GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day

Posted on November 3, 2011 by JPM

GameCity 2011 took place in Nottingham between the 26th and 29th of September, and is a festival looking at many different aspects of computer gaming old and new. Whilst there were many activities that took place during the festival, I wanted to only comment about my personal experiences, both good and bad, of the events that I attended.

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

To mark the 25th Anniversary of the Legend of Zelda series of games the activities on the final day of Game City 2011 were dedicated to the iconic Adventures of Link.

If there was ever any doubt about the impact that the series has made upon players over the years, then these were put to one side by the devotion and numbers of fans that turned up for the event. From way before the the doors opened to the public and for the majority of the day the queue for entry went from the front door right around the side and behind the festival base. A lot of fans dressed up for the occasion and came dressed as Link, and this wasn’t limited to children as many adults got into the spirit, and had obviously spent a lot of time getting their costumes together. This shouldn’t come as a surprise really as the Zelda games are 25 years old and will have been a big part of many peoples lives since they first started playing games.

Upon entering the festival HQ is was clear to see that the only focus of the day was going to be Zelda. When entering the venue every visitor was given a special Zelda themed ocarina and every Nintendo Zelda game ever produced was available (unlucky if you wanted to play the CDi ‘classic’ Link: The Faces of Evil) in one form or another around the edges of the room.

Zelda based activities took centre stage, for example, a sword fighting demo was given with visitors taking part in choreographed fight scenes, and there was a fancy dress competition for those wanting to take part, although it was the activity behind the main screen that generated the most interest. Several demonstration Wii’s had been set up running a sneak peak of the forthcoming Zelda game Skyward Sword. The Gameplay looked intriguing, fun, adventurous and in the familiar style to it’s Wii predecessor, but to me it was noticeable how dated the Wii’s graphics had become, I know that the Zelda (and Wii games in general) are about the substance rather then the style but I couldn’t help but wonder what the Zelda game would have looked like on the PS3. That aside it was impressive how players were able to just pick up the wiimotes and play the game comfortably and, as shown in the video below, instantly start to enjoy the adventure, This must have been a real treat for Zelda fans.

The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day was extremly well organised and given the shear numbers of people trying to get into the event the organisers should be proud that it seemed to go very well.

GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Wild Rumpus

Posted on November 1, 2011 by JPM

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

Following on from our disappointing start at the Retro Gaming night we moved onto the Wild Rupus Event held upstairs at the Chameleon.

The first thing that we noticed was that the event was very well attended and that the small venue was packed, no cat swinging here!!!

Again we were a little disappointed by the lack of content as only 3 games were on show, these were 4 Fourths by Mikengreg Games Co, Jesus Vs Dinosaurs by Grapefrukt & Kloonigames & B.U.T.T.O.N by Copenhagen Game Collective.

4 Fourths was presented in a spectacular manner, projected onto a wall, which suited its bright, vivid vector style graphics and presented a very impressive spectacle.

Unfortunately nobody around us could work out how to play the game, and it wasn’t straight forward but I suspect that after you get used to the control system, there may be a fun and challenging game hidden away in there.

Jesus Vs Dinosaurs was shown on a standard size screen and was a cross between a beat ‘em up, and a physics game where objects had to be created to use on your opponent, the game had a Biblical Vs Science theme and used effective Terrance and Phillip style graphics. The game was proving to be very popular and getting near the table to play the game was difficult, truly a sign of a successful game.

For me, as an example of a true adult style party game, B.U.T.T.O.N. (standing for: Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) takes some beating. The game is very simple, 4 controllers are placed on a table and simple instructions are displayed on screen. The instructions range from walk 5 paces backwards, to dance for 30 seconds to the last person to hold their fire button down for 15 seconds is out. Interaction with the game is kept to an absolute minimum but as the games title emplies this is not true with interaction with other players, as they can employ any means necessary to knock out their opponents. As the video I filmed below shows this simple game generates plenty of fun, just watch your Tv’s though as the screen used at the Rumpus nearly ended up on the floor several times.

The concept of The Wild Rumpus is good, it let visitors let their hair down with a beer or 2 and enjoy some different and unusual styles of games, but the concept needs to be scaled up to a larger venue with more space and more games. From small acorns… and all that.

GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: Retro Gaming at the HomeMade Cafe

Posted on October 31, 2011 by JPM

You can see all articles on Game City by clicking here

My first experience of Game City came from the Retro Gaming Event which was held at the HomeMade Cafe.

This event was one of the key reasons I decided to attend GameCity, as I’m a keen Retro Gamer and was keen to see some of the games and systems from my days as a heavy gamer. It’s fair to say that my expectations were set far too high and were not met.

Arriving at the HomeMade Cafe we discovered that this was a very nice but small, narrow venue, and that it wasn’t going to host the Retro gaming hotbed that we were expecting. There was a £3 entry fee which felt a little excessive considering that there were only 4 consoles available to play with, and only 2 screens to play them on. On 1 table there was an N64 running the classic shooter Goldeneye, although as there was only 1 controller it wasn’t possible to play the much lauded multi-player mode. On the other table there was a SNES, Megadrive and Atari 2600 sharing a single screen. There were a group of gamers playing the SNES trying to get as far as possible, which is an honorable and worthwhile challenge fitting of the event, but it meant that half the available consoles weren’t available to play on.

Whilst not an ideal venue for a gaming night the HomeMade Cafe was fantastic, the food available was first rate, and anyone visiting Nottingham should definitely check it out.

Well fed but feeling slightly disappointed we moved onto the next event “The Wild Rumpus”

GameCity 2011 My Thoughts: The Legend of Zelda Take Over Day

Problems moving the Bridlington Ghost Train

Posted on September 28, 2011 by JPM

Whilst out on a brief evening stroll in Bridlington, we came across staff of the Bayside Leisure Park in Bridlington trying to remove the Ghost Train from site.

The ride had been folded away for transit and attached to the back of a lorry, unfortunately the exercise was more problematic then anticipated, due to the angle of bend and steepness of the only access point.

The only way to remove the ghost train was to reverse the lorry up a steep and bendy path, unfortunately as the picture below shows their wasn’t enough clearance on the back of the trailer to avoid it grounding and jamming against the road.

Without any other exit points along the Bridlington front the lorry was now stuck and a solution was urgently required, to provide extra clearance the staff placed planks underneath the rear of the lorry to provide additional height, and wet the path with hose pipes to reduce the friction on the surface. The following video shows the hose pipe in action.

The operation now involved tiny movements to get the trailer around the bend, at the front of the cabin there were only a few inches of clearance space from the sea wall, and with the end of the trailer scraping along the road, every movement was vital, and not without danger. In the following video the Lorry almost hits both a member of the Bayside staff and a wall.

The whole operation took about 4 hours from the start of the problems until the end, and all involved deserve a great deal of praise for resolving the situation as it could have been alot worse, but it wasn’t without damage, a wall on the ramp way was damaged during the process.

Bayside Leisure Park was recently in the news when their was a serious accident on it’s Jungle River Log Flume

How Effective are Facebook Adverts

Posted on September 25, 2011 by JPM

In this previous post I looked at the the effectiveness of Microsoft Ad campaigns using a free voucher I received, and I thought that I would compare a number of pay per click advert systems (where you only pay when an advert gets clicked) to see how they compare, and I’ve been testing Facebook PPC Adverts to see how they perform.
I created a campaign based around the same test website (a small and basic health insurance advice site) using the same wording as I used in the Microsoft Advert. So how did the Facebook campaign compare?

Facebook shows relevant ads by knowing the demographic details and interests of it’s members, whereas the Microsoft system picks relevant ads based on search criteria, and from my testing the Microsoft system works much better then the Facebook system.

My Facebook ad generated 33,028 impressions but only received 8 clicks with an average cost of £0.68 per click, whereas the Microsoft ad generated 33,500 impressions and received 111 clicks with a much lower average cost per click of only £0.09.

There may be an occasion where Facebook serves a specific purpose, eg where you need to target a specific demographic, but as a pure advertising platform Facebook looks to be expensive and not as effective as other ad platforms.

How Effective are Microsoft Adverts

Posted on September 21, 2011 by JPM

I recently received an email from Microsoft Ad Centre inviting me to trial their service with a $50 free voucher. I had difficulty using the voucher as I’m based in the UK, but Microsoft Customer Services were excellent is finding me a voucher code for the equivalent amount for UK based Website owners.

So with my account credited I thought I would try their service to see how well it worked for bringing traffic to a website devloped specifically for the test.

Using a campaign of 4 hours as a testbed and with a maximum limit of £0.30 (although my average CPC ended up at £0.09) 34.5K advert impressions generated 111 clicks.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft Ads compare to other Ad sources, I might use some other free vouchers to see if a comparison of services is possible. I’ll report back on my findings here.

