Government offers $1.2 billion in grants for EHRs
The federal government has allocated $1.2 billion in grants to help healthcare providers make the switch to electronic health records (EHRs). Nearly $600 million will go toward creation of EHRs at 70 Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers, designed to help providers and clinicians in the selection, acquisition, implementation and meaningful use of EHRs, according to Vice President Joe Biden. Nearly another $565 million will be used to develop a national health IT network. The funding, part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will be made available at the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. Those interested in applying for the grants may visit http://HealthIT.HHS.gov for more information. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/...

Behavior imaging technology favored by healthcare professionals
When it comes to diagnosing and treating disorders such as autism and post-traumatic stress disorder, behavior imaging technology has struck an extremely favorable chord with healthcare professionals, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study found that nearly 7 in 10 professionals consider behavior imaging a favorable treatment method. Behavior imaging acts like a wireless, remote-controlled TiVo that goes back in time to capture behavioral incidents on digital video for later analysis. Professionals participating in the study included those from institutions such as Children’s Hospital Boston, Yale and New York University School of Medicine. The technology, developed by Caring Technologies Inc., should become even more popular as professionals look to save time and money, and improve their patients’ access to specialists, according to Caring Technologies Chief Executive Officer Ron Oberleitner. http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/nih-study...

Remote patient monitoring market nears $1 billion
The market for wireless devices that monitor patients’ condition and report that data to healthcare providers is poised for a 77 percent annual growth rate and global revenue of almost $950 million in 2014, according to a new study from ABI Research. “Wireless Healthcare and Fitness Market Data” reports that the variety of wireless sensors is growing rapidly, with their size getting progressively smaller. But despite growing popularity, implementation cost remains a significant hurdle, according to ABI Research Vice President Stan Schatt. Eventually, the entire process will be outsourced, with software handling most of the technical matters, but at present the majority of the market activity – sales and product development – remains in the United States, Schatt said. http://www.abiresearch.com/press/1475-...

New version of telemonitoring software unveiled
Digital diabetes management firm SINOVO Ltd. has released version 6 of its popular SiDiary telemonitoring software. The new version includes a completely updated user interface, including the ability for users to define their own parameters and keep their own records, according to SINOVO Chief Executive Officer Alf Windhorst. Version 6 also optimizes various other functions, such as the data import from blood glucose meters, insulin pumps or blood pressure meters, and they can import data from pedometers or other external software. SiDiary 6 ideally supports cooperation between doctors or diabetes consultants and diabetics: the patient is able to send the doctor the relevant data by e-mail or, with the SiDiary online version, release the data directly for the doctor – another important step towards diabetes telemonitoring, according to Windhorst.  http://www.prlog.org/10309003-sidiary-version...   http://www.sidiary.org/sinovo...

New tool to gauge hospital medicine cost released
Medicines management specialist JAC has developed a reporting module to help hospitals get a better handle on medicine usage and cost. Using a simple interface, JAC’s ReportPlus delivers detailed and graphical reports on medicines usage and costs for hospitals that use the JAC Pharmacy Management system, providing pharmacy and finance departments with access to core clinical and financial reports, according to JAC project development team leader Colin Richman. Many hospitals collect large amounts of medicines usage data through their pharmacy departments, but lack a combination of easy access to this information, time to extract and organize it, and available expertise needed to interpret the charts and figures. This allows potential opportunities for cost savings to go unnoticed, Richman said.  http://www.jac-pharmacy.co.uk/index.php...

Telehealth success in chronic heart failure patients
A telehealth program designed to help monitor the health of patients with chronic heart problems has met with resounding success, according to a report from the Orchard Medical Centre (OMC) in Bristol, United Kingdom. General practitioners at OMC report fewer hospital admissions for some of its chronic heart failure patients since the introduction of the RTX telehealth solution by Tunstall Healthcare 18 months ago, according to Dr. Richard Berkley, clinical lead on the OMC project. Tunstall’s RTX telehealth monitors are used with medical devices including weighing scales, blood pressure monitors, peak flow meters, and ECG monitors that connect via serial port, infrared or Bluetooth to collect and transmit the patient’s vital signs and related health information. OMC’s positive results reflect a growing acceptance of telehealth as a means of enabling trusts to support a greater number of patients, improving outcomes and making the best use of available resources, Berkley said.  http://www.tunstall.co.uk/news...

Telemedicine deemed acceptable form of depression treatment
Behavioral telehealth is not the first choice in care for patients or physicians in rural locations, but it is an acceptable form of treatment for depression, according to a recent psychology paper. In “Telehealth and rural depression: Physician and patient perspectives,” published in Families, Systems & Health, researchers conducted 10 focus groups across rural Nebraska with primary care physicians and the patients they had treated for depression. Although the participants felt that long-distance professional and therapeutic relationships might be hard to maintain, they felt that behavioral telehealth was “a reasonable solution” to the access-to-care problem. http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/...

New guide reveals strings to federal health IT grants
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has issued a guide to help managers learn their way through the health information technology provisions of the federal economic stimulus package. The HITECH Act designates $2 billion for health IT planning and implementation grants, but there are strings attached that many people may not be aware of, according to Otto Doll, chairperson of NASCIO’s Health IT Working Group. “HITECH in the States” notes that state CIOs can have a major impact on health IT efforts as outlined in the new federal health IT plan, including the assessment of states’ existing infrastructure; convening of health IT stakeholders; and the determining of states’ ability to support large-scale health information exchange. http://www.nascio.org/newsroom/pressrelease.cfm?id=42

Standard licensing application benefits telemedicine doctors
An increasingly uniform approach to licensing among state medical boards could benefit doctors in telemedicine, as well as those with patients in more than one state, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). Seventeen medical boards currently use the government’s standard licensing application or are in the process of adopting it, FSMB reports. Such a form is enormously helpful to telemedicine-based physicians, who otherwise must undergo licensing requirements for every state that they have patients in, according to Joseph Kvedar, M.D., director of the Center for Connected Health. The universal form was developed as part of FSMB’s license portability demonstration project funded by the federal Office of the Advancement of Telehealth. http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/08/17/prsd0817.htm

Limited data available on telemedicine in ICUs
Almost 1 in 10 U.S. hospitals use telemedicine in their intensive care units (ICUs), but little research exists on the usefulness or effectiveness of such technology, according to a study by researchers from the Center for Studying Health System Change. In the study, researchers followed up on site visits to 12 hospitals systems first conducted in 2007. Five of the 12 sites use telemedicine applications that allow off-site physicians and critical care experts to monitor patients and manage ICUs. Researchers found that hospitals with these e-ICUs typically adopted the technology to improve clinical quality and patient safety. They were less likely to use the technology as a cost-cutting measure, or to shorten patient lengths of stay, according to the study. The report was published online in the Aug. 20 issue of Health Affairs. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/...

Australia’s e-health program could be fast-tracked
A suggestion that Australia’s new e-health infrastructure be funded by the nation’s Health and Hospitals Fund (HHF) has the support of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA). HHF has acknowledged that it has a $1.5 billion [USD] surplus and that the money could be put toward creation of a national e-health system. Such a proposal is a very worthwhile idea, according to PSA President Warwick Plunkett, who adds that it is essential that introduction of an e-health system in Australia be fast-tracked. The government’s current plan calls for development of an e-health infrastructure over the next 10 years, a time period that is simply too long, according to Plunkett. http://www.psa.org.au/site.php?id=4527

Health IT transition not saving everyone money
The transition from paper-based to electronic health record (EHR) systems will offer differing benefits to participants, according to several federal sources. While the healthcare industry is poised for huge savings from implementing EHRs, not everyone agrees who will benefit from the switch. President Obama argues that EHRs will save taxpayers money by making healthcare more efficient, and research group RAND says the systems could cut costs by up to $100 billion over the next 10 years. But hospitals note that those same cost reductions mean they will receive less money. EHRs also cost tens of millions of dollars upfront for a typical hospital to implement, and it takes years to train physicians on the new systems, according to Health Evolution Partners Chairperson David Brailer. Ultimately, hospitals will have to charge more for their services to make up the difference, experts note. http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/21/technology/...