Telecare systems

Telecare consists of equipment and services that support your safety and independence in your own home. The equipment can sense risks such as smoke, floods and gas, can remind you to take pills and even call for help if you fall. A help centre can be contacted automatically if any of these problems occur in your home. If needed the help centre can arrange for someone to come to your home or can contact your family, doctor or emergency services. The system can also warn you of problems by sounding an alarm, flashing lights or vibrating a box which can be kept in your pocket or under your pillow.

Welch Allyn's New Vital Signs Monitor

 Welch Allyn, in an attempt to improve patient monitoring and record keeping, has unveiled the Connex Electronic Vitals Documentation System. The system revolves around the Connex Vital Signs Monitor 6000 designed in collaboration with frog design, a San Francisco-based product development firm. The Connex system automatically records data coming from various patient monitors and sends it to the Electronic Medical Record for long term storage. Additionally, it displays relevant information and can raise an alarm if trigger parameters are met. To give you a taste of how this system came to be, frog design has an overview on the company's blog outlining the design process.

iBleep, a New Generation of Clinical Pagers

E-Health Insider is reporting that Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and Stockport NHS Foundation Trust will be rolling out the iBleep messaging system that's like a beeper on steroids. Instead of just getting a message to call back to the clinic, physicians will receive information about the patient and even what's going on in the clinic.

• Specialty-Based Reason Codes and EWS scoring
• Configurable Observation Inputs, by Specialty
• Forced Call Filtering and Auto Re-Assigning
• Shadow Assignments/Auto Call Escalation
• Call Locking and Lock Alerting
• Internal PAS/PMI 5-way Lookup
• Full Call Handover
• Multiple Networks: WiFi/GPRS/Edge
• Nurse ID Requests
• Licensed BNF Connection
• Unlimited Co-ordinating Roles
• Allow Block Calls
• Verbal Advice Outcomes
• Refresh and Session Validity
• Call Raising on PDA (Incl. PAS/PMI Search)
• PDA 24HR Clinical Call History for each User
• Licensed BNF Connection

Angel Medical Systems' AngelMed Guardian Gets Approved for Use in Europe

Shrewsbury, NJ-based Angel Medical Systems has announced CE Mark approval of its AngelMed Guardian technology. The system, which is currently undergoing clinical trials in the US, was described by us back in 2009 as a "package [that] includes an implantable monitor, with a lead stretching into the heart, that watches for ST changes in the ECG electrical signal. This unit communicates via Bluetooth with a pager-like device worn by the patient that signals for when it predicts a possible MI onset."

From latest press news:
The AngelMed Guardian is commercially available in Brazil and is currently being tested in the United States in the ALERTS Phase II Clinical Study under an investigational device exemption (IDE) from the FDA.
Dr. C. Michael Gibson of Harvard Medical School, who is leading the ALERTS study says, "Over the past two decades, it has routinely taken patients 2-3 hours to arrive at the hospital with a heart attack. Our initial studies indicate that this device may reduce that time to approximately 20 minutes. When time is muscle, every minute counts and our hope is that survival will be improved."

Researchers Develop Cameras for Measuring Vital Signs

A student in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology programme is working on a system that could measure vital signs by putting a person in front of a low-cost camera such as a laptop computer’s built-in webcam. So far, graduate student Ming-Zher Poh has demonstrated that the system can indeed extract accurate pulse measurements from ordinary low-resolution webcam imagery. Now he’s working on extending the capabilities so it can measure respiration and blood-oxygen levels. Poh hopes eventually to be able to monitor blood pressure as well. Initial results of his work, carried out with the help of Media Lab student Daniel McDuff and Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Rosalind Picard.

EPI Life Cellphone Can Record Your ECG, Provide VIP Emergency Service

CNET Asia reports that Ephone International's EPI Life is the first cellphone with integrated ECG functionality. Unlike other portable ECG devices, the EPI life does not send data back to your doctor directly, but rather to Ephone's servers, which are monitored around the clock by a team of cardiologists. Should the doctors notice any abnormalities in the ECG, they can have emergency services sent to your location or get you priority admission into partner hospitals. Some features:

CareCenter MD for Wireless ECG Monitoring

Cardiac Science out of Bothell, Washington has released the CareCenter MD diagnostic workstation for analysis of resting ECG and stress testing using a wireless data acquisition module.
System features from the press release:

Wireless data acquisition: A Bluetooth connection between the patient and the diagnostic workstation removes the need for cables, providing the opportunity for physicians to perform testing in a wider range of settings.

Advanced connectivity: Physicians can read, analyze, and confirm patient tests from anywhere with a secure internet connection. While no EMR is required to view data with CareCenter MD, records can be easily transferred to an EMR if desired.

Shared patient database: Data for both ECG and stress tests are stored in the same database and can be easily accessed and reviewed, allowing physicians to make real-time comparisons of historical versus current patient data.

Modern user interface: A simple and intuitive interface featuring one-button navigation makes CareCenter MD easy-to-use, reducing the need for training and allowing fast and efficient workflow.

Wheelchair on Autopilot Follows Bipedaled Humans

Engineers at Saitama University's Human-Robot Interaction Center in Saitama, Japan have created a wheelchair movement system that keeps it always next to a walking person wearing a radio beacon. The wheelchair is smart enough to realize both its position and orientation relative to the person guiding it and realizes when its best to follow behind rather than on the side in tight and congested areas. Undoubtedly this is a big deal for people with disabilities for whom controlling the wheelchair is in itself a challenge. Judging by the video below, which demonstrates the wheelchair in a public area, it looks like it's just about ready for commercial production.