Three ways to manage swine flu through mHealth
 What role can mobile phones play in saving lives during a swine flu outbreak? Three companies in the mHealth industry have spoken out this week about the opportunity mobiles could play in mitigating the risk of a pandemic disease like swine flu. mHealth could help public health officials better collect data, could help slow the spread of the flu through remote monitoring, and could help keep people aware of where swine flu diagnoses had been made through the use of mobile phone-based social networks with GPS “bookmarks.”
Datadyne.org’s Joel Selanikio, who just won this year’s $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, used the official announcement of his winning the award to point out that his EpiSurveyor, mobile phone software, may work well in emerging markets, but developing countries aren’t the only ones who could use help routinely collecting their own national-level health statistics.
“As the global financial crisis and disease outbreaks like the swine flu place heavy burdens on already taxed healthcare systems, new technology-based solutions hold enormous potential to help overcoming challenges such as a shortage of doctors or access to remote environments with limited infrastructure,” Datadyne wrote in a press release.
Datadyne has helped equip public health workers with PDAs loaded with EpiSurveyor software to create a more regular and timely stream of public health information as well as an easier way to organize and manage emergency immunization campaigns, like the emergency polio vaccination campaign that is currently immunizing more than 2 million children in Kenya.
IBM’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Bakalar agrees that mHealth can help manage swine flu: “Look at our current situation with swine flu,” Bakalar said this week during a panel discussion at ATA. “If we were to have a pandemic outbreak of swine flu, it would be better to take care of those patients through home healthcare technology” instead of bringing them into the clinical setting where the flu could just continue to spread.
Bakalar said that the management of swine flu is a perfect example of why we need to de-centralize healthcare in some situations. Care needs to be extended beyond the four walls of the hospital or doctor’s office and find a place in the patient’s home, too.
Bakalar ended his comments on swine flu with a powerful message: “We need to train as we fight,” he said. Bakalar explained that we need to change the general behavior of the population to get used to monitoring health choices and care regimens for chronic diseases and/or just general health indicators the “worried well”. Once we train the population to use these home health services, we would be in a better position to apply those home health skills to potential emergency situations like the swine flu.
During another session at ATA this week, Telcordia’s Senior Scientist George Collier used Whrrl, a mobile-phone based GPS-enabled social network as an example of the kind of Web 2.0 app that public health officials could emulate. Whrrl allows users to “bookmark” different locations with comments, reviews, notes, whatever — and then share those bookmarks with friends or the community of Whrrl users at large. It’s like a highly interactive Google Map that’s completely accessible and share-able from your mobile phone.
It’s not hard to make the leap from Whrrl’s restaurant review GPS “bookmarks” to ones that inform the public of potential health hazards. Imagine a GPS-enabled public health application that shows where cases of swine flu have been diagnosed — it could even send a text message to users when they get close to an area where swine flu had been diagnosed. That way people in those areas or traveling through those areas can take extra precautions.
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@ATA Swine Flu begs remote monitoring
At a panel session at the American Telemedicine Association event here in Las Vegas, IBM’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Bakalar said that the swine flu pandemic currently facing the U.S., Mexico and other countries would be better managed through home health telemonitoring systems.
“Look at our current situation with swine flu,” Bakalar said. “If we were to have a pandemic outbreak of swine flu, it would be better to take care of those patients through home healthcare technology” instead of bringing them into the clinical setting where the flu could just continue to spread.
Bakalar said that the management of swine flu is a perfect example of why we need to de-centralize healthcare in some situations. Care needs to be extended beyond the four walls of the hospital or doctor’s office and find a place in the patient’s home, too.
IBM recently announced a deal with Google to sync up wireless medical monitoring devices, like blood glucose monitors for diabetics, to Google’s personal health record Google Health. Bakalar made the point that if we change the general behavior of the population to get used to monitoring health choices and care regimens for chronic diseases or just general fitness, we could apply those home health skills to potential emergency situations like the swine flu may be.
As they say in the military, “we need to train as we fight,” Bakalar said.
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@ATA BlackBerry App World: 30 mHealth apps
When Fraser Edward joined Research In Motion (the company behind BlackBerry) four years ago, the device maker had only three partners for mobile healthcare applications, Edward said during a panel session at the American Telemedicine Association in Las Vegas. Today, Edward is RIM’s business manager of market development for Health & Life Sciences, and the company has 30 healthcare applications in its recently launched BlackBerry App World store.
During his presentation, Edward showed a slide of 12 mobile health companies that are “BlackBerry Solutions Partners,” which means they are clients of RIM to take advantage of the company’s marketing channels, developer know-how and more. Here’s a rundown of the 12 companies Edward counted as Solutions Partners and the mHealth buckets he put them in:
Fitness:
AllSportGPS — powered by Trimble — GPS-enabled mobile application for coaching on cycling, mountain biking, running, walking and other sports activities.
BonesInMotion – GPS-enabled app targeting those participating in outdoor activity 3 or more times a week: fitness walking, running, cycling, hiking, mountain biking, GeoCaching, and other outdoor activities.
