Brown2020

Bosch acquires Health Hero Network
Leading innovator of telehealth solutions

Products in the health monitoring business

All associates will become members of the Bosch team

Stuttgart – The Bosch Group has announced it has acquired a majority shareholding in Health Hero Network, a leading innovator in the remote health monitoring business. An agreement to this effect has been reached with the company’s shareholders. Terms of the agreement will not be disclosed.

Health Hero Network, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, develops and sells technology solutions that allow the remote monitoring and management of patient health data. “With the innovative products of Health Hero Network, the Bosch Group can help patients with chronic conditions achieve a better quality of life,” said project leader Sascha Henke. Since it was founded in 1992, Health Hero Network has been issued 63 patents. The company currently employs 44 associates, all of whom will be retained by Bosch.

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. In the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods, and building technology, some 260,000 associates generated sales of 43.7 billion euros in fiscal 2006. The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 300 subsidiary and regional companies in over 50 countries. This worldwide development, manufacturing, and sales network is the foundation for further growth. Bosch spends more than three billion euros each year for research and development, and in 2006 applied for over 3,000 patents worldwide. The company was set up in Stuttgart in 1886 by Robert Bosch (1861-1942) as “Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering.”

The special ownership structure of Robert Bosch GmbH guarantees the entrepreneurial freedom of the Bosch Group, making it possible for the company to plan over the long term and to undertake significant up-front investments in the safeguarding of its future. Ninety-two percent of the share capital of Robert Bosch GmbH is held by Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, a charitable foundation. The majority of voting rights are held by Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG, an industrial trust. The entrepreneurial ownership functions are carried out by the trust. The remaining shares are held by the Bosch family and by Robert Bosch GmbH.

Health Hero Network Patent 7,310,668, Issued December 18, 2007

Remotely monitoring an individual using scripted communications in the home health and remote health management field.

Abstract

A system for remotely monitoring an individual. The system includes a server system for generating a script program from a set of queries. The script program is executable by a remote apparatus that displays information and/or a set of queries to the individual through a user interface. Responses to the queries that are entered through the user interface together with individual identification information are sent from the remote apparatus to the server system across a communication network. The server system also includes an automated answering service for providing a series of questions from a stored set of questions for an individual at the remote apparatus to respond to, storing responses to each provided question in the series of questions and providing a service based on the individual’s response to the questions.

Inventors: Brown; Stephen J.

Assignee: Health Hero Network, Inc. (Palo Alto, CA)

It looks like Health Buddy is getting traction in the Netherlands, thanks to Sananet. Telebegeliding means telehealth coaching, or guidance at a distance using telemedicine technology, in Dutch.

“Telebegeleiding thuis geeft mensen met chronische ziekte meer veiligheid en zelfvertrouwen.”

Originally filed in 1996, this patent is among the first to describe online auctions.

United States Patent: 7,277,867
Issued: October 2, 2007

Abstract

The invention presents a method for conducting an on-line bidding session to accumulate a collective bid for a property. The bidding session is conducted over a computer network that includes a central computer, a number of remote computers, and communication lines connecting the remote computers to the central computer. According to the method, at least one bidding group is registered in the central computer. The bidding group can be an association, institution, or group of investors formed for the purpose of bidding together for the property. The bidding group has a total bid for the property which is tracked in the central computer. The central computer receives bids entered from the remote computers by members of the bidding group. Each bid includes an individual bid amount which is contributed to the total bid of the group to accumulate the collective bid for the property.

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Today I had the opportunity to participate in Health 2.0 User Generated Healthcare Conference. The one-day conference in San Francisco was fabulously organized by Matthew Holt of The Healthcare Blog and Indu Subaiya of Etude Scientific.

Indu and Matthew managed to assemble a stellar collection of entrepreneurs, movers, shakers, and creators of the next generation of the eHealth field. A full house discussed search engines that learn from personal health records, social networks that support patients, and how the wisdom of crowds is transforming medical knowledge.

We all know that the current way we organize and manage healthcare is dysfunctional and unsustainable. How else could we find a way to spend $2 trillion per year and leave 45 million people uninsured? How else could we spend so much and still have such mediocre outcomes compared to the rest of the world?

There have been many promising ideas proven futile and many vain attempts at healthcare transformation. What is different this time around? Finally the ecosystems are in place, the tools of production are widely accessible and development costs are so low that citizens do not need to wait for the institutions to be the deciders.

We have entered a new phase of rapid innovation and experimentation that is producing a wave of brave new ideas, some of which will be disruptive to current ways of doing things and some of which will be revolutionary. Pay attention to the list below, because you will be seeing these people in headlines for years to come.

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United States Patent: 7,258,666

Inventor: Brown

Issued: August 21, 2007

Title: System and methods for monitoring a patient’s heart condition

Abstract: A patient’s heart condition is monitored by a patient-location based unit. The patient-location based unit includes a receptacle for receiving a cartridge that includes heart condition monitoring information. The patient-location based unit receives information from the patient, monitors the patient’s heart condition, and communicates with the patient regarding the patient’s heart condition. The patient-location based unit also communicates with a central server. Both the patient-location based unit and central server communicate with a health care professional computer by transferring, to the health care professional computer, information related to the monitored patient’s heart condition.

Steve Brown Joins MDV Focused on Internet and Healthcare
Brings Media and Systems Experience Aimed at Promoting Healthier Behavior

MENLO PARK, Calif., July 19 /PRNewswire/ — MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, (http://www.mdv.com), a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, today announced the addition of Steve Brown as an Entrepreneur in Residence. He will work with MDV to pursue opportunities that apply Internet technologies and services to empower consumers and to encourage healthier lifestyles.
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At TEDGlobal 2007, William Kamkwamba showed us how necessity is the mother of invention, making a windmill out of simple scrap materials to power his home in Malawi. Without any money, but armed with a book from the library and some ingenuity, this teenager from a rural village in Malawi gave a fitting answer to an earlier speaker’s opinion that renewable energy is “too expensive” for developing countries.

A short video from our visit to one of the last remaining families of mountain gorillas living on a 14,000 foot volcano on the border of Rwanda and Congo.

I had the opportunity to visit the district health center in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda, where Dr. Michael Rich explained why the Partners in Health model of care is able to achieve better medication adherence in Rwanda than even our best practices in the United States.

It is not just the fact that Bill Clinton and The Clinton Foundation negotiated a deal on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. It’s not just the fact that the once complex cocktail regimen of pills can be combined into one generic pill. It is because an army of community health workers visit patients in their villages every day, checking in to make sure everything is OK, and to make sure that everyone is taking their medicine.

Daily support and monitoring at home, working with informal caregivers in the community to surface problems early so that bigger problems can be prevented: That is the key to improving quality of care with limited resources.

Dr. Paul Farmer, as chronicled in the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, realized this in Haiti a decade ago, and now the Partners in Health “accompagnateur” system is being rolled out in developing countries around the world. Is there something we might learn from Rwanda?