Each new year a plethora of IT gadgets are flooding the show floor at the Consumer Electric Show, in Las Vegas. We picked up this year’s five best health gadgets.

Omron Heart Guide, blood pressure monitor

The gadget’s first debut was in 2018, but it took one year for the FDA to approve the monitor. What sets it apart from the competition, that this is the first and only wearable, that can take reliable, FDA approved blood pressure reading right on the wrist. It also tracks primary health metrics such as the number of steps, sleep patterns, alert about incoming calls, texts. The monitor works just like other blood pressure monitors: the watch band inflates at the touch of a button, after 30-40 seconds, the readings appear on the screen – of course, data is ready to be shared with your therapist.

ECG in a watch

This year several manufacturers came out with watches that also measures our electrocardiogram right from our wrist – capturing hearth rhythm in a moment when we experience rapid or skipped heartbeats. Apple and Withings are the most well-known ambassadors of the feature.

Pria, home care companion, by Black+Decker

What we love about Pria, the home care companion is the fact that it comes equipped with an automatic medicine dispenser that stores up to 28 doses. If the patient takes her medication twice a day, the caregiver refills the machine after 14 days. The pills drop out into a small container. Pria senses when the patient removes the bottle from its place – if the patient forgets to take the pills an electronic alert goes out to the caregiver. The home care companion also serves as an assistant who reminds the patient living alone about his appointments, upcoming events, etc.

Quell 2.0 pain relief

Chronic pain affects millions of people, so it is essential to manage our pain without drugs. Quell offers nothing much but effective pain relief 24/7. The device uses a technology called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or tens. What this device primarily does it stimulate nerves to give significant chronic pain relief. The device strapped around the area in pain delivers a pulse through an electrode that feels like a warm vibration that stimulates the sensory nerves. They relay signals to the brain stem which then releases natural opioids into the central nervous system to block pain. On the matching app the patient can follow the treatment. Whether or not this device will work for any particular person depends on several factors, but it’s worth a try!

Testcard urine test

A urine test in a postcard is not science fiction anymore: the card contains a small pee strip, that changes color according to the problem encountered. After the patient pees on this strip the color changes. The mobile app scans this strip and provides the diagnostic. It can save a trip to the doctor and also tells the user what to do next. For 3,99 dollars it is a bargain.

Author: Zoltan Gelencser

In 2012 then FBI-director Robert Mueller observed: “There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that will be.” Health organizations deploying multiple IT applications must be aware of the dangers IT security poses and review their security policy regularly.

Healthcare is the most vulnerable sector when it comes to data security. This industry works fueled by personal healthcare data regarding every patient. At some point this data is inevitably digital, business leaders must address cybersecurity concerns. IT security is not a goal, but an ever-changing battle where players are constantly changing. These players are new technologies, new data and sophisticated adversaries.

So, what cybersecurity strategy should a healthcare company pursue?

Prioritize Threats

Find the most vulnerable IT systems in your company and protect them first. Identify, prioritize, and manage risk relative to its potential impact on mission-critical operations so that you can balance security needs against cost and risk considerations, designing an enterprise solution that secures your people, facilities, processes, and technologies.

Compliance is not security

Regulation is mostly about compliance, but this does not equal IT security. Of course, your organization needs IT security to comply with the existing rules.

Develop a cybersecurity policy

Develop a cybersecurity policy, and update this strategy quarterly. Implement and enforce this policy.

Be proactive

New players are continually defining the changing cybersecurity landscape. Always review your business goals, take in consideration new IT threats and new IT systems when you update your cybersecurity policy.

Don’t forget, train your colleagues

Don’t forget, your colleagues are an active part of your IT cybersecurity strategy. Teach them about new technologies, explain them, why a particular business process is designed that way, and why it needs a secure execution. Update them regularly about new threats, social engineering scams, data leak points. Establish rules of behavior describing how to handle and protect patient information and other vital data. Update and refresh your colleague’s IT security knowledge.

