Matthew Billingsley: Telehealthcare, integration and innovation

Last week I attended the International Congress on Telehealth and Telecare at the King’s Fund, which was an opportunity to discuss the current opportunities in telehealthcare. The focal point for the conference was the presentation of the Department of Health’s Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) pilot project, which invested £31m in a trial of 6,000 users […]

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Tony Delamothe: TED Day 3: Of revolutions, algorithms, and wonder

By the end of the third day it was clear that one of the major conference themes had become  “Revolution 2.0,”  political upheaval facilitated by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In the words of one speaker, “the internet didn’t cause the revolutions,but it allowed them to happen.” Day one had had Al-Jazeera’s director general on stage […]

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Tony Delamothe: TED Day One: The Return of the Human

The night before the TED conference began, “The King’s Speech” beat “The Social Network,” four Oscars to three. A friend with a stake in the outcome had argued that a story revolving around  21st century technology (Facebook) should have had an advantage over a story revolving around a 20th century one (radio). […]

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Retelling the asylums. Harriet Vickers on “The Knitting Circle”

Years of experiences and memories have gone into Julie McNamara’s play The Knitting Circle. Examining the long stay hospitals of the 80s and 90s, through the lives of patients and healthcare workers who inhabited them, the piece takes us through the transition from institution to community care. McNamara is still working on the play, it’s […]

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Juliet Dobson: Should information be free?

Should information be free? Does any good come from restricting access to it? These questions were the topic of conversation at a talk hosted by IQ2 at the Dana Centre, on Tuesday 22 February. The discussion opened with Daniel Glaser from the Wellcome Trust asking whether scientists should make their research data free. The Lancet […]

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Snow Talk: Elizabeth Loder explores the bright side of all the snow in Massachusetts

Here in Massachusetts we’ve had snowstorm after snowstorm, and the winter of 2010-2011 is on track to be among the three snowiest on record. This record-setting possibility gives perverse satisfaction: at least we’ll be able to mention the award-winning nature of the snow when describing our hardships for future generations.  […]

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