Double-digit growth forecast for patient monitoring market
Proper use of “smart” payment strategies will help the home healthcare and disease management markets for remote patient monitoring achieve double-digit growth rates in North America from 2009 to 2015, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan. The patient monitoring market is expected to increase from $98.2 million in 2008 to $428.6 million in 2015, largely due to the increasing incidence of cardiovascular disease among a growing population of the elderly, according to the report. Other growing diseases, such as diabetes, asthma and obesity, will also increase healthcare providers’ reliance on the technique and the need for new, innovative healthcare products, the study notes. Such a demand will not, however, result in better payment strategies for healthcare providers, who are not likely to see improvements in direct reimbursement rates for at least several years, the report adds. http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/...

Two major telehealth projects launched in Colorado
Colorado is embracing telehealth in a big way with the launching of two major projects designed to bring telemedicine to rural parts of the state. Insurer UnitedHealthcare and health system Centura Health are collaborating on a $2 million program to install telehealth systems in rural hospitals and federally qualified community health centers across the state. Centura will use its 12 hospitals to provide e-doctors for the Connected Care program. Connected Care will launch in early 2010. Meanwhile, the Colorado Hospital Association (CHA) and Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council plan to build a high-speed broadband service that will link 400 of the state’s urban and rural healthcare and behavioral health providers. When complete, the Colorado Telehealth Network will be one of the nation’s largest healthcare information networks, according to CHA President Steven J. Summer. Qwest Communications will provide the high-speed broadband services, which should be active by early 2010. http://www.connectedcareamerica.com/news...    http://news.qwest.com/Colorado...

U.S., India universities to build telemedicine medical center
The University of San Diego has entered into an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur to help establish a 300-bed teaching hospital near Kolkata, the city formerly known as Calcutta. The alliance – the first time UCSD has teamed with a global academy to create a hospital and the first such effort between a U.S. university and one in India – could generate a new stream of business for UCSD through telemedicine, according to Dr. Tom McAfee, the school’s dean of clinical affairs. Private sources and India’s government will pay for the Kharagpur campus, which will cost about $36 million [USD] to build. The two universities have signed a memorandum of understanding; negotiations to finalize an agreement could take up to a year, McAfee said. The campus would take another 18 months to build.http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/18...

Wireless sensors to be tested on blood supplies, equipment
Researchers at Erlangen University Hospital in Erlangen, Germany are planning a six-month trial of a wireless sensor network developed to locate medical equipment and monitor the temperature of blood bank supplies. The OPAL-Health project uses a series of battery-powered, wireless sensors known as “smart objects” to track the location of expensive devices that are often misplaced or stolen. In addition, the trial will help determine if the sensor tags enable workers to locate equipment faster than in the past, thereby making the hospital become more efficient. OPAL-Health will also be used on blood bags, with the sensors recording the blood’s temperature every 10 minutes. The sensors can be detached and reused on other bags when no longer needed. http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5143/1/1/

Dartmouth researchers earn $3 million IT grant
Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH has received a $3 million federal grant to help it create secure computing systems for healthcare facilities. The National Science Foundation offered the grant for Dartmouth’s Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare (TISH) project, which seeks to protect the security of clinical information while ensuring that clinicians can access the data they need, according to David Kotz, principal investigator for TISH and professor of computer science at Dartmouth. The three-year project, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will involve researchers from Dartmouth, Google, Intel Labs, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, VT. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2009/08/05.html

FTC approves health information breach rule
Personal health record (PHR) vendors and organizations that offer third-party PHRs are now required to notify consumers about data security breaches, under a new rule by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The rule, which also covers PHR software such as that produced by Microsoft and Google, requires a service provider to report a breach of health information to its vendor. The vendor must, in turn, alert the consumer. The rule also requires the organizations to alert the media if a security breach involves 500 or more people. The rule will not apply to entities covered under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security rules, such as physicians and other healthcare providers. Security breach reporting requirements for these groups will be considered by the Department of Health and Human Services and reported to the FTC by February 2010. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/08/hbn.shtm

Plan for multiple EHR certifying groups gets go-ahead
The Health Information Technology Policy Committee has adopted recommendations calling for multiple entities to certify electronic health record (EHR) systems. Currently, the Certification Commission for Health IT (CCHIT) is the only certifying entity for EHRs, but the policy committee said it envisions 10 to 12 additional certification groups. CCHIT has an overly detailed certification process and is too closely aligned with the health IT industry, Health IT Policy Committee co-chairperson Marc Probst said. National Health IT Coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal will decide how many additional certification groups can be set up once a clear definition of the term “meaningful use” – which determines payment of forthcoming Medicare and Medicaid incentives for physicians and hospitals – has been established. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...    http://fcw.com/Articles/2009/08/14/...

Health system provider to offer PHRs to employees
Healthcare provider Vanguard Health System is joining the Dossia consortium to offer personal health records (PHRs) to more than 19,000 of its employees. The Nashville, TN-based company will first introduce the secure Web-based PHRs to employees, but may eventually offer them to patients or health plan members, according to Dossia Chief Executive Officer Colin Evans. Vanguard, which runs 15 hospitals in four states, is the 10th employer to join Dossia since the coalition’s launch in 2006; other employers include AT&T, Cardinal Health, Intel, sanofi-aventis, and Wal-Mart. http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare...

Broadband use continues growth in U.S.
Broadband services remain widely but not universally available to U.S. residents primarily due to cost, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Despite this, rural businesses and consumers have become almost as likely as their urban counterparts to use the Internet. Eighty-four percent of urban households had a broadband connection as of 2007, compared to 70 percent of rural homes. This is important news for telemedicine and telehealth, which has been hailed as vital to the provision of healthcare in rural communities, the study notes. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/...   http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err78/

Australia considers cutting insurance rebates to fund e-health
Australia’s government is considering a plan to fund a national e-health program through cuts in a private health insurance rebate for wealthy couples. Legislation designed to save $1.6 billion [USD] that can be used toward an e-health initiative is currently under review in the nation’s senate, according to Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon. The government has also committed another $173 million [USD] over the next three years to states in their efforts to work with the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), which has been charged with developing a universal electronic prescription, referral and discharge programs. The first stage of that program is a new electronic healthcare identifier, to be used in addition to the nation’s Medicare card, which will unlock a patient’s electronic medical record. The number system is to be introduced to Australians by the middle of 2010, Roxon said.   http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/...

Paperwork deters Americans from seeing their doctors
One in four Americans have not scheduled wellness visits with their doctors in the past year because they dislike the repetitive paperwork that awaits them at the physicians’ offices, according to a study commissioned by IBM. The survey by Braun Research notes that one-third of persons who have not had a wellness check in the past five years consider paperwork a “waste of time.” Nearly 1 in 6 of those who did visit the doctor in the past year also cited paperwork as a problem. The phone survey of 1,000 U.S. adults also found that 54 percent of respondents are interested in seeing their health records online. Sixty percent of respondents age 18 to 29 want online access to their records, as do 43 percent of persons age 51 or older. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/...

NAHIT to end operations Sept. 30
Saying that it has achieved its goal of promoting health IT into a key healthcare reform issue, the National Alliance for Health Information Technology (NAHIT) will cease operations on Sept. 30. According to NAHIT Chief Operating Officer Jane Horowitz, health IT has “moved front and center in efforts to reinvent and reinvigorate the U.S. health system” in just a few years. NAHIT was formed in 2002 to develop industry consensus and promote health IT use. The industry’s emphasis has now shifted from advocacy to implementation, according to Horowitz. NAHIT’s accomplishments include co-founding of the Certification Commission for Health IT, coordinating adoption of bar codes for medication identification, and creating a public directory of health IT standards. The American Hospital Association and College of Healthcare Information Management Executives will continue to focus on health IT, Horowitz said. http://www.nahit.org/aboutNAHIT/farewell.asp