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Interesting - I had a brief email or two with one of the authors regarding AT and if (what we define as) AT software was relevant to their report. I hypothesised that it should be. Their opinion was that it wasn't and that they had a different definition of AT "as in the Audit Commission Report "Assistive Technology - Independence and well-being" and is closely associated with Telecare in the home." I argued that Telecare was a subset of AT, not t'other way around - the 'version' of AT that they were interested in for the report was "that sub-set of Assistive Technology which assists healthcare delivery or decreases or postpones the need for healthcare. " I'll have a read... Cheers Simon Clinical Scientist ACT 0121 627 1627 ex 53245 -----Original Message----- From: A discussion list for Assistive Technology professionals. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gary Derwent Sent: 25 October 2005 20:47 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: EAT Sidelined again I was disappointed to see that a recent report entitled "The Impact of e-Health and Assistive Technologies on Healthcare" did not seem to mention communication aids, environmental controls or nearly anything else that I think people on this list would consider Assistive Technologies. (I say 'didn't seem to' because I haven't yet waded through the entire 75 page tome, but a quick electronic search of the pdf document didn't throw anything up. Admittedly the group that produced the report is predominantly from a Health Informatics perspective but it still annoys me to see the term assistive technology used without mention of AAC or EC. Yet again the telecare agenda obliterates everything else. Also, on an extensive list of contributers in the appendix, only two names were vaguely familiar to me from the EAT world. I'm going to contact the authors to let them know what I think. I've got half a toe in the Health Informatics world myself and generally think it's a great field, but they've made a pigs ear of this one. Anyway,...I just felt like a rant after leafing through it...thanks for listening !!! If you'd like a look its here : http://www.health-informatics.org/tehip/tehipstudy.htm Cheers Gary Gary Derwent Compass Electronic Assistive Technology Service Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability