Saturday 24 July 2010

Questions for the mhealth market for seniors

Too bad I couldn't attend the senior mhealth market 2010 conference.
If I had gone, I would have searched for answers on following questions.
Questions:
  • Mobile OS for elderly (for smartphone + touchscreen). I personally think such OS doesn't have a great future, but i get a lot of questions for the need of such OS. Do such OS'es exist?
  • Apps for elderly that are 'triple blonde proof' (although i prefer the term "Fisher-Price"-apps). Which companies are good at this?
  • Mobile phones conceived as hub/router for medical devices (specialising in connecting to devices and forwarding data). Special interested if they also offer connecting to userfriendly and disguised monitors like iMonsys http://www.telecareaware.com/index.php/innovative-imonsys.html
  • For service-flats (flats specifically for elderly with basic (paid) services) i'm looking for white-label apps. Besides the registration and interaction (menu-choice, leisure program/subscription , calender planning, ...) such apps should offer medication checks, PERS and video interaction. Here in Antwerp there's a 200-flat experiment in collaboration with Falcom (which runs Linux), but it's too basic imho. Any companies wanting to produce such apps?
  • Companies that are targeting young elderly people and focus on easy to use location based services, photo-sharing and tourism (food + guidance). If they concentrate on that core service AND also offer basic medical apps/services, they will do well and sell easier. Which companies are doing so?
BUT: I'm not interested at all in mobile phones or services that:
  • only offer service 'coverage' within a certain range of a specific transmitter/receiver. A lot of fall detection devices are doing this. But older people are very mobile, so their product is useless.
  • don't have a camera or GPS or Wi-Fi
  • have small buttons, tiny text, ...
  • are sold by companies that target OLD people (old people don't think of themselves as old .. and won't buy)
You might want to have a look at this great preso by David Doherty from 3gdoctor, given at the conference:

Google Buzz for apps: why is it taking so looooong?

Buzz is an extremely easy and fast way of communicating in your small or large team, even if you're very mobile.

And small to large teams are the target group for Google Apps.
The company buzz can be shielded from the outside world and can be completely integrated with other Google Apps.
Buzz was rolled out early this year and Google premium users are still waiting for Buzz.

Why aren't they implementing it?
  • There's no decent way to target specific groups of people within your organisation.
  • Tagging is not possible. And as you can't tag, you can't filter on it or create a filtered RSS-feed ... geared towards specific groups in your organisation.
  • I'm sure Google will be implementing a modest taskmanager in Buzz for Apps. Might take some time to figure out how they are going to do this.
Whereas Wave was (and is) too difficult for 'regular' users, I'm convinced Buzz has a great future for all Apps users.

I'm eagerly awaiting implementation,

tic, tac, tic, tac, ...



Mobile health and geolocation

Presentation for Flagis about mhealth and location / gps.
Small intro on care & mobile trends.
A lot of practical uses of mobile phones in healthcare, with the emphasis on location based applications.


Might be a bit too Flemish/Dutch for most English readers, despite the absence of text.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Looking for location based healthy/fitness game apps

... for mobile phones ofcourse AND that are location-exercise-centred.
I know there are a lot of apps that track your course (runkeeper, nokia, garmin, etc). But these only monitor a limited amount of sports.
Sportypal, Tallyzoo and Endomondo have more disciplines, but are still centred around your personal results.

I want to look at it from a different perspective: "look for exercises (of whatever kind) that where performed in your vicinity"

Opportunities

  • Compare with friends
  • Interact with people doing the same workout
  • Challenge people
  • Search for people doing the same exercise/trajectory
  • Businesses proposing healthy exercises

Ingredients that are put in this blender are: social fitness app + GPS + getupandmove + business advertising

I welcome your suggestions!