brown2020

NEWS RELEASE: Health Hero Network Says Recent Successes of Deployments with Medicare, VA Signal New Era of Telehealth. Successful Multi-Year Trials at VA, Medicare Show Telehealth-based Health Care Interventions Can Improve Care, Reduce Costs.

PALO ALTO Ca., January 23, 2009 Health Hero Network said today that the first large-scale, multi-year rollouts and evaluations of its Health Buddy® System have shown success in helping improve the care of high-cost Medicare beneficiaries and veterans while reducing costs and hospitalizations — signaling a new era of telehealth that will reshape an American healthcare landscape strained by an aging population, a reduction in caregivers and shrinking financial resources.

VA Results reported in TELEMEDICINE and e-HEALTH, VOL. 14 NO. 10. Care Coordination/Home Telehealth: The Systematic Implementation of Health Informatics, Home Telehealth, and Disease Management to Support the Care of Veteran Patients with Chronic Conditions. Adam Darkins, M.D., Patricia Ryan, R.N., M.S., Rita Kobb, M.N., A.P.R.N., Linda Foster, M.S.N., R.N., Ellen Edmonson, R.N., M.P.H., Bonnie Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N., and Anne E. Lancaster, B.Sc. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Care Coordination Services, Washington, D.C.

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News Release: Robert Bosch North America, Healthways announce availability of single license for joint patent portfolios

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. and NASHVILLE, Tenn. – January 06, 2009 Robert Bosch North America, Inc. (RBNA) and Healthways Inc. (NASDAQ: HWAY) today announced the immediate availability of a single patent license under their joint patent portfolios related to remote health monitoring, automated diagnostics and health and disease management.

Both companies collectively hold extensive catalogs of patents in the U.S. and other countries in the area of remote health monitoring, automated diagnostics and disease management. The combined portfolio will give licensees the right to practice over 105 U.S. patents, 154 U.S. patent applications and 78 corresponding non-U.S patents.

The joint licensing program announced today will be managed by Health Hero Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch North America. Health Hero Network will be able to offer licensees a single license that, depending on the needs of the licensee, may include patents owned by Healthways and Health Hero Network. A licensee may elect to take a license from Health Hero Network under the Healthways patents – alone or in combination with the Health Hero Network patents.

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For a decade now, just about every service industry has taken for granted the benefits of information technology: Increased productivity, faster and better service, and access to services from home. All actionable information is recorded and shared electronically so that ever smarter information systems can help us anticipate and prevent problems. Whether it is retail, financial services, or even fast food, productivity in everything has gone through the roof.

Every service industry except health care, that is.

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Google Sets is an interesting new tool from Google Labs that finds associations between words or phrases and related terms that we might not have thought about. Who could be better able to offer such a tool than Google: More than any other organization on the planet, Google knows what we are thinking. When something is on our minds, chances are that a significant sample of us are typing it into Google. The resulting data puts Google in a unique position not only to identify associations between words, but also to derive insights into human intentions and behavior.

Google Sets Home Health Monitoring Example

For obvious examples, type “Porsche” and “Mercedes” into Google Sets, and the site returns Ferrari, BMW, Audi and Lamborghini, among others. Type in “brain fitness” and Google Sets returns brain health, mind fitness, mental health, stress, cognitive neuroscience, brain training, and more.

For something less obvious, I challenged Google with the name of my old company, Health Hero Network. Google Sets accurately found AMGA, the acronym for the American Medical Group Association, the company’s partner on an important but not very well known Medicare chronic care improvement demonstration project. Google Sets also identified two of the company’s competitors, Viterion Telehealthcare and AMD Telemedicine, but missed the larger rivals Philips Telehealth and Honeywell HomMed as well as Intel Digital Health, the latest entrant into the home health monitoring market. Google Sets also didn’t pick up the fact that Health Hero Network is now part of Robert Bosch GmbH.

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