BodyMedia – Wearable, “fashionable” body monitors that record and transmit a variety of physiological data to the BodyMedia’s website.
Continue for more on the eight other RIM partners that Edward identified.
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@ATA Continua: First Bluetooth device in days
You can expect the Continua Health Alliance to announce two new certified products by next week, Rick Cnossen, chairman of the alliance’s technical working group, told attendees at the American Telemedicine Association event in Las Vegas this week. Cnossen said that one of the products will also be the first Bluetooth-enabled Continua certified product to hit the market. So far, Continua has only officially certified one product: Nonin’s pulse oximeter, which uses the alliance’s USB module for future interoperability. Cnossen indicated that the first Bluetooth-enabled Continua-certified product will not be one of Nonin’s.
“Opportunity is knocking,” said Partners Healthcare’s Douglas McClure, “and chaos is following.” McClure, who is the Corporate Manager for Partners’ Center for Connected Health, described successful pilots that made use of mobile remote monitoring services for diabetes, hypertension and heart failure management, but lamented an inability to mix and match the solutions for patients that are trying to manage two or more of these conditions. The services require different devices on different networks and interface via different types of connections — chaos was the word used by most panelists from Continua.
The alliance is working toward a common way to communicate data, McClure said. “In getting that industry adoption [of Continua's guidelines] we get the flexibility that we want, that our patients want and that providers will adopt… One of the things we are really looking forward to, is to say: ‘If you want to send us data, you have to do it through a Continua-certified xHR interface.” McClure later explained that Partners is already including that kind of language in some of its grant proposals. He also said vendors should expect to see more RFPs including Continua-certified product demands as early as next year, depending on the number of devices in the market by then.
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Epocrates warns docs about recalled drug
According to a recent report from Wireless Week, Epocrates’ mobile application played a pivotal role in getting the word out to physicians that the psoriasis drug Raptiva had been pulled from the market because it may play a role in a potentially fatal brain condition called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML).
A few hours after the drug was pulled from the market, Epocrates sent an alert to its 225,000 physicians via its mobile and online alert services.
“Wireless technology, like text message alerts, can prompt people to do what they need to anyway: appointments and preventative health,” Don Jones, vice president of business development, healthcare, at Qualcomm told Wireless Week. “The business model that will drive this is less altruistic… it can drive health services, which are an economic engine.”
“Healthcare tends to change its practices when they think there’s been a change in the standard of care - when they think they’ll get sued and lose,” Jones said. “When 30 percent to 40 percent [of facilities] have adopted a technology, that’s the tipping point because they may be perceived as antiquated and get malpractice exposure.”
Read the Wireless Week article for more, including quotes from their interview with Scripps Health’s Dr. Eric Topol.
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Slideshow: ATA moves toward fewer wires
 Lots of mHealth-related content from the ATA panel discussions, executive roundtables and even keynotes from the first day of the ATA event. Here’s a quick round-up of the event in photos from Monday’s sessions. More photos to come next week!
Click play to scroll through the photos we captured from the first day at ATA at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
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Neonatal co. Monica Healthcare gets $1.6M VC
 PUK Ventures invested almost $1.1 million into UK-based startup, Monica Healthcare, which develops wireless technology for monitoring the health expectant mothers and their fetuses. The company raised $1.6 million in total for the round. Monica Healthcare was spun out from the University of Nottingham in May 2005. The company has a number of other wearable devices under development for accessible obstetric services at home and in the hospital. The company had two previous rounds of funding — a nearly $750,000 seed round and a $1.5 million round in 2007.
For more, read the press release on mobihealthnews.com.
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@Health 2.0 Track mood by mining text msgs
At the Lunch and Launch event at the Health 2.0 meets Ix event in Boston last week, mHealth companies dominated. The audience voted in two of the mobile phone-powered health solutions as the most impressive–Living Profiles, a Project HealthDesign startup partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and FrontlineSMS:Medic.
According to Living Profiles’ site, “The specific segment of the population that Living Profiles is looking at is teenage boys and girls who are living with chronic illnesses. 30 chronically ill California teenagers, from Orange County and the Bay Area are participating in the study. Through interviews and expressive activities we learn what motivates and inspires them towards healthy living.”
The audience seemed particularly taken by Living Profiles’ plan to mine teenagers’ text messages for key words that are indicative of moods. The group tracks and categorizes words the teens use and then gives them updates that help the teens understand changes month-over-month.
We have written about FrontlineSMS:Medic before: The startup is focused on emerging markets, particularly Africa, and aims help health workers there gather structured data from the field that can be integrated into electronic medical records (EMRs). FrontlineSMS:Medic’s Lucky Gunasekara, a Stanford med student, gave an overview of the group’s efforts, which include using the mobile phone as a remote diagnostics lab via SMS/MMS.
While it didn’t come in the top two, Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG team was represented as they announced their new mobile app for the BlackBerry platform. The app is also on the iPhone and has had some 650,000 downloads since it launched for the iPhone last year. Both the BlackBerry and iPhone apps are $2.99.
