Addison Care, a virtual caregiver, will debut at CES, said parent company SameDay Security. The 3D animated virtual caregiver appears on 15-inch monitors located in aging and chronically ill clients’ homes and monitors their activity, reminds them to take medications and provides real-time assessments if a client is at increased risk of falling or health decline, said the company. Roughly 100 million Americans live with a chronic illness, and treatment regimens are often difficult to manage at home, said SameDay Security CEO Anthony Dohrmann. Three percent of the U.S. population can afford round-the-clock caregiving, he said, saying Addison Care is an affordable alternative that works with healthcare providers and hospitals. Addison will be at booth #42142 in the Sands next week.

The NFC Forum announced Tuesday publication of four adopted specifications. Connection Handover Technical Specification 1.4 lets users define additional specific services when two devices are paired using other wireless communications technologies including Bluetooth or WLAN by a tap of an NFC-enabled device while the Personal Health Device Communication spec 1.2 defines the exchange of ISO/IEEE 11073 messages used for personal healthcare devices, it said. Updates were made to NFC Digital Protocol spec 2.1 and NFC Controller Interface spec 2.1, it said.

Best Buy signed a definitive agreement to buy GreatCall for $800 million cash, said the retailer Wednesday. GreatCall provides connected-health and personal emergency response services to the elderly and has more than 900,000 paying subscribers, it said. It's “a large, growing market where technology can help in particular address the needs of aging consumers, their caregivers, payers and providers,” it said. The GreatCall buy will "augment" Best Buy's “growing business selling health- and wellness-related products,” it said.

Some 46 percent of U.S. broadband households own a connected health device, such as a digital pedometer, smart watch or a digital weight scale, blogged Parks Associates Monday. "Eighty percent of U.S. broadband households report at least one health management challenge with which they would like help," said analyst Jennifer Kent, saying connected technologies can be part of the solution. Parks also said six in 10 U.S. broadband households are interested in remotely interacting with medical professionals under certain circumstances, but they would strongly favor ways that provide real-time communication. Some 40 percent of survey respondents are interested in communicating digitally with medical professionals via phone or online voice chat, a third are interested in online video chat, and a third are interested in communicating via secure email, said the researcher. “Virtual care can save costs, increase independent living options, and expand healthcare to remote and rural areas,” said Parks analyst Kristen Hanich, but consumers are concerned about trading off direct interaction with their doctors. Over 70 percent of consumers interested in real-time communication with a medical professional said 15 minutes should be the maximum wait time ahead of an online video chat or phone call, and of that group, 90 percent consider a visit lasting less than 30 minutes to be reasonable, she said.

More than 6 million people will use a PERS (personal emergency response system) device by 2021, up from 3.36 million at the end of last year, Parks Associates reported Wednesday. New bring-your-own-device wearable/watch options and professionally monitored services such as GreatCall will drive growth, it said. Growth in elderly populations will cause some growth, said analyst Jennifer Kent, saying user-centric fitness trackers and smartwatches put pressure on PERS manufacturers to incorporate smart features. Partnerships such as MobileHelp’s with Samsung, with the emergency services provider offering a Gear S3 smartwatch as its PERS device, will also fuel the market, she said. Samsung and MobileHelp announced at CES they're partnering on a customized Gear S3 for emergency response use.

Samsung is connecting its Artik IoT platform to Philips’ HealthSuite Digital Platform, which will allow Samsung’s Artik-enabled connected devices to securely access and share information with Philips' cloud platform, said the companies Thursday. They also can leverage data from various sources and IoT solutions, including Qualcomm Life, Validic and Philips’ HealthSuite IoT solution, based on Amazon Web Services IoT. Devices built with Samsung Artik systems-on-modules will be able to integrate with the Philips platform, they said. The collaboration will enable healthcare application developers to focus on developing innovative applications "rather than on the technical integration of devices,” said Dale Wiggins, general manager-Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform.