In this issue:

• Inclement or not, QBBQ goes on...
• Stanford switches med students to iPads
• Health Minister Simon Burns Visits Chelmsford to See Telecare Smart Homes at Work
• Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing Students Perform First Test of Sign Language by Cell Phone
• NHS spends millions on websites that fail patients, says government report
• Vodafone issues real Froyo update for HTC Desire

Not very NICE

It’s an emotive topic but the news is full of disapproving pieces on the NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence - the “Government’s drugs rationing body” if you read the redtops) refusal to fund Avastin, the bowel cancer drug. Apparently the manufacturer’s (Roche) own research shows that in their trials the drug extended patients life by 6 weeks over a dummy drug. The cost is said to be £21,000 per patient.

One test for me is what would I do if it was one of mine that was about to die...would I not want to extend their life by every day I could? And this I suppose is where every moral dilemma begins...If I was a drug company I could make many partially-successful medicines and then rake in the cash as patients fight for their right to receive the drug, in effect, doing my sales job for me...

NICE are asking for proof of greater benefits for their “Return On Investment”...and one doctor has stepped forward to say the patients have lived for 4 years on Avastin....bearing in mind the Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi case...who is right?

Gayna

Inclement or not, QBBQ goes on...

In the week starting Monday 2nd August there was much fevered activity at Quicksilva as the staff searched out all the equipment, games and tents necessary for the annual Company BBQ, which was scheduled for the forthcoming Saturday. The BBQ is one of the opportunities during the year when staff both past and present get the opportunity to ‘let their hair down’ with families and invited friends in the lovely grounds of the Company’s HQ at Kington Langley.

Stanford switches med students to iPads

From E-health Insider

Medicine students starting at Stanford University School of Medicine will this year be given an iPad as part of a trial programme in integrate the mobile device into medical education.

Quicksilva thoughts...

With the number of tablet devices on the market increasing this move was inevitable. The ability to mass distribute content to a target audience represents a huge market driver for content providers, and tablet devices such as iPads provides the consumer with a reading device that resembles in size the traditional format of text books.

Customizable content provision will start to be more common with consumers able to mark, annotate and cross reference material with ease; in the case of students the material can even be distributed on a term-by-term basis, possibly even customised to meet the demands of courses.

Within health this has the potential to increase the value of information provided not only to students but also in many other areas; imagine the possibility of being able to assemble clinical notes comprised from a variety of sources and display these at once on a mobile device, or being able to quickly access further information from remote sources related to text viewed at the time.

Security is obviously a prime concern, especially when data could be accessed on mobile devices, but if this issue could be solved then the potential for truly mobile clinical content could soon be realised.

Health Minister Simon Burns Visits Chelmsford to See Telecare Smart Homes at Work

From 24dash

MP for Chelmsford visits CHP’s re-ablement housing scheme in Essex to see first-hand how Telecare solutions from Tunstall are helping to enhance quality of life for service users

Quicksilva thoughts...

Telehealth programmes have been making the news recently as the Government’s push for liberating the NHS from some Social Care demands is being approached through technology. The premise is to allow patients to return to social housing or re-enablement schemes so that NHS beds can be freed up quicker. The main driver seems to be envisaged cost benefits as patients will be able to leave hospital earlier. Technology’s role is to allow the patient to be able to provide doctors blood pressure readings remotely and the patient’s health be monitored through some basic means without too much intervention. The level of innovation in this arena seems unclear at the moment as the article alludes to the fact that most of the monitoring is more traditional re-enablement form which means fall detectors, flood detectors and other sensor type devices. The real innovation and benefit from Telehealth will be realised when better integration between Social Care and NHS services can be achieved, with wider adoption and investment by Councils or private care providers. With economic conditions being the way they are for Councils at the moment it is not clear how far in the future true integration between Social Care and the NHS through Telehealth will be.

Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing Students Perform First Test of Sign Language by Cell Phone

From Science Daily

University of Washington engineers are developing the first device able to transmit American Sign Language over U.S. cellular networks.

Quicksilva thoughts...

As technology advances, everyone can communicate more easily. Who among us does not have access to the internet or to a mobile phone? When we consider the modes of communication offered by either of these technologies, texting and emails are far outweighed by the benefits of direct conversation.

Now consider this from the point of view of a user that is deaf or hard of hearing.

A new device capable of transmitting real-time sign language visually, using a fraction of the bandwidth of video conferencing technology, promises to pave the way to deliver real-time conversation via mobile phones to those who cannot hear.

NHS spends millions on websites that fail patients, says government report

From The Guardian

The NHS spends up to £86m a year on thousands of websites that are difficult to find, badly designed and irrelevant to patient needs, according to a leaked government report.

Quicksilva thoughts...

£86m sounds like a lot of money, especially in these times of fiscal responsibility, but good use of IT can lead to efficiencies and savings, as well as providing the user with 24/7 easy access to services and information.

As the NHS is such an enormous organisation, it is no wonder that there are lots of websites; I don’t see that as a problem. An improvement would be for those websites to have more consistency and offer the services and information that users really need. The benchmarking of those websites and sharing of good practice should be encouraged; this already happens in local government and the results are good, but like most things in business, it is the desire of individuals within organisations to drive for continuous improvement in what they do and what they offer to their customers that makes a difference.

With a new Government in place, leaner budgets, and customers having greater expectations of these websites, I’m sure things will improve and greater value will be achieved in the next few years.

Vodafone issues real Froyo update for HTC Desire

From The Register

Vodafone has bowed to customer fury and agreed to strip marketing guff and compulsory applications from its HTC Desire phones when it next upgrades the handsets' Android operating system.

Quicksilva thoughts...

Modern mobile phones are more like PCs than ever, and with the iPhone, Android and others offering App Stores they are no longer the simple communications devices they once were but also media and entertainment devices. It should come as no real surprise that the opportunity to sell advertising pushed to users’ phones, and to try to grab some of that App Store revenue seemed a lucrative move to one operator. However, the decision to disallow the removal of the branding apps was always going to lead to complaints, and as a smartphone fan I am personally relieved they have listened and will be making their apps optional in the next phone update. It will be interesting to see how much branding operators think they can get away with in future after this episode, as the complicated issue of mobile phone ownership through fixed, long-term operator contracts is unlikely to change any time soon.

Caption Competition 29

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Email captions@qxlva.com

Deadline: 16th September 2010.

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The KGB try a new infiltration technique after their spies were found out

"Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source."
- Ron Nesen

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