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@Health 2.0 Pew: 5% contribute online
Participatory medicine is taking hold among citizens and health professionals, The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s health research and digital strategy head Susannah Fox said during an plenary session here at Health 2.0 in Boston. There are, however, pockets of people who lack access to basic technology, lack the skills to participate, lack the interest to try something new, or lack the feeling they are welcomed to participate, she explained.
About 39 percent of adults are “motivated by mobility,” Fox discovered while conducting a soon-to-be-released Pew survey. This group is always online, checking their email or browsing the Internet, she said. The rise of the wireless Internet, however, has not served as a replacement for what we all do on desktops, but rather as a complementary activity, she said.
In the health context, Fox explained, “If you can tap into that mobile hive, you have a chance to have an impact, but most Americans, 61 percent, fall into the ’stationary media majority.’” In this group, many are on the “have” side of the “haves” and “have nots,” Fox said. Many have broadband at home and cell phones in their pockets, but they are rooted in old media. They are not workers in the mobile hive.
“If you are someone who thinks that online collaboration is a good thing,” Fox said, “Then you haven’t convinced [the stationary media majority].” Continued...
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@Health 2.0 The patient cannot be a spoke
“Nobody walks into a doctor’s office anymore without a cell phone,” Neil Calman, co-founder and President, Institute for Family Health, said during the opening plenary session at the Health 2.0 conference here in Boston. “Even the 80-year-olds have cell phones now. Connectivity is not the problem,” he said.
Calman is right to note that almost everyone has a mobile now. As we learned at CTIA Wireless earlier this month, the wireless penetration rate in the U.S. is approaching 90 percent. As of last December 87 percent of people in the U.S. had mobile phones, but I wonder how many of the remaining 13 percent are on the older side of the age spectrum. Just guessing but I bet it’s most.
That said, Calman’s anecdotal evidence that the 80+ crowd have mobiles now too is very promising for mHealth services. At least now there’s a reputable (albeit eminence over evidence) source to point to when the naysayers claim that “mHealth services are best for older people and they don’t use mobile phones”.
Calman went on to describe a presentation he recently attended that included a flow chart diagram of the healthcare system with a number of spokes coming out from a hub in the center. The doctor was one of the spokes, Calman said. The patient was one of the spokes, too. So, what was in the middle? A computer.
“We need to redraw the national care structure and put the patient in the center,” Calman said. “The patient cannot be a spoke. What I want to do is redraw the diagram with patients in the center. If I can accomplish that — even a little bit — I’ll be satisfied.”
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Slideshow: Health 2.0 stays patient-focused
Last week the mobihealthnews spent two days covering the Health 2.0 conference in Boston, MA. For those readers who were unable to make it to the show we also put together a quick photo essay that includes just some of the speakers and panels that were on-stage at the event this past week.
Click play to scroll through the photos we captured at the Health 2.0 event that took place during the event at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel… Enjoy!
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May 12, La Jolla, CA:
2009 Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance Investor's Meeting
An Investor's Meeting to facilitate discussion and information exchange between capital sources and successful companies achieving traction and developing key emerging technologies in this rapidly advancing sector.
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May 13-14, La Jolla, CA:
2009 Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance Convergence Summit
Business, Medical and Scientific Leaders Explore the Convergence of Wireless Technologies, Life Sciences and Consumers.
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May 13-16, Boston, MA:
The Heart Rhythm Society’s 30th Annual Scientific Session
Science, discovery and innovation represent the driving forces behind this year’s Scientific Sessions. Collectively, they embody the accomplishments and aspirations of the field of cardiac arrhythmias. Attend and gain first-hand knowledge and perspectives you can put to work immediately in your own practice and learn more about the emerging and enabling technology of the future.
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June 17-17, Ft. Lauderdale:
8th CCS Summit
Transforming Healthcare through Health Information Technology
Designed to help top-level executives, legislators, physicians, regulators and technologists come to grips with the swirling forces of health information technology change, policy development and changing business models, the CCS HIT provides an intimate, high-level forum that facilitates open avenues of communication amongst executives and stakeholders in healthcare.
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June 22-23, Seattle, WA:
Sixth Annual Healthcare Unbound Conference & Exhibition
Healthcare Unbound will have a strong focus on use of remote monitoring / home telehealth technologies for wellness promotion and disease management, with a special emphasis on Baby Boomers and the elderly population. The agenda will also cover topics such as the emerging role of mobile/wireless technologies, legal/regulatory developments and reimbursement issues, strategies for success for Healthcare Unbound vendors and much more.
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July 27-28, Boston, MA:
The World Health Care Congress Leadership Summit on Wireless Health
This two-day Summit convenes policy-makers, payers, providers and medical group practices from across the nation to discuss business and clinical opportunities for integrating mHealth, Remote Monitoring and Telehealth solutions into existing care systems. Real-life, case studies and the results to-date from pilots at several leading provider organizations will be shared..
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Check it out...
Vital Wave Consulting's Report, mHealth for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World
Report and audio presentation
2009 DiabetesMine Design Challenge
Do you have an idea for an innovative new diabetes device or web application? This is your chance to win up to $10,000.
Click here for more information
UC Berkeley's
Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge
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