Into the Dead zombie game (above) is another spooky game Goji Play has partnered with in time for Halloween.
I first wrote about Goji Play last December, and since then they have more than tripled the number of games linked to the platform. The device and fitness wearable attaches to any cardio machine to track workout metrics. The data relays back to a tablet or phone, which can be sync’d to any one of Goji’s games. The faster you move, the better you play in the game.
For those of you indulging in a couple pieces of Halloween chocolate, note how many calories these fun sizes can add up to! Here are the number of games (and minutes of cardio) it takes to burn off some of the top Halloween candies:
Goji Play comes with wireless controllers and a clip on activity sensor. Compatible games are available on any iOS device. At less than $100, Goji Play transforms any piece of cardio equipment into a gaming machine. Available at bluegoji.com or Amazon.com today.
Netatmo’s June is a connected cosmetic device that protects skin from sun damage. It is an elegant bracelet that has UVA and UVB sensors to collected sun exposure data and transmit coverage recommendations to a mobile app. The app has a basic understanding of the user’s skin type (asks 6 initial questions including hair color, eye color, how do you usually tan, etc.), and based on the World Health Organization’s skin and sun criteria, the app calculates your daily sun dose percentage.
The device is meant to be a luxury piece that doesn’t interfere with your lifestyle, but instead enhances it. The app sends you alerts when you should reapply sunscreen, can tell you when to wear sunglasses or a hat, and can be pre-set to inform you when your sun exposure reaches certain levels.
Netatmo’s mission is to monitor the environment to create a healthier lifestyle through connected home and connected beauty (other products include a weather station and thermostat). As Eléonore de Fournas, PR Manager explains, “The bracelet is designed for women and targets users who may not always have sun exposure on their minds as they go about their daily lives – when they go to work, have lunch, practice an outdoor activity, or send their kids to school. It’s for women who want to take care of their skin, and prevent skin damage.”
Virginie Golicheff, Head of Communications emphasizes, “It’s really a sun coach – we wanted the design to be nice and more closely related to a piece of jewelry than a tracker. We want to teach people about their skin and educate them around UV exposure.”
It’s surprising how much sun exposure one gets after eating lunch for 30 minutes outside – almost the full 100% if there isn’t cloud coverage or if the user hasn’t applied sunscreen. Eléonore elaborates, “It’s shocking how much sun you get without noticing – and especially when it’s a bit cloudy, people really don’t think about UVA, UVB on your skin – but with June you can see that skin damage happens regardless of direct exposure.”
June has a one month battery life before recharge, which supports the goal of not being too intrusive. It is also water resistant. You can order it now from the website.
Rise is a new nutrition coaching app that makes it affordable to have structured, personal, and specialized nutrition coaching. Your personal diet coach gives you daily feedback and advice based on what you eat and what types of habits you keep. The feedback is tailored to each individual’s changing lifestyle.
The app makes interacting with a personal nutritionist easy. By taking photos of every snack and meal, you are giving your nutritionist a reliable way to shape your diet in real time. The app itself is well designed, although taking pictures of every meal takes a little getting used to. My coach was friendly and experienced. The personal attention I got made me more cognizant of what I was eating and when. After spending several days in Las Vegas and eating haphazardly, her appraisals of my meals made me focus on eating fruits and vegetables upon arriving back at home. The coaching works – and the native interface doubles as a food diary. It’s definitely an app to try on the way to modifying eating habits for the better.
Millions of Americans take care of their aging parents while managing work and raising their own families. These adults are part of the ‘Sandwich Generation,’ and are constantly on call to help ailing family members. One of the toughest and most time consuming activities to do as a part-time informal caretaker is to track behaviors and note subtle day-to-day fluctuations that might hint towards bigger issues. CarePredict, founded by Satish Movva, founder of ContinuLink, is a wearable device company that assists adult children in tracking their aging parents’ health and activities.
The Tempo is the company’s first device, which tracks the wearer’s location within the home and learns their normal pattern of movement. Cleverly named, when there is a potential concerning change to the users daily tempo (in activities such as standing, walking, and sitting), the device notifies all caregivers in a text or email about the discrepancy.
The sensor is easy to wear and detects different motions. This motion data is transmitted wirelessly to the CarePredict beacon, which understands the location of the user and sends all the data from the wearable to CarePredict’s servers for analysis. The data can be monitored from an online account or smartphone app. CarePredict, currently taking pre-orders, is slated to launch next month.
Zipnosis is an online service that diagnoses and treats common medical conditions, 24/7, by a board-certified clinician. Yes – finally a service that can prescribe you medication to common conditions by just knowing current symptoms and past history.
There are existing companies that introduce telemedicine through complex solutions using live streaming video, focused on diagnosing tough conditions. Zipnosis differs by first entering the market to treat all the millions of people with simple, more common conditions.
As Jon Pearce, CEO of Zipnosis, describes it, “If other telemedicine companies are like Blockbuster, Zipnosis is more like Netflix. We are web based and can be used on any device. We’ve been able to build a company that is a true digital platform between a patient and a provider. We are targeting more than just information – we are focused on diagnosis, treatment and triage.”
Busy growing, the company has gone from treating an initial 8-9 conditions to adding about 40 more conditions last year, and focusing this year on triage and chronic conditions. Zipnosis can be used in 14 states and expanding, and is busy partnering with health systems to expand their diversified base of clinicians. Over time, Zipnosis will broaden from treating common conditions to include chronic ones, such as cardiac disease and hyperlipidemia.
What are users saying? The company has over 90% satisfaction rates. The clinicians prescribe by guidelines, giving better, more consistent quality care. “96% of the patients that we talk to tell 3-4 people because it’s so transformative,” Jon says. “We know it works and it works quickly and accurately. People should not be afraid of the way we are offering diagnosis and treatment. It is rooted in clinical data and successes and it is a safe and effect way to get care.”
Zipnosis is leading the way to a new, leaner and faster way to get answers and treatments to immediate health concerns. Jon assured me that California is on their short list of states they will be expanding to, and I look forward to using them. For those in the lucky 14 states, try Zipnosis the next time you need an answer.
Feeling feverish is often the first symptom of getting sick and finally there is a smart thermometer that can calculate, display, and track changes in temperature with one app. The Kinsa Smart Thermometer is beautiful in its design and very easy to use. Not only does it track an individual’s temperature, but it also aggregates geographic health information and user feedback to help understand which illnesses are spreading and where.
I tested Kinsa in beta, and was astonished at how light, flexible and comfortable it is to use. Kinsa is made to be used by the whole family, but is especially well tailored to children. The smartphone display has fun bubbles that makes temperature taking engaging for the fidgety little ones. Each time a temperature is taken, the user can assign it to a person and save the record. Additionally, the precise time of the stored data is helpful information to a doctor.
By the time it is released to the public, Kinsa will have the ability to track the health within private groups (e.g. your child’s classroom, your neighborhood). This innovative spread-of-illness crowdsourcing will be able to create a truly connect, global network of aware families. It also means faster care – if you struck a high temperature and knew that strep was going around, you could head to the doctor when symptoms first appear to get antibiotics and avoid a long recovery.
Something so useful, technology driven, and affordable should be on everyone’s list of must-have health devices. Kinsa is taking pre-orders on their website, to be fulfilled March/April.
2013 was a great year for consumer healthcare technology. This year, 95 million Americans have used mobile phones as health tools or as search devices to find healthcare information, paving the way for a more connected and health conscious 2014.
To continue with my annual Year in Review, I present some of my favorite companies and posts in 2013.
A big thank you to my readers for your support, ideas and input.