The use of Technology with Dementia sufferers

Posted on September 14, 2011 by JPM

The Evidence for proven benefits through Telehealth for Dementia sufferers isn’t as clear as it is for other conditions, instead It’s more important to have person centred and adaptable services available.
Generally the Carers of Dementia sufferers tend to emphasise the requirment for patient safety, whereas suffers typically want to focus on their daily structure and living experience, and have a “I’m not dying of dementia I’m living with it” mentality. Therefore where possible a Self-management programme should be developed with the purpose of helping sufferers to help themselves.

Studies have shown that Dementia Sufferers want to stay physicaly fit, develop new skills, and Keep in contact with outside world, helping to maintain a sense of self and assist them to self manage their condition for as long as possible.
Current studies are focusing on the use of common everyday technology rather than specialised adhock equipment to help Dementia Sufferers.
Cost effective and readily available technology like Video Phones
Electronic Reminder Services, Social Networking sites,Webcams and mobile phones with GPS tracking systems can be used to make life a little easier for sufferers.
These kinds of off the shelf technology can used for :

Prompting e.g. prompt to wash hands
The Safe use of domestic equipment e.g. cooking prompting Following recipes
Orientation through the house at night
street navigation
Reminiscence & Recall e.g. digital story telling
Socialising
Comfort eg robot pets and Digital scrapbooking/blogs

The abilities of the person suffering Dementia should be focused on for as long as possible, and this is facilitated by supporting and readily available technology.

How to get Traffic from Twitter and why Twitter is like TV Adverts

Posted on September 14, 2011 by JPM

In this previous post I discussed how I was finding that the content of the articles I was linking to was more important then how the actual tweet was written.
What I also started to notice was that when I sent a tweet the effect on traffic to my site was generally pretty instant rather then sustained.
This might be because when you catch a follower online your tweet appears at the top of their timeline but if they login sometime after the tweet is sent then can get hidden within dozens of other tweets.

With this in mind Twitter could be compared to TV advertising in that it’s at it’s most effective when people actually see the advert at time of broadcast, if it’s missed then it’s message is lost.

So how then can Twitter be used to it’s most effective to share your links and drive traffic to your site? Following the TV advertising example I tried sending multiple tweets linking to my iPhone site across my Twitter networks.
My Twitter network is shared across 4 Twitter accounts each focused on a technical theme so tweets about the iPhone should be of interest to some of my followers.

Rather the retweeting the same link several times in 1 day, I decided to pick a number of popular articles and schedule a Tweet linking to each at regular intervals throughout the day. Each time the tweet was published it was sent out across all 4 accounts, this allowed frequent visibility of links to my site without boring my followers with repeated identical links.

As seen in the graph below Using this method really boosted the amount of traffic to my site, nearly doubling the amount of site views.

By going deeper into the hourly stats following this method the individual traffic spikes (the blue line) matching the scheduled tweets can clearly be seen.

Jungle River Log Flume in Bridlington Still Closed to Riders following serious injury

Posted on September 6, 2011 by JPM

The Jungle River Log Flume is a Popular Tourist Attraction at the Bayside Leisure Park in Bridlington which is owned by Martin Holland, has been left closed following a serious accident on the 28th of August.

Reports from the location indicated that the ride had apparently suffered from a malfunction and a member of staff had paused the ride to perform maintenance, when the ride started a carriage slide down jammed and threw 2 riders from the ride. A 58 year old women and a 4 year old girl were injured in the accident, and both required hospital treatment.

We were on holiday at the time in Bridlington and during the week before the accident we had noticed that the ride didn’t seem to be running as well as on our previous visits there, with water not always being present on the slides.

We had actually been on and enjoyed the ride a week before the accident and had filmed the ride round. The video of which can be seen below.

Does how a Tweet is written effect the number of clicks

Posted on September 5, 2011 by JPM

In this post I explained how I had Tweeted a link to my Twitter Network and wanted to see if there was a difference in the amount of traffic sent to the article, if the post was written in a different manner.

A link to the exact same article was sent out at the exact same same ‘optimum times’, on the 31st of August the Tweet was basic and too the point, on the 1st of September the Tweet was more descriptive and tried to sell the article more.

The results can be seen in the Graph below which shows traffic to the Article. Little if any difference was noticed.

Compare the results to the following graph which shows what happened when a tweet was sent out to all my Twitter networks at the same time and ignoring optimum tweeting times.
The Tweet was describing a way to find out how to find cheap iPhone games, so there was a natural incentive for my followers to click on the link.
Even though optimum posting times were ignored, the article attracted more readers.
Perhaps content is king over style.

How to See when your Twitter Followers are Online

Posted on August 31, 2011 by JPM

Twitter is a great tool for sharing a message with many followers at the same time, however how do you know when the best time to Tweet is.

Given that most Twitter Users have busy timelines where older tweets can be missed, to reach a maximum number of followers it’s best to post when most users are currently online and looking at Twitter, so that they see your Tweet Arrive – but how can you tell when the optimum time is to reach your Followers.

Tweriod is a free service which will analyse your Twitter Followers Twitter usage over the previous month and generate a report of the optimum time frames when most are online. It’s free reports cover Sundays, Mondays, Weekend Averages, and Weekday averages. I tend to use just the average results.

Using one of my accounts from this twitter experiment it’s clear to see that the optimum time frame is around 4pm. You could then either manually Tweet or schedule a Tweet for that time frame knowing that as many of your Followers as possible will see the message

Tweriod is easy to use, all you do is log in to the site using your Twitter account details and they do the rest, you can get an updated report for free once every month, and whilst there are some premium facilities that you can pay for the free service will be fine for most Tweeters.

To put the results generated by Tweriod to the test:

I’ve used Google Analytics to pick a popular article from my site.
Write a Tweet about the Article.
Schedule a Tweet to each of the 4 accounts and also my iphonehints twitter account for their optimum time.

I’ll post the results here.

Tombstoning in Bridlington

Posted on August 28, 2011 by JPM

Tombstoning is the act of jumping into the sea from a high platform with your arms and legs straight so that you resemble a tombstone, and it’s an activity which remains popular with the teenagers in Bridlington.

It’s a very dangerous activity as it’s impossible to tell how deep the water is where you are jumping and also you can’t see whats under the water.

Recently high profile news articles have highlighted the angers associated with Tombstoning. In August 2009 a 14 year old boy suffered severe neck and head injuries after falling into the sea in an area of Bridlington infamous for Tomstoning, and in May 2011 the lifeboat had to be dispatched to save two lads when they disappeared out of view after Tombstoning from the Bridlington pier.

In May of this year, to introduce a deterrent and to give the police more power to stop Tombstoning in Bridlington a new local bylaw was introduced which means that fines of £500 can be issued to anyone caught Tombstoning.

Despite all this some youths still choose to partake in Tombstoning as the following video filmed today shows. This activity is dangerous and the parents of the individuals involved need to stop them.

When Tech Fights Back

Posted on August 17, 2011 by JPM

Connected Technology is fantastic, it can link data sources all over the world, and when cyber criminals strike it can turn the tables.

Greg Martin a Web Security Pro, and self proclaimed hacker, had his Apple MacBook Pro Stolen during the recent riots in London. Unfortunately for the thief Greg had installed the Prey Security Software on the laptop.

When the Prey service is notified over the Internet that its host device had been stolen it provides reports on how the device is being used and provide screen capture images.
Using Prey, Greg Martin was able to see how his stolen MacBook was being used and also capture the thief’s location, email and social media login credentials. Photos of the thief were also captured using the laptops webcam.
This technology is finding it’s way into the mainstream. It’s already possible to locate and wipe stolen iPhones and it won’t be long before stolen computer equipment will be worthless.

An 18 year old named Soheil Khalilfar has been charged with the theft of Greg Martin’s MacBook.

Is £10.99 too expensive for a Mobile Game?

Posted on August 5, 2011 by JPM

This is an editorial article by John, the founder and a contributor to http://iphone-experience.com. You can follow me on twitter @john_in_scunny. I wanted to write an article about a recent release

Yesterday (05/08/11) after a few delays Final Fantasy Tactics was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Many (including myself) had been waiting for the release but not many were expecting the price tag of £10.99 ($15.99).

The game has previously been a hit on the Playstation, GBA & PSP and is without doubt is a great game, although the iOS version is little more then a port of the previous versions, the quality of the game play is not in question.

Traditionally iOS games have a low price tag, the majority cost less then £1, some are free, and even the top titles rarely cost more then £5, so to see a game costing £11, which isn’t dissimilar to the cost of a budget console game, has come as a shock. But surly the developers are able to charge a higher rate for premium games, especially when the compare in quality to games released on traditional consoles, aren’t they.

There definitely seems to be 2 separate camps here.

