Health IT, Startups

Connected Health companies highlight potential solutions, and what needs to be done to fill healthcare gaps

Gaming as a motor skill therapy, a solar-powered electronic health record device, ideas for fixing […]

Gaming as a motor skill therapy, a solar-powered electronic health record device, ideas for fixing healthcare and a freaky demonstration of LED communication were some of the things that drew my attention in the exhibition hall of the Connected Health Symposium and beyond. Here are the highlights.

One of the big themes of the conference was devising ways to make people feel more involved in their healthcare. To that effect, design firm The Meme encouraged passersby to write down ideas on that topic as well as other ways to fix healthcare or to call attention to problems that need to be solved, so log as it could fill no more space than a post-it note.

A color coded guide highlighted the sources of the brainstorm.

Israeli company Timocco demonstrated a bubble game as a source of motor therapy for patients that include cerebral palsy to Parkinson’s disease during the reception Thursday.

Fever Smart CEO Aaron Goldstein demonstrated the company’s life patch thermometer. It is geared for children and designed to be worn under the armpit. It uses a companion app so parents can monitor their child’s temperature. The founder, Colin Hill, who is also the company’s CMO, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and needed to take his temperature on a regular basis as he underwent chemotherapy. Although the company’s infrared thermometer uses technology certified by the FDA, it hasn’t been cleared. It recently completed an Indiegogo campaign to help bring its product to market.

At first glance, CliniPak’s container looks more like a suitcase or piece of heavy duty medical equipment than an electronic health record device. That’s because it’s designed for rural areas in developing countries that don’t have regular power. It harnesses solar power and can use 12 volt batteries to display patients medical records and is used in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Haiti.

Next month Doctors Without Borders is bringing CliniPAK to an Ebola clinic in Liberia. As founder Deborah Theobold of Vecana Cares explained, paper medical records  have to be disposed of in hot zones. A cloud-based system would be more flexible under those conditions, theoretically.

I have to say the dancers sporting “mood sweater” left me kind of cold. The LED lit “sweaters” use use color as a communication tool for people who have trouble communicating – such as people with autism or stroke patients. But if the idea is to use technology so that people who hover at the fringes of society can interact more, why make the people demonstrating them seem like they just landed from Mars?

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