-Alexis
Best New Entrants into Wearables:
Misfit Wearables — Self-tracking wearable, incredibly elegant and striking
Withings Pulse — Self-tracking wearable, Withings’ first entry into the physical activity tracker space
Goji Play — Self-tracking indoor cardio wearable, transforms any cardio machine into an interactive gaming workout
OnTheGo Platforms — Smart glass app development platform that focuses on exercise apps and more
The much anticipated Withings Pulse activity and sleep tracker is now taking pre-orders. Much like the Fitbit One, the Pulse has new additional functions including elevation climbed data, running duration information and heart rate measuring capabilities. The Pulse can be worn as a clip or in a sleep wristband. The Pulse is slightly wider (but less long) than the Fitbit One and currently comes in black. For me the deal breaker is not having a daily wrist wearable / bracelet option. Having almost washed the Fitbit One twice and often forgetting it at home in the morning, I know this sleek piece of wearable tech doesn’t fit my style. In time, I hope the Pulse will be more compact and wrist wearable, but for now if you are looking for a small, easily hidden health and activity tracker, this is definitely the one to get.
If I had to pick one word to describe Dr. David Albert, Founder and Chief Medical Officer at AliveCor, I would use passionate – passionate about improving the healthcare system and people’s lives. Having worked in the medical device industry for over 25 years and a serial entrepreneur, Dr. Albert has always been focused on improving the status quo, especially in medical technologies. As he recalls, “In 2008, I saw the smartphone as a major disruptive technology and immediately knew that it would soon become ubiquitous. Smartphones represented a platform where I could deliver affordable cardiac care.”
And so the AliveCor Heart Monitor, an iPhone case-like device was conceived. The company then executed so many clinical trials from top researchers and institutions to validate the device that it only took 75 days to get their 510(k) approval from the FDA – to put this in perspective, on average it usually takes almost twice as long for most devices to go from submission to clearance.
With 1,000 units already sold in the United States this month, AliveCor will soon start selling in Europe in the next 4-6 weeks. Doctors and patients can access the fully secure, HIPAA-compliant online web portal to view all ECG data. AliveCor is working on syncing this data to individual EMRs as well.
Dr. Albert views the device as an instant way for doctors to get status updates on heart health, emphasizing, “We’ve got to figure out how to do things less expensively but maintain if not improve the quality of care.” Just like using a stethoscope or looking into a patient’s mouth, doctors can use the Heart Monitor to do an instant health check and get reimbursed in the process. Doctors can also prescribe the Heart Monitor for their patients to purchase for home use and consistent long-term monitoring.
AliveCor also launched the Heart Monitor for veterinarians in August, and there are currently more than 2,000 units used by vets around the world, on any animal from domesticated pets to endangered species, to racetrack horses.
What can we look forward to in the future from AliveCor? The company is working on making the Heart Monitor available over-the-counter. After introducing the product in the EU, they look to approach more emerging markets. As Dr. Albert notes, “It is not clean water or electricity that is readily available throughout the world – it is cell phones,” and for doctors and clinics that can’t pay thousands for an EKG machine, the AliveCor Heart Monitor is a very good alternative. The company is also preparing to integrate the monitor in medical education and nursing education, to teach the next generation of health practitioners how to use the device.
Dr. Albert’s focus and AliveCor’s goal is to “deliver healthcare more efficiently, at a lower cost, yet still keeping people safe,” and they are off to a great start.
I’ve always been enamored by maps, because they tell a story – why one area is more populated than another, how populations move and what geographic distinctions make an area more attractive for a specific use. ESRI takes their research + outside data + government data + social media to create stories using maps. From tracking demographic impact after Superstorm Sandy to mapping out Olympic medals won per country over the years, the maps cover a range of interests. These maps can be used academically to visualize and interpret data to better understand relationships, but they are also just plain fun to look at.
The start of 2013 also came with a rough flu season. ESRI has taken weekly data gathered by the CDC and mapped out which states have the highest influenza activity. On top of that, ESRI has layered on social media (YouTube, Twitter, Flickr) to show who’s talking about the flu. Check out the map here: Health Information Map. There is also a map to see which populations are most at-risk from the flu this season by age.
alexisavvy | healthcare it & consumer health blog 