FierceMobileHealthcare

HIMSS10 could have been a mobile event all to itself

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:41:49 -0500

The annual HIMSS conference isn't necessarily about mobile healthcare, but if you went just to gather information about mobile technologies, you likely would not have been disappointed. (Sleep-deprived like everyone else, perhaps, but not disappointed.)

You've already seen our coverage of the opening keynote address by Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse, in which I proclaimed that mobile healthcare had arrived on the big stage. You've likely also read about the breakfast FierceMobileHealthcare and FierceWireless hosted a week ago, plus some other mobile-related stories we picked up at HIMSS10.

But there was so much more we haven't reported on just yet.

Nuance Communications took advantage of the fact that HIMSS10 brought together more than 27,000 health IT professionals at the Georgia World Congress Center to demonstrate a prototype of the long-awaited iPhone version of the company's Dragon Medical speech-recognition software. It's more than just a mobile adaptation of a popular product, but a new direction for Nuance. Nuance product marketing specialist Keith Belton called the mobile Dragon Medical the company's first thin-client product, specifically designed not to store any data locally. Mobile devices can get lost or stolen, and if there's any protected health information on a device that goes missing, you've got yourself some HIPAA problems.

I also had a conversation last week with Dr. Chris Hobson, chief medical officer of connectivity vendor Orion Health, a company that's now moving into wireless monitoring, in partnership with disease-management firm Alere Health. Thanks to Orion software, Alere now can offer home-based peak-flow meters for patients with asthma and "smart" blood-pressure monitors for those with heart and circulatory conditions and have the devices automatically send readings to healthcare providers, populating EMRs along the way.

Most importantly, according to Hobson, the software saves alerts for when there's an abnormal reading. "Physicians only want to know when someone's off the guidelines," Hobson said.

I've now covered nine HIMSS conferences, but this was the first since I got myself a smartphone. If you read my commentary in FierceHealthIT yesterday, you know that I can empathize with the idea of limiting unnecessary messages. - Neil

Mobile system helps caregivers follow childcare protocols in rural Tanzania

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:10:17 -0500

Health authorities in Tanzania are embracing smartphones, PDAs and even basic mobile phones to follow international disease-management protocols for young children in hopes of breaking a decades-long cycle of aid money doing little to improve health conditions in low-income countries.

A program called e-IMCI guides health workers through the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) treatment algorithm, helping caregivers adhere to the IMCI regime developed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF to reduce childhood mortality and promote the growth and development of children under the age of 5 in Africa and other poor regions. A 2008 test of e-IMCI by Italian researchers found that the mobile technology helped health workers pick up the IMCI protocols, receive IMCI updates and report data to public-health officials much faster and more accurately, German international development consultant Harald Himsel reports.

"Reports about the effectiveness of e-IMCI in rural Tanzania show that this approach has the potential to significantly improve the care for children, reduce infant mortality, and increase the rate of properly diagnosed diseases," Himsel writes. "If this approach proves itself over a longer period of time to be efficient and successful, it will be time to spread the word about mobile health benefits all over the world."

For more information:
- read Himsel's commentary at Smart Products Ecosystem Connections

PR exec: Don't ignore mobile in healthcare marketing plans

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:47:15 -0500

Don't ignore mobile platforms when developing a healthcare marketing plan or, in the case of regulated products, for safety monitoring and regulatory compliance, says one marketing and public-relations executive.

Just look at the numbers to understand why. The more than 6,000 health, fitness and medical apps in the Apple App Store had been downloaded by more than 1 million users as of January, according to Jay Byrne, CEO of v-Fluence International, a St. Louis-based online marketing firm. More than 1,000 iPhone health apps were launched in December 2009 alone, Byrne says.

"New mobile phone applications in areas like disease management, medication tracking, drug recalls, health cost and record management are being released daily. With the recent addition of Google to the smartphone market, you can bet that new Android platform health applications will start rolling out at a faster pace in 2010," Byrne writes on his company's blog.

Byrne sees particular opportunities in pharmaceutical marketing and supply-chain management. However, he cautions about a certain gray area in this fast-emerging market. "At a February 2009 conference, Don Witters from the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health declared that the FDA has jurisdiction over any device that diagnoses, treats or prevents a disease. When asked about the surge of some types of applications, such as glucose meters to physician contact tools, Witters replied, 'Well, I think the real answer is "We don't know"'," Byrne writes.

For more:
- check out this v-Fluence blog post

SPOTLIGHT: U. of Mich. expands RFID surgical tissue tracking

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:23:42 -0500

The University of Michigan will expand its use of an RFID-based tissue tracking system to pediatric surgical areas of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. The technology, which manages the the receipt, storage and utilization of implantable tissue, has been in place in operating suites at the school's University Hospital for more than a year. Pittsburgh-based Mobile Aspects is the vendor. Press release

Schools receive RWJF grants to develop mobile apps for chronic disease

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:51:35 -0500

Three California universities have received research grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study methods of capturing "patient observations of daily living" on mobile and wireless devices and then integrate that data into chronic-disease care.

San Francisco State University has received a two-year, $480,000 grant to capture data on smartphones about low-income teenagers in areas with high rates of obesity and depression, while the University of California, Irvine, is teaming up with Charles Drew University, also in Irvine, to develop a mobile device for recording data on interactions between premature infants with low birth weights and their caregivers, the San Francisco Business Times reports. The team at UC-Irvine and Charles Drew will share the $480,000 grant.

"Data from ODLs (observations of daily living) can drive apps that help people eat better, manage their pain more effectively and understand how their behaviors, their treatments and their symptoms are related," the foundation's Stephen Downs says, according to the Business Times. "In addition, they can give clinicians a much richer understanding of what goes on with their patients in between office visits and then they can base their treatment recommendations on better, more comprehensive information."

Three other groups received RWJF grants for similar research not specifically involving mobile technologies.

For more:
- read this San Francisco Business Times story

Mass General to test Merge Healthcare's mobile imaging apps

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:29:07 -0500

Massachusetts General Hospital will serve as a test lab for Merge Healthcare's new mobile applications that support workflow in medical imaging, as part of a recently announced partnership between the venerable Boston institution and the Milwaukee-based health IT vendor.

"Our vision is to find new applications that blow away the preconceived notions of today's reading workflow," Dr. Keith Dreyer, vice chairman of radiology informatics at Mass General says in a Merge press release. "The technology has arrived to push medical imaging review and reporting out to mobile devices, and free the radiologist from having to be handcuffed in a dark reading room."

The hospital will begin the partnership by testing additional uses for eFilm Mobile, an iPhone version of Merge's eFilm Workstation product. Merge introduced eFilm Mobile at last week's HIMSS conference in Atlanta.

For more information:
- see this news brief from CMIO
- have a look at this Merge Healthcare press release about the MGH partnership
- read this Merge press release announcing eFilm Mobile

Physician smartphone adoption said to top 80 percent by 2012

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:06:48 -0500

More than 80 percent of U.S. physicians will have smartphones by 2012--up from 64 percent in 2009--and half of that group will use their phones for patient care, administrative functions like charge capture and even continuing medical education, according to a new report from Manhattan Research that drills deeper into data first released last fall.

"Handheld devices are becoming more and more useful to physicians, partly because of the boom in physician-oriented apps and portable content," report author Monique Levy says in a Manhattan Research press release. Levy also speaks of a great opportunity for healthcare marketers to reach physicians via mobile devices.

The BlackBerry still dominates among physicians and healthcare application developers, though the iPhone and Google Android are closing the gap quickly, thanks to their touch-screen functionality. Levy promises more data next month.

Manhattan Research also reports that the majority of adoption of mobile healthcare technology is occurring in small physician offices rather than large clinics or hospitals.

For further information:
- take a look at this Mobile Enterprise story
- read this Manhattan Research press release

HIMSS10: Infrastructure planning breeds success in mobile healthcare

Neil Versel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:41:40 -0500

Wireless technology is everywhere, including in hospitals and clinics. It can liberate users, but it also can slow down workflow and expose organizations to data breaches.

At a Tuesday breakfast about mobile health strategies, hosted by FierceMobileHealthcare and FierceWireless at the annual HIMSS conference in Atlanta, Chris Gray, healthcare manager for Sprint Nextel, said organizations often falsely assume that they don't need to worry much about their wireless infrastructure.

"If not designed right, wireless could be the weakest link," cautioned Ram Appalaraju, senior VP for marketing for Meru Networks. An infrastructure with uneven coverage or inadequate bandwidth slows down users and lowers job satisfaction, and a poorly secured wireless network could be an inviting target for hackers.

Users expect the wireless network to be the primary data conduit once it's in place, so it needs to perform like a wired network. "We still haven't reached, from an executive-suite perspective, a level where we can guarantee performance," added Geoffrey Brown, senior VP and CIO of Inova Health System, Falls Church, Va. And that's a serious problem, because wireless devices are popping up all over the place, driven by forces beyond the control of the average healthcare organization. "We're seeing the demand clearly outpacing the capabilities of the infrastructure," Brown said.

A common misconception is that one size fits all for wireless networks, according to Roger Zaremba, CTO of Saint Luke's Health System in Kansas City, Mo. "Getting everything--voice, data, video--to work together correctly is really a challenge," he said. "Understand what you're deploying, why you're deploying it and how does it work around other wireless networks and devices." Zaremba added.

Mayo Clinic, GE and Intel team up to test telemedicine for chronically ill

Debra Beaulieu — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:26:29 -0500

As part of the first-ever study examining the effects of home-based monitoring across a variety of chronic conditions--rather than one specific disease--the Mayo Clinic, GE Healthcare and Intel will join forces to plug in to the health needs of 200 elderly patients at high risk for re-hospitalization.

Every day for one year, study participants will use at-home medical devices to measure their blood pressure, pulse, weight and other vital signs as well as answer several disease-specific questions. The Intel Health Guide System will transmit the data to Mayo clinicians, who will then use a color-coded dashboard to determine when readings are outside the normal range and require intervention, which may include on-the-fly video conferencing between patient and provider.

"We're targeting an older age group, many of whom have multiple chronic conditions," Gregory Hanson, MD, a Mayo physician and principal researcher in the study, tells InformationWeek. By keeping this fast-growing population's diabetes, heart failure, lung disease and other illnesses in check remotely, the partners predict the new care model will help rein in costs and improve patient outcomes.

The research is part of Intel and GE Healthcare's ongoing commitment announced in April 2009 to jointly develop and market technologies for independent living and chronic disease management. The two companies plan to invest $250 million over the next five years into the research and development of these technologies.

Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic recently launched two research-based consumer applications (apps) for iPhone and iPod Touch. The Mayo Clinic Symptom Checker, a free app launched yesterday, features an adult and child symptom checker designed to help users administer self-care and determine when additional care is needed.

The other app, Mayo Clinic Meditation, has been available for $2.99 on iTunes since January and guides users through techniques designed to strengthen the communication between the mind and body. The techniques, which can be performed in any quiet setting, are based on four years of research by Amit Sood, MD, physician in complementary and alternative medicine at Mayo.

To learn more about the Mayo, Intel, GE partnership:
- see this Healthcare IT News story
- see this InformationWeek story
- and see this press release about Mayo's new mobile apps

Express Scripts to cover cost of wireless 'smart' pill containers

Neil Versel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:48:58 -0500

The concept of "smart" pill bottles is not new, but until now, it was just a niche product not covered by insurance.

That's changing. This month, pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts will begin a trial of electronic bottle caps for pill containers that remind people to take their meds. The top, called a GlowCap, flashes orange when it's time to take the meds. After an hour, the device starts beeping every five minutes, which becomes increasingly persistent. The GlowCap, from a Cambridge, Mass.-based company called Vitality, can be programmed to call or send a text message to the patient or a caregiver as a reminder.

Express Scripts is covering the cost of the devices, which retail for about $100, to see if the reminders help improve medication compliance. The company also will study whether patients have privacy concerns about the caps.

For further details:
- read this Wall Street Journal story

HIMSS10: Sprint's Hesse sees 4G, wireless monitoring as 'transformative'

Neil Versel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:39:04 -0500

Mobile healthcare has arrived.

Monday at the opening session of HIMSS10 in Atlanta, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse noted that he was the first head of a major wireless company to deliver a HIMSS keynote address.

"We believe there is a historic opportunity for wireless technology to transform healthcare," Hesse told the overflow crowd of about 6,000 people at the Georgia World Congress Center. Though the keynote was heavy on promotion for a certain wireless carrier based in Kansas City, Mo., the CEO of that same company did talk about potential of mobile technology being realized right now and just over the horizon.

Hesse called 4G networks and mobile machine-to-machine communication--think "smart" medical devices and remote home monitors--the "two biggest transformative technologies" available to healthcare. "We're working with partners to provide more options to more patients in more places," he said.

Ever since cameras first appeared in mobile phones a few years ago, people have been finding the devices handy for sending doctors pictures of wounds, rashes and other visible health conditions for quick, preliminary diagnoses. But the quality leaves a lot to be desired. That's about to change.

Before the end of 2010, expect to see 4G wireless phones that can send and receive images and videos at "Blu-ray quality," Hesse said. That will open up a world of possibilities in healthcare. Hesse talked of wireless sensors embedded in belts that can monitor prenatal conditions in complicated pregnancies.

Remember the mobile teletrauma networks in Tucson, Ariz., and Baton Rouge, La., that I wrote about last year? Both of those systems run over Wi-Fi networks, with decent bandwidth but limited range. New, 4G Wi-Max networks that are popping up in big cities all over America solve the range problem and provide even more bandwidth--plus they can transmit live video from moving vehicles, like, say, ambulances.

And, Hesse said, Wi-Max systems run on secure, licensed spectrum, offering better protection against pesky little HIPAA breaches than typical Wi-Fi and older cellular data networks. That alone should get the attention of many a CIO. - Neil

HIMSS10: Fundamental, social changes needed to integrate mobile apps into healthcare

Dan Bowman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:23:25 -0500

While mobile applications are rapidly multiplying in the field of healthcare, Shriner's Hospitals for Children CMIO Dr. William Bria believes that full integration of wireless applications won't be possible without a social and fundamental change in American healthcare.

"Mobile computing can't just be aligned with technology," Bria said Monday at the HIMSS10 conference in Atlanta. "Change needs to be maintained; patients are sick of the runaround."

Ultimately, Bria thinks, several factors will go into changing the culture of healthcare. The willingness of both old and new generations taking information access into their own hands is a big step, and one that goes hand-in-hand with the need for more enabling technology. For example, Bria told the story of a doctor who suffered a severe coffee burn on his hand, but needed to catch a flight. Rather than miss the flight or delay treatment, the doctor boarded his flight, took a picture of his hand with his phone, sent it to another doctor, and received feedback regarding treatment within just a few hours.

"We're [doctors are] doing for ourselves now what tomorrow we really should be talking about for our patients," Bria said. He thinks that eventually, more and more patients will be able to do the same with the help of tools like VisualDX Mobile, a mobile app that helps patients to understand and doctors to diagnose dermatologic conditions. To that end, he wonders about the possibility of escalated care becoming decentralized.

"Access to healthcare is one of the strongest elements catalyzing" such a change, he said. He added that interoperability--with 4 billion people now using cell phones and broadband 3G and 4G networks--has also aided in the "amazing adaptability of us."

Epocrates app now available for Google's Android

Dan Bowman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:54:23 -0500

With Epocrates' announcement last week that it launched a Beta version of its software for Google's Android, this means that the company--which supplies information and decision support tools to healthcare professionals--has applications available for all mobile platforms, including iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm. "Adoption of smartphones by the medical community is continuing to escalate," said Rose Crane, chief executive officer of Epocrates. "Android devices are already generating much interest among our subscriber network." Press release

HIMSS10: Chronic disease management improves in Cleveland Clinic, Microsoft pilot

Dan Bowman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:42:51 -0500

A collaborative pilot between Microsoft and the Cleveland Clinic found that when patients with three specific chronic conditions used medical devices in their homes to connect with doctors, patient activity became more focused and physician efficiency improved. An announcement of the pilot's findings came at a press conference at HIMSS10 in Atlanta on Monday.

Out of 250 patients participating in the pilot, which began in December 2008, 68 percent had hypertension, 26 percent suffered from diabetes and 6 percent had heart failure. Diabetic and hypertensive patients participating found themselves visiting the doctor less, with the number of days in between visits increasing for diabetic patients by 71 percent and for hypertensive patients by 26 percent. Heart failure patients found themselves visiting the doctor more often, which Cleveland Clinic heart doctor Randall Starling praised.

"When treating heart failure patients, timely intervention is crucial when complications arise, so that we can prevent serious problems that may require emergency room visits or readmissions," he said.

The participating patients used devices like at-home heart rate monitors, glucometers, scales, pedometers and blood pressure monitors to upload data to Microsoft's HealthVault service (which Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Health Solutions Group, reiterated at the press conference was not a PHR, but rather a tool to help PHRs). From there, the information was sent to personal health and electronic health records for each patient at the Cleveland Clinic.

"Making it easier for patients to more actively engage in their ongoing health and wellness is a necessary step in trying to manage the increasing onset of chronic disease worldwide and the costs associated with this alarming trend," Neupert said.

While Dr. C. Martin Harris, chief information officer of the Cleveland Clinic and HIMSS chair elect, feels that a larger test group of perhaps 1,200 people eventually should be looked at to determine how successful such efforts truly can be, he expressed optimism for the results to date.

"Although more research is certainly needed, the results of this observational study are promising," Harris said. "Ultimately, such improvements make for more efficient healthcare, healthier patients and possibly a reduction in healthcare costs."

To learn more about the Cleveland Clinic/Microsoft pilot:
- read this press release

U.S. Army tests telemedicine at remote outposts in Germany

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:07:42 -0500

The U.S. Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany serves as kind of a hub for care for American service personnel in Europe and often is the destination of choice for wounded warriors airlifted out of war zones in places like Iraq. So, with the closing of other American military hospitals in Europe, it seems natural that the Landstuhl facility would become a center of telemedicine for soldiers posted overseas.

Landstuhl now is testing remote consultations from two on-post clinics at U.S. Army Garrison Graffenwoehr in Vilseck, Germany, giving patients with sports injuries at that location remote access to American medical specialists. "We want them to see an orthotic surgeon we have confidence in," Col. Steven Brewster, commander of U.S. Army Medical Activity Bavaria, tells military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

"I can perform some of the physical maneuvers and the surgeon can ask them questions and review an MRI scan through a link," adds David Melaas, an orthopedic PA based at Landstuhl who is at Vilseck this month to help with remote exams. "[The surgeon in Landstuhl] can make a decision, offer the patient surgery if it is indicated and give them a date." The telemedicine link also is being used for postoperative care.

If the test, which runs from Jan. 22 to April 16, is successful, there are plans to open up the service to family members with chronic musculoskeletal ailments and to expand the service to other U.S. military outposts in Europe.

To learn more:
- take a look at this Stars and Stripes story

SPOTLIGHT: Differences between e-health and m-health

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:41:12 -0500

Wondering what the difference is between e-health and mobile health? Kaiser Permanente gadget guru Dr. Ted Eytan (officially medical director for delivery systems operations improvement for the Permanente Federation) has come up with six reasons. In general, mobile technology is more accessible to lower-income populations, more personal and easier to use than what you might find on a PC. Blog post

Healthcare organizations seemingly lax with mobile security

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:23:36 -0500

A third of all healthcare professionals store patient data on portable and mobile devices such as USB drives, laptops and mobile phones, according to a 2008 survey by Credant Technologies. Another report found that 12,500 mobile devices were left in taxis, and 4,500 USB memory sticks were left in pockets of pants sent to dry cleaners during a six-month period last year. Yet, only 39 percent of healthcare organizations encrypt data on mobile devices, a 2009 HIMSS survey revealed.

Those apparent realities are rightly making privacy and security experts nervous, especially with new, more-stringent HIPAA regulations either in place or on their way. On Feb. 18, the maximum HHS civil penalty for a data breach jumped from $25,000 to $1.5 million.

"I'm always surprised at the cowboy attitude," Harry Rhodes, director of practice leadership for the American Health Information Management Association, said in an interview with American Medical News. "You've got these people who think, 'What are the odds of that happening to me?' And then when it's happening to you, it's too late to do anything."

For more information, including tips on preventing data loss:
- check out this AMNews story

Worldwide m-health market opportunity could reach $60 billion

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:31:35 -0500

We're going to Atlanta next week to cover HIMSS10. Our colleagues at FierceWireless--who also will be at HIMSS--got to go to the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last week. (Not that we're jealous or anything).

What they found was that the global market opportunity for mobile health could be worth as much as $60 billion, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company, but it's not clear right now how this immature market will develop. McKinsey presented results of a survey of 3,000 households in the U.S., India, China, South Africa and Brazil, in which the company gauged consumer interest in four potential products.

About 70 percent of respondents said they were interested in at least one m-health product, and a minority said they would be willing to pay for that product. In the U.S., 25 percent expressed a willingness to pay for m-health services, some as high as 20 times what they currently are charged for wireless airtime. In India, with its huge population and shortage of health professional, some people would be willing to pay up to 10 times their current wireless bill for a round-the-clock access to doctors, FierceWireless reports.

For additional details:
- take a look at this FierceWireless report from Barcelona

Mobile apps popular at the point of care, but there's plenty more to come

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:11:46 -0500

Smartphones are so popular in medicine now that some health professionals "don't know how colleagues manage without them," C. Peter Waegemann, vice president of development for the Boston-based mHealth Initiative, tells Healthcare IT News. Despite the lack of official statistics, we think that that's pretty common knowledge to readers of FierceMobileHealthcare. We also think you, our dear readers, are aware of how popular iPhone apps--particularly medical checklists--have become to caregivers.

"iPhone-based decision support with checklists are a great benefit," Waegemann says. "My vision for m-health is that a large part of the scientific body of medicine that a doctor learns and memorizes in medical school will be transferred into decision-supporting apps a doctor holds on a mobile device when seeing the patient, and that can be easily and routinely updated as advances are made."

Although personal digital assistants have been around since the 1990s, the iPhone really opened the floodgates to development of widely accessible and usable applications in 2007. As apps evolve, Waegemann expects the technology to have a greater impact on healthcare quality. "Current iPhone apps of this kind are the very beginning of a long process--perhaps 10 to 15 years--during which the m-device will become the main tool a doctor uses in attending to patients," he says. "The benefits are better quality of care, greater efficiency and lower healthcare costs."

Waegemann also predicts that the new Apple iPad, as well as competition from BlackBerry and Google's Android operating system, will further advance m-health applications.

For more on this interview with Waegemann:
- jump to this Healthcare IT News story

VA's telehealth budget may double, but strategic questions linger

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:45:35 -0500

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which already cares for 35,000 patients remotely via home telehealth technologies, would get $163 million for home telehealth programs under the Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2011. That's more than double the $72 million the VA spent on home telehealth in fiscal 2009.

But, reports Federal Computer Week, the increased spending amounts to a "leap of faith" because there is no overarching federal strategy for telehealth and telemedicine. "It's not that VA has gone too far; rather, other federal agencies possibly have not gone far enough. Federal policy-makers have not yet taken a comprehensive look at this technology. The government's approach has been piecemeal, with various programs initiated for payers, providers and regulators," reporter Alice Lipowicz comments.

Furthermore, Timothy Deal, senior analyst at research firm Pike & Fischer,says that telemedicine comes with risks if not properly planned. "If the transition from legacy services to modern ones disrupts patient care, I expect to see some patient backlash," Deal says. "There will be growing pains, and people need to understand this."

Lipowicz further editorializes: "If telehealth expands dramatically at VA, it should happen within a broader context. The time is ripe for VA, DOD and the Health and Human Services Department to work together on a telehealth strategy."

To learn more:
- read this Federal Computer Week story

Don't miss our exclusive m-health executive breakfast at HIMSS10

Neil Versel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:03:33 -0500

One week from today, my FierceMarkets colleagues and I will be immersed in the zoo that is the annual HIMSS conference. Count on FierceHealthIT, FierceMobileHealthcare and FierceEMR to bring you all the highlights of the biggest health IT gathering of the year, direct from Atlanta.

And one week from today, FierceMobileHealthcare is joining with sister publication FierceWireless at HIMSS10 to invite you to "Creating a Successful mHealth Initiative," an exclusive executive breakfast sponsored by Meru Networks, March 2 from 7 to 8:15 a.m. at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel. FierceWireless Editor-in-Chief Sue Marek will sit down with top healthcare and telecom industry executives to discuss the latest developments in mobile healthcare.

Our guest speakers include: Geoffrey Brown, senior VP and CIO of Inova Health System, Falls Church, Va.; Deborah Gash, VP & CIO of Saint Luke's Health System, Kansas City, Mo.; Chris Gray, industry solutions manager for healthcare at wireless carrier Sprint Nextel; and Ram Appalaraju, senior VP for marketing at Meru Networks.

Marek will lead the panel in a discussion of key issues in mobile healthcare, including the pros and cons of incorporating mobile into the healthcare industry, ways to overcome some of the challenges and the lessons learned from early adopters of m-health. The unique format of this event will provide attendees with a chance to hear what top industry executives really have to say in an uncensored environment. If you're going to HIMSS, you won't find a better opportunity to get up close and personal with so many leaders in the hottest, most innovative segment of health IT today.

The registration fee includes a full breakfast and transportation back to the Georgia World Congress Center.

I hope to meet many of our loyal readers there. - Neil

SPOTLIGHT: Fierce is reporting live from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Dan Bowman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:35:26 -0500

The FierceWireless editorial team is fanned out across the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Sue Marek, Jason Ankeny and Mike Dano are bringing you all the latest news from the keynote speakers and sessions, to the latest buzz on the trade show floor. Look for some interesting executive interviews and a few surprise announcements in our newsletters and on Fierce's Mobile World Congress news site.

Telehealth use will increase dramatically within a few years

Dan Bowman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:31:42 -0500

Healthcare providers will increase their use of telehealth technology dramatically within the next two years, with the number of gateways used in telehealth applications surging past 1 million by 2014, according to a study by InMedica, the medical research division of consulting firm IMS Research. Handsets used as telehealth gateways also are expected to grow--to 350,000 by 2014, reports TMCnet.

"The use of mobile phones as telehealth gateways has had a surge of interest over the last couple of years," InMedica market research analyst Neha Khandelwal said. "We anticipate that cellular service providers will play an increasingly important role in the long-term future of the telehealth market."

The study also predicted that there will be more health hubs to help manage diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and that the more telehealth is embraced, the more jobs that will be available for nurses and other health professionals.

"This gives a two to three year window for the current market barriers to be overcome, including demonstrating the benefits of telehealth on a large scale to health insurance companies," says InMedica.

To learn more about this study:
- read this TMCnet article

Dial-a-doc service aimed at reducing unnecessary ER visits

Dan Bowman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:03:59 -0500

In an attempt to reduce unnecessary emergency room and doctor visits and control costs, Torrance, Calif.-based Keenan & Associates, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm, has partnered with Dallas-based TelaDoc Inc. to provide employees with access to board-certified doctors 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week, reports the San Francisco Business Times.

Traveling patients and those who are unable to reach their primary-care doctors have access to care wherever they are through a 1-800 TelaDoc service. TelaDoc's physicians can write certain short-term prescriptions and are able to access patients' medical records to help recommend treatments. They're only meant to be used as a stop-gap measure, however, and not as an alternative to visiting a primary-care doctor on a regular basis.

To learn more about this service:
- read this San Francisco Business Times article

Mobile healthcare will help cell phone subscriptions hit 5B this year

Dan Bowman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:40:05 -0500

Mobile healthcare via cell phone use is one of the primary reasons why cell phone subscriptions worldwide will hit 5 billion this year. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure, who is attending the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, Spain, believes that seemingly small features like medical appointment reminders have helped to better quality in developing nations.

"Even the simplest, low-end phone can do so much to improve healthcare in the developing world," Toure said, according to cnet. He also believes that SMS messages that help to instruct patients on how and when to take medications, have made a huge impact.

"It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars--and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people," he said.

Meanwhile, Alex Sinclair--CTO of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA)--believes that "simpler guidelines for applications development using GSM technology" will lead to more overall connected devices in healthcare. According to ComputerWeekly, Sinclair expects to see "50 billion connected devices over the next 15 years."

The ITU also believes that mobile broadband subscriptions will surge past 1 billion this year. That number was at 600 million at the end of 2009.

For more information:
- check out this cnet article
- here's the ComputerWeekly article

Davies winner installs bedside bar coding

Neil Versel — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:00:00 -0500

MultiCare, an integrated delivery system in Tacoma, Wash., is in the home stretch of a decade-long, $140 million IT implementation that won the organization a 2009 Davies Award. The last piece of the puzzle is bedside bar coding for medication administration, now in place at two of the system's four hospitals and scheduled to be in all inpatient facilities by June.

"Now our electronic health records systems runs all the way from administration to the emergency department and the [operating room], to patient records and billing," MultiCare CIO Florence Chang tells the (Tacoma) News Tribune.

The bar-coding system is tightly integrated with MultiCare's Epic Care EMR. When a patient's wristband is scanned, that person's chart comes up on a nearby laptop computer so the administering nurse can verify that the right patient is receiving the right dosage at the right time. Electronic alerts help prevent the dispensing of the wrong drug.

Of course, the technology is not failsafe. "From the very beginning, I've been saying 'garbage in, garbage out,'" Chang says. "You still have to have correct information and it still requires human intelligence and human thinking into the system." At MultiCare, nurses ask patients to verify their name and birthdate as an added check.

For details on MultiCare's IT infrastructure:
- check out this News Tribune story

Networking firm sees big healthcare potential in new Bluetooth standard

Neil Versel — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:09:19 -0500

Three months after an industry consortium approved a new, short-range wireless standard called Bluetooth Low Energy, technology manufacturers are banking on the fact that it is an open standard to develop a new range of wireless and mobile healthcare devices.

"Today there are a lot of devices that are working in a sense over proprietary solutions--either wired or wireless--so you end up with a pedometer that will only work with a particular cell phone or exercise device," Craig Ochikubo, vice president of networking firm Broadcom and general manager of the company's personal-area networking segment, says in an interview with Giga Omni Media. "But what we've historically seen happen is when the app exists and moves into an open standard, the opportunity and adoption increase."

Ochikubo also likes the fact that Bluetooth low energy has built-in encryption, making it suitable for transmitting personal health data. However, the standard may find itself competing against ZigBee, another low-power, open wireless standard that was developed specifically for health and medical applications, though, much like Wi-Fi, ZigBee has a longer range than Bluetooth.

To learn more about Bluetooth Low Energy:
- read this GigaOM story

Make sure you're on our HiMSS party guest list!

Wendy Johnson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:18:03 -0500

We knew our readers were Fierce, but we've been blown away by how many of you have already RSVP'd to our networking bash at this year's HiMSS show.

As you may have heard, FierceHealthIT is hosting a free networking party on Tuesday night, March 2, at the World of Coca-Cola. Click here to RSVP to our Mix It! cocktail party, co-sponsored by Tableau Software.

The World of Coca-Cola is one of Atlanta's premier tourist destinations. Stop by and you'll have a chance to taste different versions of the top-secret Coke recipe from around the globe. Like many events that go on at HiMSS, our party isn't officially affiliated with or endorsed by HiMSS--but that won't stop it from being one of the most buzzed-about parties at this year's conference! So make sure you're on our guest list. You won't want to miss it!

See you in Atlanta!

-- Wendy Johnson, Healthcare group publisher

P.S.: Additional sponsorship opportunities are still available. Email me directly for more details.

Mobile health technology leads the revolution

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:55:08 -0500

As I mentioned last week, I attended the mHealth Initiative's first mobile networking conference--and was lucky enough to get out of Washington Friday morning just ahead of an historic snowstorm (dubbed #snowpocalypse by those tracking it on Twitter) that shut down the airports, not to mention the entire D.C. metro area. That means that my memories of that trip were mostly about the conference, not the weather.

And what did I learn from two intensive days of meetings about mobile health? Well, it confirmed my belief that this is the most exciting, dynamic area of healthcare innovation, at least for those of us not in pharma, genomics or some other medical or scientific side of healthcare. Of the three Fierce publications I edit, I'm having the most fun with FierceMobileHealthcare.

Mobile healthcare certainly is changing faster than any other part of health IT. Notice how I didn't say "evolving." C. Peter Waegemann, founder and vice president of the mHealth Initiative, called mobile healthcare a "revolution" during his opening remarks. "All of this is going to go much faster than anything else we have seen," added Waegemann, who ran a group called the Medical Records Institute for 25 years before moving over to mobile last year.

His old organization held a conference, Toward an Electronic Patient Record (TEPR), for a quarter century, peaking in 2004 with about 3,000 attendees, then shrinking rapidly before dying an unceremonious death following last February's 25th annual event that attracted fewer than 800 people. The mHealth Initiative, which drew about 300 people for last week's exhibit hall-free meeting, isn't waiting another year before bringing the mobile healthcare community together again; the next conference is set for just seven months from now.

Someone who once worked for Waegemann, Dr. Andrew Barbash, neurosciences director at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., sees the potential. Barbash has himself a Droid smartphone--a model on the market only since November--with Google Talk instant messaging to communicate in real time with other clinicians, whether he's in the hospital or not.

With Google Talk deployed in many parts of Holy Cross, the emergency department can instantly see whether Barbash is free for a consult. "Your phone has become a remote-control device for your availability," he said. His phone also gives him remote, mobile access to the hospital's Cerner EMR so Barbash can see the records of patients he's answering questions about.

If he needs a more secure environment for peer-to-peer meetings, Barbash simply fires up Citrix GoToMeeting on his phone or his home or office computer. The service costs about $50 a month, but the savings in time and convenience are worth far more than that.

"We can make it incredibly easy for people to connect with each other," Barbash said. That's what mobile phones have done for business and interpersonal communication, and they can do the same for healthcare. - Neil

Wireless healthcare will be a key part of national broadband strategy, FCC says

Neil Versel — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:19:46 -0500

The Federal Communications Commission is readying a national broadband strategy that will include policies meant to encourage greater usage of wireless devices and applications in healthcare, a senior agency official said.

Speaking at the mHealth Initiative's networking conference in Washington last week, Dr. Mohit Kaushal, digital healthcare director of the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Initiative, said the FCC would analyze broadband-enabled health IT applications, including electronic health records, remote patient monitoring and videoconferencing while developing the strategy.

"We're looking at how to work together to streamline processes of approving new mobile health devices while assuring patient safety," Kaushal said.

Kaushal also acknowledged concerns from some circles that there aren't enough radio frequencies to support the coming boom in wireless healthcare devices, though he didn't tip his hand on a possible resolution. "FCC must efficiently allocate the spectrum that is available in order to drive innovation for both infrastructure and applications," he said.

The FCC strategy development is mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is funding the expansion of broadband Internet access to help boost the economy and improve healthcare.

To learn more about Kaushal's talk and other aspects of the conference:

- take a look at this Government Health IT article

Related Articles:

First responders want more bandwidth for emergency communication

FCC may allow more spectrum for wireless medical devices