PERS devices and wearables – what will bring them together?Now that the Washington Post has declared that Apple and Google will solve our health problems, aren’t you relieved? Oh, you’re a bit concerned about your privacy, the fact that all of your outside-of-Facebook web searches are by default accessible to Facebook – that you have to opt out on a completely separate website in order to terminate tracking of this activity? As you wander around Google, Yahoo or through iTunes, your searches about health topics, those are all now relevant for advertisers as provided by Facebook! And extra-special, what do you think about the fact that Apple lobbied away any need for FDA approval for anything health-related? Feeling safely healthy now?
International CES expects 150,000 people this year and 3500 exhibits. I will be going -- my feet are tired in anticipation. The show organizer, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), represents the $208 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. Almost every commercial tech company will be there -- why even Apple is represented by Hyundai and other partners. In fact, Apple’s iWatch threatens to overwhelm the show with its non-presence. Or maybe it won’t be the missing watch, but the yet-to-arrive HomeKit which will dominate the show. I dunno about that, seems like the show is still dominated by cars. And will those giant TVs be supplanted by drones, wearables, and virtual reality? Or maybe the new generation of smart homes? Appliance and home improvement big businesses still believe in someone, somewhere having an as-yet-unmet desire for a smarter home. That’s been going on for a while, always hedged as the 'smart home for the future' because most homes are still pretty dopey. Perhaps the pipe dream of a smart home has never resonated with home owners – "connecting a bunch of devices that are primed for breaking."
The mHealth Summit held last week was an ever-more HealthIT (along with Digital Health and mHealth brethren) and the mobile/app aware, digital vision for the future, an extravaganza of technology advancement -- sounding vaguely familiar. Hey, there’s the renamed Patient Centered Medical Home, at this conference, called the Intelligent Medical Home). There were all of those Games for Health, behavior change, patient engagement, care coordination, and quite a few pharma-sponsored sessions. As is typical of an event like this, a plethora of investment-related, venture fund and startup-type sessions could be found.
Did you know that nearly 40% of seniors report having a disability? In the category of number obsession, this new snapshot of a government report caught my eye and should catch yours – it is referencing 16 million people. The report notes six types of disability reported in census data: hearing, sight, thinking and memory, walking, self-care and independent living. From the MedlinePlus release: "People older than 85 accounted for more than 25 percent of all disabilities among seniors, although they represented only 14 percent of the overall senior population."
