Leaders of the newly launched AgeTech West collaboration say mHealth and telehealth tools and services will likely be at the top of the agenda.
“The West Coast is well positioned to lead the coming revolution in technology-enabled personalized care to help older adults stay healthy and independent,” said Scott Peifer, AgeTech’s executive director, in a press release. “It has a world-leading technology industry and innovative culture, world-class academic and research institutions, and top aging-services and homecare provider organizations. However, there are major technology firms and many providers that haven’t yet been active in this space. That needs to change soon if the West is to lay claim to its leadership of this movement.”
The collaboration combines AgeTech California, a partnership of Aging Services of California and the California Association of Health Services at Home and, with LeadingAge Oregon and LeadingAge Washington, two similarly focused non-profit organizations. The announcement was made earlier this week at AgeTech California's annual conference and technology exposition in Pasadena, Calif.
According to officials, AgeTech West will leverage "the interests, expertise, relationships and resources of the four founding partner associations to more powerfully act as a catalyst for the sustainable delivery of technology-enabled care by providers in California, Oregon and Washington through education, state-level policy advocacy, enabling strategic change and brokering of technology adoption opportunities."
Among the mHealth and telehealth companies associated with AgeTech West is Intel-GE Care Innovations, whose CEO, Louis Burns, delivered the keynote address at this week's conference. Among its products, Intel-GE Care Innovations offers QuietCare, smart sensors deployed in a senior's home that track daily activities and issue alerts to caregivers in emergency situations; Link, a round-the-clock medic alert response system; and Guide, a remote chronic care management system.
Another company exhibiting at this week's conference was Independa, a San Diego-based developer of social engagement and wireless health and safety monitoring platforms for seniors and others seeking home-based care. Just last month, Independa announced a partnership with Tampa, Fla.-based LG Electronics in which LG will deploy its Pro:Centric Healthcare televisions with Independa's cloud-based Angela platform in senior living communities in San Diego, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.
The specially designed televisions run complex, interactive applications written in Java, Flash or HTML5 and will enable seniors to access the Angela platform to set up daily medication and calendar reminders, access e-mail and Facebook, browse the web and play games.
“As a leading commercial television vendor in the U.S. healthcare and hospitality markets, LG is the ideal partner for extending Angela to independent, senior living and long-term-care facilities,” said Independa CEO Kian Saneii in an Oct. 7 press release. “The flexibility of LG’s Pro:Centric IP (Internet protocol) TVs makes them a perfect match for our Angela solution. Together, we’ll deliver compelling elder-care services, which will be key to enriching the lives of the expanding elderly population.”
The Public Health Institute's Center for Technology and Aging (CTA), a supporting organization of the AgeTech conference, unveiled at the conference two new online toolkits designed to help home care providers adopt telehealth and mHealth technology for remote patient monitoring (RPM).
“RPM and other technologies dramatically improve chronic disease management and enhance an individual’s quality of life, but getting from here to there is hard," said CTA Director David Lindeman, PhD, in a release. "With the Toolkits, organizations can learn from the successes and failures of others and expedite implementation.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Eric Wicklund
Quelle/Source: mHIMSS, 16.11.2012
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