On one hand, the developers, Square Enix, should be able to turn round and say that the development of mobile games doesn’t cost them any less, especially for a big block buster of a game, and as the mobile market grows they are in danger of loosing revenue due to the shrinking market for games on physical media.

Everything in life has a value and in the case the developer has chosen to value the game at £11, which is still significantly cheaper then most console games. I’m sure they would argue that raising prices allows for greater investment in future projects, so everyone benefits right?

..but on the other hand…….

The game is a revamp of a 10 year old game, without significant additions, certainly the graphics haven’t been upgraded and retina display support isn’t included.

The distribution chain for electronic media is significant less then that of physical media so games can sell for less and still make money.
Compared to other AAA titles on the iPhone Final Fantasy Tactics stands out as being very expensive, for example the big name FIFA by EA was less then £5 when launched and is currently less then £0.69.

For me Final Fantasy Tactics is a great game but it is priced to high for it’s Market place. Its price doesn’t fit with the Market price of it’s piers, and this presents a risk to the App Store. By artificially increasing the price of an app there is a real chance that other apps will increase their price, especially if Final Fantasy Tactics sells well. This will reduce the amount of sales in the Market and everyone will lose out.

No Related Posts

If your Twitter Followers were a Country, which Country would they be

Posted on August 1, 2011 by JPM

Twitter is a fantastic tool for very quickly reaching out to many people and sharing a brief message, but when looking at how many Twitter followers someone has can you really put that number in to context. To most people it will just be a figure, but to try and visualise numbers of users you could compare the populations of countries.

For example every time Stephen Fry writes a Tweet it appears on the the time line of ~ 2.8 million Twitter users, which equates to the population of Mongolia. Imagine any other situation where an entire population of a country can hear something you say, and what’s more a country who has chosen to listen to you by following your Tweets.

Here are some further examples of comparing Twitter followers to the populations of countries:

Lady Gaga – 12.1 Million – Senegal
Justin Bieber – 11.4 million – Cuba
Barack Obama – 9.4 million – Sweden
Oprah Winfrey – 6.8 million – Papua New Guinea
Stephen Fry – 2.8 million – Mongolia
Arnold Schwarzenegger – 2.1 million – Lesotho
Jason Bradbury – 130k -Saint Vincent and the Grenadines & Palau combined
Edna Fry – 108k – U.S. Virgin Islands
Pat Flynn – 50k – Saint Kitts and Nevis
iPhonehints – 1.4k Niue ( or 2.8k – Falkland Islands if you include the accounts from this project)

Interesting 2 pop stars (one of which is a young lad) has significantly more followers then the official Twitter account of the President of the United States and most powerful man in the world.

With popularity and an audience comes responsibility, as a small example Stephen Fry has accidentally taken a few websites down simply by providing a link to their site and the amount of traffic has taken down the server. Imagine if Lady Gaga linked to a site, the amount of traffic could be about 4 times larger.

We have recently seen how when Twitter collectively gets behind a cause the effect can be incredible, just ask the former staff at the News of the World news paper, and with millions of followers you could start to direct Twitter causes. This could (and I ‘m sure does) causes some cause of concern.

Even my little iPhonehints twitter feed reaches the same number of people as in a country called Niue, (which is a small island country of New Zealand citizens).

Hello Niue I feel I have a connection with you now.

Using Twitter to Follow a Major News incident (Explosion in Oslo)

Posted on July 22, 2011 by JPM

Twitter is a great tool for allowing people to share their news very quickly, and nothing highlights this better then when a major news incident takes place.

Today there was a massive explosion in a government building in Oslo, whilst the cause is still unknown there is significant damage to buildings and probable casualties. We pray for everyone involved in the incident for their safe keeping.

Traditionally the world would have to wait for news reporters to get to the scene to start sharing the news of the incident, but modern technology, e.g. Twitter running on camera phones, allows people on the scene to share their own experiences and pictures of the incident. As soon as the incident happened on-lookers started to tell and show the world of what they could see.

This kind of crowd sourced news offers an unprecedented view at real time events, and we could all follow the real experiences of real people just by using the Twitter Search Engine.

Typing: near:Oslo within:15mi into the Twitter Search box displays the Tweets that were posted with a 15 mile radius of Oslo, and the Twitter keeps refreshing the search results so that you are always seeing the latest updates.

We can see the news through the eyes of witnesses rather then the condensed summary by the news agencies.

How to Use Advanced Twitter Search Operators

Posted on July 19, 2011 by JPM

Twitter can be an incredible information tool, it’s just that sometimes the sheer amount of information can be overwhelming, and it can be difficult to find the specific information that you are looking for. Fortunately Twitter includes some powerful search tools.

The easiest way to performed advanced searches is through the Twitter Advanced Search Page which provides an easy to use interface but for true customisation Twitter provides a number of operators that you can input directly into a Twitter search box.

The operators in full can be found on this page but here are some useful examples.

I’m looking to connect with people in or around the English Coastal Town of Bridlington, so that I can find out about local events and news. I could just search for mentions of the town in the normal Twitter search box but it would be better to see who’s actually tweeting from there.

I can use the near: and Within: operators to see who’s been tweeting from around the town and surrounding areas, e.g. to see who’s been tweeting from within a 10 mile radius of Bridlington I can enter the following search parameter:

near:bridlington,uk within:10mi which returns a list of tweets from Users in Bridlington. Brilliant.

or perhaps you run a website and and want to increase your sites Twitter Following by following Targeted Twitter users, for example UK based tweeters who play GTA (Grand Theft Auto) you could search for something like:

playing GTA near:Leeds within:300mi which searches for tweets containing both the words “playing” and “GTA”, that are made within 300 miles of Leeds, you could then connect with these users through twitter.

You could also then increase your Twitter following by using this method or feed the search string to an Automated Twitter Following Tool

How to Pickle Samphire

Posted on July 12, 2011 by JPM

Samphire is an Edible Coastal plant that is rich in Vitamin C.

Samphire has a very short season, is generally available between July and August and is best eaten before it flowers. It can be eaten as part of a salad but also tastes great when pickled. Pickling also provides a method for long life storage.
There are several ways of pickling Samphire buy here’s the simple process that I followed:

1. Wash a pickling jar in hot soapy water and rinse well.

2. Sterilise the pickling jar by placing it in a pan of boiling water for 10 mins.

3. Carefully Wash the samphire and cut it into 2 inch sections if required.

4. Blanch the Samphire in boiling water for 1 min.

5. Rinse the Samphire under cold water.

6. Place the samphire into the picking jar.

7. Cover the samphire in pickling vinegar, you can mix your own but you can use pre-made pickling vinegar.

8. Stick a note of the date on the jar.

9. Leave the jar in a dark cool place for 3 months to pickle.

No Related Posts

The use of Telehealth with Heart Failure Patients

Posted on July 2, 2011 by JPM

Here are some basic facts about Heart Failure in the UK.

There are currently 1 million patients affected by heart failure in the uk. There are 450k admissions of heart failure sufferers into hospital each year, with 65k of these patients in a first diagnostic position. The average (Median) age of admitted patients is 79 years old and there is a high rate of recurrence in this cohort of patients.

The use of Telehealth with Heart Failure Patients

There are some significant reasons why the use of telecare in the care of Heart Failure patients should increase:

The number of heart failure patients is increasing
There are fewer professionals to provide health care
More monitoring of patients may be required.
There is a need to Reduce costs to the NHS.
The environmental agenda to reduce travelling and reduce CO2 admissions
Telehealth generally leads to better (and automated) record keeping

Why can TeleHealth can work for the care of Heart Failure patients?:

Patients With chronic illness learn routines.
Most patients are keen to improve their health, leading to more responsibility for their own health
There is a need to invest in patients, they could be seen as part of the ‘workforce’

With Telehealth equipment evidence suggests that you can:

Reduce admission into Hospital
Reduce duration of a patients stay in hospital as it’s possible to Improve Discharge planning with telecare
Improve mortality rates
Improve the overall patient experience.
Reduce cost of care
Manage a patient’s health from their own home rather than from hospital,
Know the right time to send the right patient to hospital.
Provide patient reassurance.

There have been trials of telehealth equipment and these suggest that:

There was a deduction in mortality of absolute 16.4% or relative 36%
There was No reduction in hospitalisation rates but a decrease in the length of stay
Only 3.3% of patients ask for equipment to be removed
Telehealth supports clinical input.
With Structured Telephone support
- Mortality Improved by just .88%
- All cause hospitalisation improved by just .77%
With Home telemonitoring systems
- 34% improvement in mortality rates
- 10% improvement all cause hospitalisation rates
227k investment led to 87k net saving

There is a need to use caution of some stats as “Health generally improves when focused on”.

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts:

Related Posts: