Sean McNamara, head of health partnerships at Garmin, in the discussion. “Partnering with K4Connect was a perfect fit.”

Staff members of the senior living communities where vivofit 3 devices have been initially deployed have a view of real-time analytics showing activity and wellness trends of the residents who wear them.

“They are easy to use and allow for a single sync point to the entire K4Community platform,” Moody said.

Q&A: Olivier Hua, BeWell Connect

by

‘As people monitor their fitness levels, they will be motivated to lead healthier lifestyles’

BOSTON – As the CEO of connected health technology company BeWell Connect, Olivier Hua is a big believer in the power of wearable devices and remote monitoring of patients for health prevention. Here’s what he had to say about how wearable devices and other technology are impacting home health.

HHTN: How does technology empower people to take charge of their own health?

Hua: As people monitor their fitness levels, weight and vitals, they will be motivated to lead healthier lifestyles, which will reduce their health care costs. Patients can monitor their own health, while still getting an expert opinion. Even more importantly, patients suffering with chronic health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure can monitor their vitals on a daily basis, while sharing data with their doctors, reducing the amount of doctors’ visits they make. By empowering the patients, home health devices can ultimately give arguments to each individual to better negotiate with the insurers his/her healthcare costs.

HHTN: What are the obstacles to broader adoption of these devices?

Hua: Reimbursement is the key. Traditionally, reimbursement has been limited, so many people must pay out of pocket. Technologies are still fairly recent and are evolving very fast. Few of them were medical grade at the beginning, creating questions and/or doubts of their reliability. As more data and studies come out showing the benefits of at-home monitoring, including the cost savings for the patient and the payer in the long run by being proactive in monitoring, hopefully we will see a shift in the legislation. There’s a bill in process right now that would look to expand reimbursement for telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, so that’s a start.

HHTN: What needs to happen for wearable devices to be considered reimbursable?

Hua: The intention of these products is to help people improve their health and avoid a more costly or dangerous problem later, so the devices need to be medical-grade quality and FDA approved. Not all devices are created equal; it’s important the patient is collecting accurate data that he or she can use in conjunction with his doctor to monitor vitals and improve health.

HHTN: How is technology changing the way home health care is delivered?

Hua: Technology is changing the way physicians monitor patients, and it is enabling those with chronic illnesses to monitor their own health at home, while still keeping in touch with their doctors. All medical data recorded is transferred via Bluetooth to the user’s smart phone, which can then be sent directly to the physician, who can intervene if need be. This eliminates the actual trip to the office, but the doctor is, and will still be, involved in the process.

Q&A: Lori Herb, Geneia @Home Remote Monitoring

by

‘We have to be able to show a return on investment’

CHICAGO – Health plans, hospitals and employers depend on technology like wearable devices to better understand, evaluate and manage the health of their populations. Lori Herb, senior director of clinical outreach and engagement at health care analytic solutions and services company Geneia, talked with us about the role of wearable devices in remote patient monitoring programs.

HHTN: What role do wearable devices play in health care management?

HERB: Wearables allow for the use of biometric data to be incorporated into existing case and disease management programs to better manage the health of the members participating in these programs. These patients are the highest risk and having this data allows for improved outcomes by reducing cost, and improving quality and program satisfaction.

HHTN: What are some obstacles to broader reimbursement of these devices?

HERB: We have to be able to show a return on investment as we expand out to additional disease states. Using analytics to identify members who would benefit from home monitoring is key to improving outcomes and seeing a return on investment.

HHTN: Do you think we will see broader reimbursement in the future?

HERB: If there continues to be positive outcomes with the use of devices, there will be greater consideration for reimbursement. We need to continue to see improvements in the risk of the population, resulting in lower costs and improved outcomes.

HHTN: Why is this a technology that’s worth reimbursing?

HERB: Technology allows for better use of clinical resources by providing the ability to intervene in a patient’s care when needed, sometimes without even needing to make a visit to the home.

Q&A: Honeywell’s John Bojanowski

by

‘I can see a more intentional shift from reactive to proactive models’

BROOKFIELD, Wis. – As president of Honeywell Life Care Solutions, John Bojanowski is deeply immersed in the telehealth space. Here are his thoughts on the future of tech-based home health care delivery.

HHTN: How is technology impacting the way home health care is delivered?

BOJANOWSKI: Technology is having a positive impact on home care delivery because of several factors. There is a cost savings associated with remote patient monitoring due to reductions in home visits, improved outcomes and reduced hospital readmissions. Nurses can manage more patients using remote patient monitoring and telehealth technology. Remote/rural patients have increased accessibility to specialists and, in turn, health care systems have increased reach to rural patients through remote patient monitoring and telehealth. The videoconferencing component of telehealth not only makes it possible for the clinicians to see and assess how patients look and react, but it offers the opportunity for a patient’s family members or other caregivers to participate in decision making.

HHTN: What are some of the biggest challenges?

BOJANOWSKI: Rapid deployment and long-term growth; integration with EMR; and reimbursement.

HHTN: What will home health care look like in the next five years?

BOJANOWSKI: Home health care needs to support a more mobile patient population in the future—meeting people where they are with more flexible solutions. I see virtual visits to a care provider becoming the norm instead of in-person clinic visits and this will absolutely need to be supported by telehealth solutions.

HHTN: What do you see as some of the biggest technological advances on the home health care horizon?

BOJANOWSKI: An exciting prospect is that of digital health technologies merging with smart home technologies for better, broader and more scalable remote patient monitoring programs. I can see a more intentional shift from reactive to proactive models—supporting individuals with even more tools to manage their own care and ultimately leading to preventive care instead of chronic disease management.

HHTN: What do you see as Honeywell’s role in the market?

BOJANOWSKI: LifeStream is the foundation of our telehealth offering. It is FDA-regulated, so it is classified as a medical device, and combines technology, training and support services validated during our 15-plus years of experience in telehealth. We know exactly what works—and we can provide the ultimate telehealth experience.

CLOSE
Home Health Technology News - Sign up for our Wednesday Wire
CLOSE