Another telehealth titan is making a play for the senior healthcare market.
Robert Bosch Healthcare, whose home health monitoring platforms have been embraced by organizations as varied as the Department of Veterans Affairs and Alaska's tribal healthcare service, has announced a partnership with GreatCall, which has developed a line of wireless health and safety products for the senior population. The deal gives Bosch an inroads to the lucrative and fast-growing market of wireless and safety solutions for older consumers and their families and caregivers.
“Today, many older persons are active and are looking for a telehealth solution that travels," said Jasper zu Pulotz, MD, president of Bosch Healthcare Systems, in a Feb. 19 press release. "In partnering with GreatCall, we will be able to leverage GreatCall’s expertise in mobile technology and Bosch’s evidence-based telehealth approach in order to offer our customers mobile telehealth solutions.”
With its Health Buddy and T400 ("Turtle") products, Palo Alto-Calif.-based Bosch Healthcare works with more than 100 health management programs to manage long-term care programs for patients with chronic conditions or those who needed care after discharge from a hospital. The VA began using the Health Buddy System in 2000, rolling out the service nationwide in 2003, and has seen decreases of as much as 19 percent in hospitalizations and 25 percent in "bed days of care," according to Bosch Healthcare officials.
Last year, Bosch released results of a study that indicated high-cost, high-risk Medicare patients suffering from heart failure saw a reduced all-cause mortality risk of 25 percent after three years on the Health Buddy System combined with a care management program, with the risk reduction as high as 57 percent for those who actively participated in the program.
Bosch officials say a combined Bosch-GreatCall telehealth solution, to be made available sometime this year, will target the growing population of older, more active consumers and those with chronic conditions, helping them to maintain a healthy lifestyle and reduce unnecessary medical interventions.
"… Bosch is convinced that mobile telehealth solutions will become indispensible in engaging and meeting the needs of this broader population, while delivering key elements that have shown to generate positive clinical and economic outcomes for its traditional user base," officials said in the press release.
GreatCall, based in San Diego, markets the Jitterbug, 5Star and GreatCall brands on a commercial level, connecting consumers with emergency response professionals and caregivers and offer health and safety information and reminders.
“Telehealth and m-health solutions can provide vast benefits to patients, their families and their healthcare providers,” said David Inns, president and CEO of GreatCall, in the press release. “Our partnership with Bosch Healthcare is a significant milestone for the industry and will help make the promise of broad adoption of these solutions a reality.”
