"virtual care" articles

When you think of consumer electronics devices for at-home health-care, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?  Let me guess, “ I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! ”  Yes, LifeCall (the company behind the ad) forever carved a place in marketing history by turning life-saving technology into the butt of countless jokes.  In the process they not only undermined their own business success but also cast doubt on an entire industry.  (Shouldn’t there be some kind...

As part of the Digital Health research service, Parks Associates issued a Market Focus report on health-related, consumer electronics devices, “Multiple Medication Management & Smart Pill Boxes”. The study surveyed over 3,000 people that take multiple medications and gauged their interest in consumer electronics devices that could help them manage their medicines. One of the findings is that, young people are actually more open to using these devices than the elderly. One...

Despite technology innovations and breakthroughs in interoperability, sales of connected care devices have remained slow, not counting smartphones, tablets, MP3 players/GPS devices that can be dubbed as care data terminals. There are a few important things to note: • Vital-sign monitoring device makers do not release sales figures of Bluetooth-enabled weight scales, glucose meters, blood pressure monitors, and pulse oximeters. • ZigBee-enabled home monitoring kits face market...

Passed in the spring of 2010, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes provisions that almost certainly will harm the medical device industry. The most immediate and harmful provision of the Affordable Care Act is a medical device excise tax of 2.3% on medical device revenues, scheduled to go into effect in 2013. The tax is estimated to generate $20 billion in tax revenue annually and is to be levied on the total revenues of a company, regardless of whether the company is...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Affordable Care Act"), passed in the spring of 2010, has some favorable provisions for health insurers. The law, after its full enactment in 2014, will require near universal coverage, resulting in a net addition of 35-40 million members to the existing insured pool. Private health insurers will benefit from enrolling low-risk populations, e.g., people who opt out of an employer-sponsored insurance plan due to belief that they...

The mission will take place from May 1-5, 2011 and follow up from the inward mission . The objective of this mission will be to enable Scottish small-to-medium enterprises to judge whether their technology or product would have traction in USA and to establish initial contacts in this market sector whilst increasing their knowledge and understanding of this market sector. The Wellness & Health Innovation project will be joined by 5 Scottish companies and 1 Scottish...

U.S. revenues from digital health technology-enabled solutions and services will exceed $5.7 billion in 2015, fueled by chronic-care monitoring solutions, senior aging-in-place services, and connected wellness and fitness apps and programs, a new industry report from Parks Associates forecasts. According to Delivering Quality Care to the Digital Home: 2010 Update , industry revenues in 2010 hit $1.7 billion, and the projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the next five...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Affordable Care Act") passed in the spring of 2010 and took effect near the end of September. Although there will be attempts to repeal some portions of the law, Parks Associates believes most of the provisions will stay unaffected and have a positive impact on the long-term prospects of the digital health industry. Of course, given the complexity of our health system, the interconnected relationships among various stakeholders,...