As expected, last week’s Aging2.0 London event saw a full house, bold ideas and gastronomic marvels (ok, two out of three, but the crisps were tasty). What was on the menu however, was what I am calling “embedded innovation”. This is innovation with less roadbumps and took three forms: an integration with existing devices and form factors, integration with existing behaviors and activities and integration with existing business systems.
1. Integration with objects people use every day
MonitorMe is a clinical device and a telephone. Together with the TV, the telephone is about the most ubiquitous, simple to use technology device, and as such as a potential platform to embed health monitoring, without requiring behavior change. The MonitorMe telephone handset has sensors to capture vital signs and send them to the digital patient record. This allows longitudinal analysis and can then alert medical professional (or family members) if necessary. People are interacting with the what is effectively a medical diagnostic tool designed as a telephone handset.
2. Integration with ongoing activity and behavior data
T7 Technology is a Clapham-based tech company with a tech platform (Sentaur) which provides proactive behavior analysis and reactive monitoring and reporting. In the past two years since I first spoke with Founder and CEO Lucie Glenday, they’ve raised outside capital, built out a large team (including a sizeable offshore development team), upgraded their platform, deepened partnerships with distributors (including Pathway Digital) and brought on multiple local authorities. Their platform connects sensors around the house to track activities (toilets, fridge, taps etc) and overlays the data with vital signs (heart rate, meds, stress). They showcase the info on a dashboard, a consumer app and a responder app. In the coming weeks, they’ll be able to look at breathing and sleep patterns. Lucie provided a few case studies of how their data was used to understand real life challenges, such as identifying easily modifiable but potentially dangerous behaviors that were exacerbating UTIs and fall risks.
3. Integration with existing business system
Care City is an exciting new initiative founded by the local authority of Barking and Dagenham and a local hospital trust, who were keen to do more to integrate health and social care, as well as stimulate new innovations. They aim to be an ‘innovation partner’ – turning high potential innovations into impact, by creating ‘whole system models’ (which sounds close to a minimum viable ecosystem). CEO John Craig described one of their flagship projects as an NHS innovation ‘Test Bed’ and presented a case study of AliveCor – an accessory for mobile devices that can spot abnormal heart rates within 30 seconds. They tested the tech then deployed them to 20 local pharmacies, which then provided free optional tests for their older patients. Those with issues were flagged and provided with immediate support, potentially savings lives. It’s now being scaled up – free across the NHS and at the local level. John provided a fascinating codicil, the young workers in pharmacies performing these tests (no need for expensive doctors to do them) didn’t just “have a job in a shop” but instead were using the latest innovations that they could see see saving lives. Much more inspiring and liable to reduce employee churn. Other projects Care City are working on include gait analysis and social prescribing with Health Unlocked. Startups looking to get support can apply for the second round of test beds now, and may end up working with John and his Care City team, getting vital, hand-held access and support to navigate the often muddy, choppy waters that is NHS innovation.
Note: two additional tech presentations were from Norway’s No Isolation, presenting Komp, a simple-to-use (one knob) screen interface, and Accenture reporting on their recent pilot with AgeUK on using the Alexa Show.
The final presentation was from Charles Alessi MD, who’s a senior advisor and dementia expert at Public Health England. He talked about changing societal attitudes to ageing, emphasized the importance of ‘social (non-biomedical) determinants’ of health, the impact of inequality on life expectancy and counter-intuitive findings about productivity for older workers (same as for younger workers, since better accuracy compensates for lower speed). Charles’ talk can also be seen as being about embedded innovation – putting healthy lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors in everything we do. He mentioned the concept of salutogenesis, which is the study of health and well-being, and importance of using new metrics, such as ‘care-free life years’ to measure outcomes. Embedding older people into society and healthy living into everything that we do would represent a vision of success for many in the room.
Note: A (low quality, but tolerable) video stream of the event is available here.
