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AMAC to be acquired by Tunstall Healthcare in $82.3M deal
Telehealth provider Tunstall Healthcare Group Limited (Yorkshire, UK) entered into a $82.3 million definitive agreement to acquire American Medical Alert Corp. (AMAC; Long Island City, NY), a provider of remote health monitoring and 24/7 communication services. Tunstall agreed to buy all of AMAC's outstanding common shares for $8.55 per share, a 50% premium above the price of AMAC shares on Sept. 22. The companies expect to complete their deal by the end of the fourth quarter. Once that happens, AMAC will become a private company wholly owned by an affiliate of Tunstall. AMAC shares rose $2.67 per share, or about 47%, on the news, to $8.36 per share. However, five law firms announced plans to investigate AMAC's board over possible breaches of fiduciary duties connected with the acquisition.
View AMAC's portfolio of remote patient monitoring products

Goldman Sachs pours $25M more into ZocDoc's series C financing round
ZocDoc (New York, NY) won $25 million in additional investment from Goldman Sachs, increasing to $75 million the amount raised by the provider of an online doctor appointment scheduling service in its series C financing round. The deal capped a busy two months, during which ZocDoc won the first $50 million of its series C round from DST Global, and expanded in to the Boston region. “The most recent funding will enable ZocDoc to speed its expansion into additional regions,” the company said in a statement. ZocDoc is now available in 11 major US metropolitan areas via iPhone and Android apps, as well as via the Internet. Total investment in the company has reached $95 million to date. While the service is free for patients, doctors must shell out $250 per month for ZocDoc.
Download the ZocDoc mobile apps for iPhone or Android

Care Innovations™ eyes expansion into Canada, Mexico, and Japan
Care Innovations™ (Roseville, CA), a joint venture of GE and Intel focused on telemedicine [News Alert, June 3], plans in the next few months to expand into Canada, Mexico and Japan with existing products “which will greatly expand our sales footprint globally,” Shannon McIntyre, the company's communications manager, told HealthyCal.org, an independent, non-profit news outlet. After that, new products emphasizing health sensors, fall prevention, and emergency response will be added “at a rapid rate.” Care Innovations has its sights trained on Asia and parts of Europe that include the Nordic countries, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Western Europe is attractive because a third of its population is over 60, and governments have already begun to focus attention on the aging problem, Eric Dishman, Care Innovations' director of health policy, told the news outlet.
Read about Care Innovations Connect and watch a video demonstration

VA signing up to-$1M contract for telehealth data technology at clinics in three states
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Black Hills Health Care System, which operates facilities in Hot Springs, SD, and Fort Meade, SD said it intends to sign a sole source contract with SDN Communications (Sioux Falls, SD) to provide increased data communication services to 14 community based outpatient clinics at various locations within South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The VA said it had authority for the sole-source contract for the services since SDN “is the only provider within this area who provides the latest data technology to support telehealth initiatives.” The total value of the contract was estimated between $500,000 and $1 million, for a period from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2012, plus 2-1/2 option year periods.
Read the solicitation

Researchers use Microsoft Kinect, Doppler-based system to detect heightened risk for falls
Researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) and the independent living community TigerPlace (Columbia, MO) have found that two devices commonly used for video gaming and security systems are effective in detecting, respectively, the early onset of illness and fall risk in senior citizens. Marjorie Skubic, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the MU College of Engineering, is working with doctoral student Erik Stone to use the Microsoft Kinect, a motion-sensing camera typically used as a video gaming device, to monitor behavior and routine changes in patients at TigerPlace. These changes can indicate increased risk for falls or early symptoms of illnesses, the researchers said. Another doctoral student, Liang Liu, is collaborating with Mihail Popescu, PhD, assistant professor in the College of Engineering and the Department of Health Management and Informatics in the MU School of Medicine, to develop a fall detection system that uses Doppler radar to recognize changes in walking, bending and other movements that may indicate a heightened risk for falls.
Read how patients were monitored via the Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 (PDF download)
Read how patients were monitored via the Doppler radar-based system (PDF download)

Report predicts six-fold growth for telemedicine between 2016–2020
The global telehealth market will surpass $1 billion by 2016, and could jump to $6 billion four years later, according to a new report. “The World Market for Telehealth—A Quantitative Market Assessment—2011 Edition.” The report attributes the explosive growth to increasing disease prevalence, an aging population, and governmental pressure to hold down healthcare costs. The report was published by InMedica (Wellingborough, UK), the medical electronics market research group within IMS Research, a market research firm consultancy serving the global electronics industry. The US remains the most established market given wide use of telemedicine by larger users—such as the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which has committed to enrolling 92,000 patients in telehealth services by 2012.
View the chart 'World Market for Telehealth—Subscribers by Disease Condition'

Next-generation Medi Port unveiled by Rubbermaid Medical
Rubbermaid Medical Solutions (Atlanta, GA) announced the launch of its second generation Medi Port mobile telemedicine cart. The next-generation Medi Port, as with its predecessor product, can accommodate high definition cameras and codecs from Cisco/Tandberg, Polycom, Vidyo and other producers. The new Medi Port offers a sleeker, more compact appearance, an electric lift for sitting or standing, a smaller base than other carts and a multi-touch screen. Medi Port is designed for use in operating rooms, emergency rooms, hospital wards or outpatient clinics. The new Medi Port's price was not disclosed.
Hear a podcast of a Rubbermaid executive discussing the company's telemedicine solutions

Pakistan orders creation of three telemedicine networks in flooded areas
Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani ordered the creation of telemedicine networks in areas hit by flooding, in hopes of preventing the spread of water borne diseases. Mr. Gilani gave the directive at the Sept. 22 meeting of the Board of Directors of the Universal Service Fund (USF), which he chaired in his capacity as minister-in-charge of Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology. At the meeting, directors approved projects of Rs. 10 billion (about $114.3 million) for the 2011–12 financial year, including the start of a USF pilot project to set up three telemedicine networks with 12 remote sites linked to any of three main hospitals—Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre in Karachi, Nishtar Medical College in Multan, and Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi. Each remote site will offer a digital stethoscope, digital derma-scope, portable ultrasound, digital ECG and customized telemedicine software to local patients, including consultations with specialists in the three main hospitals.
Read an official Pakistani news account about the telemedicine networks

Coaching, provider support reduce blood glucose in diabetes patients
Combining web and mobile-based patient coaching with clinical decision support for community primary care providers substantially reduced glycated hemoglobin A1C levels in patients with type 2 diabetes one year later, a research team concluded. Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD) published results of their Mobile Diabetes Intervention Study, comparing the effect of mobile app coaching via the WellDoc DiabetesManager system and web portals with standard diabetes management. Despite the encouraging hemoglobin A1C results, the team observed no persuasive changes in several secondary measures of diabetes control, such as abnormal blood pressure and lipid counts, blurred vision, depression, and pain.
Read the abstract

Telemedicine program of McGill University buys GlobalMed TotalExam™ 2 cameras
McGill University Hospital Centre (MUHC; Montreal, QC) ordered for its Quebec-wide telemedicine program 95 TotalExam™ 2 examination cameras from GlobalMed (Scottsdale, AZ). TotalExam is designed to deliver crystal clear digital close-ups of the skin, eyes, and throat. The telemedicine equipment will be deployed throughout the virtual hospital system. “This territory covers two-thirds of Quebec, and many of the 1.7 million residents live in remote and isolated parts of the province,” said Johanne Desrochers, N MSc, associate director for telehealth, administrator of MUHC's Pediatric Network & Northern and Native Health Program, and co-president for telehealth with McGill RUIS (Réseau Universitaire Intégré de Santé).
Read about TotalExam 2, and download the product sheet

Georgia Partnership, SOC launch three-state teleneurology network
Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth (GPT; Waycross, GA) and Specialists On Call (SOC; Westlake Village, CA) teamed up to create a 24/7/365 emergency teleneurology network that will serve Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. The teleneurology network is the second in the Southeast “stroke belt” announced in the past month by SOC, which launched a Tennessee-wide network with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN) [News Alert, Aug. 30 ] The partnership will allow GPT members to gain immediate, round-the-clock access to board-certified neurologists for patients suffering from stroke and other neurologic emergencies. GPT members will also have round-the-clock access to on-demand SOC psychiatrists for mental health patients arriving in the emergency room and needing immediate consultations. The announcement said SOC “will continue to offer additional on-demand specialties throughout 2012.”
Read about SOC's teleneurology service

St. Louis hospital augments services with support from Advanced ICU Care®
Advanced ICU Care® (St. Louis, MO), the nation's largest independent provider of telemedicine services in intensive care units, has begun providing support services to doctors and nurses in the ICU of Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital (St. Louis, MO). The services, launched Sept, 13, consist of telemedicine, as well as access to Advanced ICU Care's critical care nurses working remotely in the company's monitoring center, and access to board-certified intensivists-critical care physicians trained to care for ICU patients. Working with the hospital, the clinicians have real-time access to a graphic “dashboard” view of key patient information such as vital signs, heart monitor, medications, lab results, and a patient's entire medical history. Real-time video feeds and communications tools are designed to connect clinicians immediately with patients, their families, and staff.
Read about Advanced ICU Care's eICU® technology, developed by Philips VISICU

• Wireless Health 2011
  October 10–13—Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, La Jolla, CA
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• 2011 Connected Health Symposium
  October 20–21—Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers, Boston, MA
  More Info
  
  
• Digital Pathology Association 2011 Pathology Visions Conference
  October 30–November 2—Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, CA
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• 2011 mHealth Summit
  December 5–7, 2011—The Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, MD
  More Info
  
  
• Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth 2012 Annual Spring Conference
  March 14–16, 2012—The Ritz-Carlton, Reynolds Plantation Lake, Oconee, GA
  More Info
  
  

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