Develop a communication strategy for a crisis, and rehearse it

Even if a robust IT security infrastructure is in place, the staff is trained, and you are proactively reviewing your policies, cybersecurity incidents may occur. Develop a disaster communication scenario, describe thoroughly the flow of information and necessary steps to avoid financial loss and what is even worst reputational damage.

Author: Zoltan Mathe

I always say that technology is not for the sake of technology. It’s here to help people live a better and fulfilled life; even whey are suffering from chronic diseases. Lately, I came across many examples of how artificial intelligence is used by different healthcare institutions to make patients’ lives better. In my post, I will show you these scenarios, that I consider best practices.

Let’s start with a very quantifiable example: 200 versus 11 000 dollars in this case. The largest public hospital of Atlanta, Grady Health focused on readmission; they wanted to cut the percentage of people coming back to the hospital. They used Artificial Intelligence (AI) and patient data to deduce which recently discharged patients were at risk of coming back to them for something preventable. They started reaching out to those patients via in-person visits from their Mobile Integrated Health Unit, comprised of their EMS staff; they scheduled the appointments during downtime. Such a home visit costs 200 dollars, hospitalization bill after readmission can sum up to 11 000 dollars. The results are promising, in more than 300 cases patients avoided readmission.

MIT is developing a social robot, that that could help care for patient’s emotional well-being. They tested the robot with children, and the results are promising. The research team found that children who got the robot care were more verbal than their counterparts that got a digital avatar or a plush teddy bear. The more a child is engaged, the more a specialist can do for the child. While this robot was explicitly for a pediatric population, this type of social robot could be used to care for the increasingly large aging population.

There are plenty of examples to choose from in this field. I recently read in The New York Times that a nursing home caring for elderly with dementia and Alzheimer’s started a trial with a tiny robot, called Zora. The patient reacted very well to the small robot: many patients developed an emotional attachment, treating it like a baby, holding and cooing, giving it kisses on the head. Some of the nurses view the robot as an expensive toy, that keeps the patients busy.

However, Zora is much much more; the robot leads the daily exercises, talks to the elderly. Zora does not dispense medicine or feed the patients, as one nurse stated, these are such intimate moments, that no robot should perform these task. Nothing will ever replace the human touch, the human warmth the patients need.

Author: Zoltan Gelencser

During my summer holiday, I stayed at a small hotel, where the owner, a collector of old technology devices, proudly showed me his one and only, still working jukebox. It was made in the 1960 ’s and to my surprise, this was one of the early devices, that gathered data on a microchip: it recorded how many times a song was played. Radio station owners collected this data – not online, of course – and they adjusted their playlist according to listening preferences read from the jukebox.

It’s an ancient example of how data and technology shaped entire industries. Back then a few had the knowledge to read the data from that microchip, the device had to be accessed physically, and the internet was still decades away.

Nowadays, in 2019 when each of us holds a miniature computer, called a smartphone, in our hands, we don’t wonder how technology allows us to have smart doorbells, smart pacemakers implanted in our body, or smartwatches, fitness trackers that record a ton of data every day. Old habits, formed in a time when devices like our jukebox were not able to connect to the internet, are sticking with us: cheaper IoT devices are designed with total disregard to basic IT security practices. I nearly wrote, IT security standards, but unfortunately, when we are talking about IoT, common standards as such do not exist. Lack of IT security means these cheap devices are vulnerable to attacks, data leaks can occur, and to put it just, they represent a significant security risk.

So to continue with bad news, basic concepts of the even most commonly used health IT devices were designed in a time when the internet and IT security were not a major topic. Meaning security was not part of the device by design. This made room for fitness trackers that revealed the users’ whereabouts, or with a little data tweaking exposed locations of military bases, otherwise secret routes of soldiers.

Nearly 500,000 pacemakers had to be recalled updating the software: they were vulnerable to attacks. Fortunately, flaws were not easy to exploit. In this case, vulnerabilities allowed attackers to gain access to a pacemaker and issue commands, change settings, or otherwise interfere with the intended function of the pacemaker. Despite the dire consequences, the attacks were not easy to pull off, as there was no public exploit code to help attackers develop their attack packages, and exploitation required a high level of skills, that very few programmers possess. Besides, attackers needed to be sufficiently close (few inches) to the target pacemaker as to allow RF communications.

As we also know, healthcare institutions, hospitals are more vulnerable to external ransomware attacks (when attackers encrypt medical data and restore it only if a ransom is paid). Likely reasons include the relatively old age of IT infrastructure, time-critical access to sensitive data, the number of connected devices and the relative lack of expertise in IT security of the medical staff.

And yes, despite all these security concerns mentioned above, we are still advocating the use of health IT technologies. Security is a must by design in every device – and many device makers consider security to be their number one priority. If device makers, software developers in health care follow basic IT security practices – as listed by the UK government earlier last year – products and services that emerge truly serve the need of the people, providing a quality life for patients living with chronic diseases. Data based decision for healthcare professionals means that a better diagnose is formed, substantiated decisions are born. So yes, please use secure, tested, quality devices and solutions to make your health better!

PS: If you are too busy search the internet for the code of practice proposed for IoT devices, the list is here:

Code of Practice (in priority order):

1. No default passwords

2. Implement a vulnerability disclosure policy

3. Keep software updated

4. Securely store credentials and security-sensitive data

5. Communicate securely

6. Minimize exposed attack surfaces

7. Ensure software integrity

8. Ensure that personal data is protected

9. Make systems resilient to outages

10. Monitor system telemetry data

11. Make it easy for consumers (patients) to delete personal data

12. Make installation and maintenance of devices easy

13. Validate input data

Author: Zoltan Mathe

In my last post, I wrote about mainstream health IT products, technologies that can improve lives of our older relatives, friends. There are also a lot of products and solutions for many individual problems: for older adults with a hand tremor, there is a special spoon with a stabilizing handle to help enjoy meals together with the family. Alternatively, there is a range of products that make dressing up easier for anyone who cannot use of one of their hands, such as one-handed belts, sock aids, and even one-handed nail clippers.

However, even with all these advances in IT, some products are still on the wish list of the elderly. Barbara Beskind, a 94-year-old designer, working part-time at a company designing services and products for senior citizens has some ideas about what might help. She gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal, where she spoke of some of her plans.

Fall prevention

For instance, she would love if some wearable inflatable air bags could help prevent hip injuries in case of a fall. Home accidents can be fatal to older people, so any kind of technology that can prevent falling in the bathroom or outside, on the sidewalk, is welcome. Moreover, if accidents still occur, quick help proves to be lifesaving – fortunately emergency calling solutions are already in place.

Visual aids

Older people have a reduced ability to discriminate colors at the green-blue-violet end of the color spectrum. As the eye ages, it requires greater intensities of color for the visual system to perceive stimuli. Poor color discrimination interacts with poor contrast-sensitivity, and such boundary detection is a challenge. Some high-tech glasses with camera or photo identity feature for the people who are approaching, maybe coupled with a voice-recognition technology is definitely an item on the wish list. Ms. Beskin is working on a prototype of a pair of glasses for those with macular degeneration – also an age-related illness.

Hearing aids

Hearing deteriorates with age; older people may not hear sounds that shape our daily lives, such as doorbells, telephones, alarm clocks. A device that reduces background noise and highlights the essential sounds would be excellent. A better hearing aid, one that can be worn at night, during sleep, is also a missing product.

Better walking

Many older adults have a hard time walking, but refuse to use walking sticks or frames because they find it humiliating. A lot of them are using Nordic Walking poles equipped with telescopes that help them lift off the ground. These poles come with removable rubber tips for use on hard surfaces (like asphalt) and hardened metal tips for trails, the beach, snow, and ice. However, walking aids designed especially for seniors are still missing from the market. Barbara Beskin is also developing an alternative walker with vertical grips to promote good posture and to maintain alternative arm-leg movements.

If you have an idea for a product that may help you, just use Google search, maybe you can find a suitable product. If you don’t, please let us know in the comment section below, what health IT service, product would make your or your patient’s life easier! Let’s expand this wish list together!

Author: Zoltan Mathe