Center for Technology and Aging awards $500,000 in home-monitoring grants

July 27, 2010 — 10:08am ET | By Neil Versel

The Center for Technology and Aging, an Oakland, Calif.-based organization that seeks to improve the quality of home- and community-based care for seniors, has awarded $500,000 in grants to test remote monitoring technologies for disease management and post-acute care. The five recipients also are eligible for a total of more than $1.7 million in matching funds from other sources, the center says.

Winners of $100,000 grants are:

* Sharp HealthCare Foundation, San Diego, which will work with home-health agencies to monitor patients with five or more chronic conditions in an effort to reduce hospital readmission rates;

* New England Healthcare Institute, Cambridge, Mass., which will team with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Atrius Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to demonstrate how the Electronic House Call System from vendor ExpressMD Solutions can produce clinical and financial benefits;

* AltaMed Health Services, Los Angeles, and Stamford Hospital, Stamford, Conn., two organizations that are partnering to monitor patients with hypertension, kidney disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes and other conditions with the help of Honeywell's HomMed monitor, and plan to establish training programs for telehealth technicians at community colleges;

* Centura Health At Home, Denver, which will try to reduce call-center response time via video telehealth units from inLife and American TeleCare for patients with CHF, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and

* The California Association for Health Services at Home Foundation, Sacramento, which will work with various home-care agencies and employ Intel's Health Guide to monitor patients with chronic diseases to help reduce ED visits and 30-day readmission rates.

"RPM technologies make a huge difference in the quality of life for those living with chronic conditions," David Lindeman, director of the Center for Technology and Aging, says in a written statement.

"One of the center's goals is to assure that funded projects aren't 'one and done', but are designed to be replicated," Lindeman adds. "Each grantee has identified ways to make sure their project can continue beyond the one‐year grant period, can be broadly adopted by others, and is integrated within our long‐term care system."

For further details:
- take a look at this CMIO story
- see this Center for Technology and Aging press release (.pdf)