Medicare to drop coverage of virtual colonoscopies due to lack of positive evidence
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced it will no longer cover the costs of virtual colonoscopies for Medicare patients, on the grounds that there is “insufficient evidence” the procedure is a better way to screen for colon cancer than conventional surgery. Medicare’s decision is not final; the agency is taking public comments until March 11. But it is rare for a tentative coverage determination to change, according to Dr. Sean Tunis, former chief medical officer for Medicare. If upheld, the decision ends several years of contemplation by the agency over payment issues involving computed tomography (CT) colonography. A virtual colonoscopy uses a 3D reconstruction of the colon during detection of cancerous and precancerous lesions. In 2008, the American Cancer Society began recommending the technique as an alternative option to traditional, surgery-based colon cancer screening. CMS believes the two detection methods are, at best, equally effective, but CT is more expensive. http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/8190/ and http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/...

Cigna reaches $10 million settlement with New York AG over faulty medical database
Cigna Corp. has agreed to end use of a flawed database for calculation of reimbursement rates for patients who see doctors outside their insurance networks, and will also contribute $10 million to a new independent database, according to the New York Attorney General’s office. The new database is intended to eliminate a conflict of interest that drove up costs for people who went to see doctors outside of their network. Use of the existing database also prompted health insurers to routinely underpay for out-of-network medical services, according to New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cigna joins several other major insurers that have reached settlements with the Attorney General’s office, including UnitedHealth and Aetna. The new database, which is expected to be operational in six months, will “make prices for medical services more transparent,” Cigna northeast region medical director Dan Nicolls said. http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media... and http://newsroom.cigna.com/article...

Hong Kong to develop $129 million public-private e-health program by 2019
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority will spend $129 million [USD] to build an e-health record system over the next 10 years and hopes to have at least 120 clinics enrolled by April. According to Dr. Cheung Ngai Tseung, chief medical informatics officer at the Hospital Authority, Hong Kong’s e-health record project is “still in the planning stage,” but development of a public-private interface for e-patient records will be part of a bigger e-health record plan. More than 55,000 patients and 1,200 private medical practitioners in Hong Kong have enrolled in an existing EHR program, but that program does not allow doctors from private hospitals to upload patient records. If a beta test proves successful, 2,000 to 3,000 doctors could use the program in two to three years, Cheung said. http://www.networkworld.com/news/...

Audiovisual technology offers new way of teaching medicine to aspiring physicians
A new institute in Arizona is attempting to blend telemedicine with education as up-and-coming doctors learn how to care for patients. The Institute for Advanced Telemedicine and Telehealth in Phoenix is using teleconferencing capabilities to improve education and collaboration among people studying and working in various healthcare disciplines. The initiative, according to Arizona Telemedicine Program Director Dr. Ronald Weinstein, goes far beyond simply connecting two doctors through videoconferencing, and it’s a grand leap beyond the centuries-old tradition of holding “grand rounds” to discuss patient cases and educate aspiring physicians. The new effort, Weinstein said, stimulates much-needed discussion between doctors to help deliver the best possible care to patients. “It’s the effort to be inclusive,” Weinstein said. “Medicine is quite closed and quite limited, but we’re counting on telecommunications to bridge some of those communication gaps.” http://www.computerworld.com/action/a...

New online encyclopedia Medpedia to provide medical data for public, physicians
A free online medical encyclopedia, Medpedia, has gone online to provide patients with health information straight from the source: trained medical professionals. Harvard Medical School, the National Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Public Health will provide pages of information to the site at www.medpedia.com . Other institutions will encourage staff and faculty to contribute to the site. All contributors will have individual author pages detailing their qualifications and backgrounds. Medpedia will also feature a social networking directory for physicians, and forums where doctors and other professionals may debate health issues, according to site developer James Currier. http://www.medpedia.com/

Canada launches vendor e-health certification service to speed EHR adoption
Canada Health Infoway, the Canadian government’s nonprofit overseer of efforts to implement electronic health record (EHR) projects, has launched a certification service for vendors who create consumer e-health applications similar to Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health. The Toronto-based group hopes its e-Health Certification Service will encourage health information technology vendors to take advantage of growing consumer interest in EHR products and help speed nationwide adoption of the program. It will also lead to better uniformity of products from vendors, according to Canada Health Infoway President Richard Alvarez. “Certification will ensure consumer health solutions comply with Infoway’s privacy, security, interoperability and management standards and complement and leverage Canada’s investments in EHRs,” Alvarez said. “It will also provide vendors with an opportunity to demonstrate compliance with pan-Canadian standards.” http://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/lang-en/about-infoway/...

Economic stimulus act to extend reach and enforcement of HIPAA
Enforcement of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) stands to increase following this week’s signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 by President Barack Obama, according to legal experts. The $787 billion Act includes provisions on security breach notification requirements, security policies and training, physical and technical security safeguards. Experts note that such requirements will now extend to business associates as well as any previously covered entities. “HIPAA-covered entities are no longer their ‘brothers’ keepers’ since business associates will become directly subject to the HIPAA privacy and security rules, as well as to the penalties which have become stricter,” said Kate Borten, president of the Marblehead Group in Marblehead, MA. Penalties to facilities range from $100 to $50,000 per violation, depending on whether a facility could have reasonably avoided the breach, according to HIPAA rule co-creator John Parmigiani, president of John C. Parmigiani & Associates LLC in Ellicott City, MD. http://www.wallerlaw.com/articles/2009/...

Carestream wins distribution rights to electronic health smartcard in Germany
Stuttgart-based Carestream Health has become one of the first healthcare information technology companies to be awarded a product distribution certificate as part of the initial rollout of the electronic health smartcard in Germany. The Federal National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians awarded the eGK-Release-0 certificate for Carestream’s new Care Radiology Information System software. The certification confirms that the software fulfills all requirements for the secure handling of patient insurance data. Privacy-related issues have resulted in delays of smartcard products by other vendors earlier this year. Germany’s e-health card program is one of the largest IT projects worldwide, with a planned deployment of more than 80 million electronic health insurance cards. The new electronic healthcare card (eGK), scheduled for deployment over the next two years, is set to replace the existing health insurance card (KVK) currently issued by the German federal government. http://www.ehealtheurope.net/news/4581...

Lagos University begins telemedicine services to Nigeria residents
Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) in Idi-Araba, Lagos, has begun offering telemedicine services, marking a further step in Nigeria’s effort to keep residents at home – figuratively and literally – when they seek medical care. Nigerians seeking specialized medical care have long had to travel to India, according to LUTH Chief Medical Director Prof. Akin Osibogun. But the two nations recently achieved a partnership where India will provide telemedicine to patients, and tele-education to Nigeria’s doctors. “This arrangement would be beneficial for patients who require a second opinion,” Osibogun said. “We can present that patient directly from here in Nigeria, and get a second opinion from an expert in an Indian hospital in real time.” Osibogun added that the telemedicine arrangement works both ways, as it provides opportunity for exchange of opinions and ideas between professionals from both countries. http://allafrica.com/stories/200902170200.html

Connecticut’s road to the e-health race runs through small-town doctors
The tiny state of Connecticut has taken several big steps as it attempts to implement an e-health network for its residents, but it still has the biggest one to overcome: the small-town doctor. Since 2006, the state has established eHealthConnecticut, an effort to bring hospitals, private medical practices, pharmacies and testing laboratories together to create an electronic regional health information organization; the Universal Health Care Foundation has moved toward widescale digitization; and several insurance providers – Aetna, HealthNet, Anthem, Connecticare and United Health Care – are creating the Connecticut Health Quality Cooperative, a records database to be piloted this spring. But the private practice doctor is the state’s biggest challenge. “Connecticut is the land of small group practices,” said Scott Cleary, program director for eHealthConnecticut. “Two-thirds of doctors have no more than two partners, and only one in five private doctors is online. We need to figure out incentives for people to more rapidly adopt digital health records.” http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/02/connecticut_joi.php

Electronic medical records may never be truly private, former NIH director says
The former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) acknowledges that paper medical records are definitely on the way out, but adds that she has doubts about whether electronic patient records can ever truly be confidential. Cardiologist Bernadine Healy, who has overseen the National Institutes of Health, the American Red Cross, and the College of Medicine and Public Health at Ohio State University, said confidentiality in the doctor-patient relationship was never meant to be more than a benefit to the patient. But such confidentiality “is now challenged by a world where computers rule and health information falls into many hands,” Healy said. “One might well ask whether medical privacy is just too outmoded a concept for today’s information-hungry world.” Electronic medical records have indeed become a national goal, she added. The question is what Americans are willing to potentially give up. “Americans treasure their zone of privacy,” Healy said. “Clearly, once sensitive information is out there, it can’t be brought back.” http://www.usnews.com/blogs/...

Health IT to remain a hot market in the Middle East for at least several years
Vendors are reaping the rewards of growing interest in health information technology products in the Middle East and should continue to do so for several years, according to technology firms such as Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel. Healthcare now accounts for nearly one-eighth of Alcatel-Lucent’s $1.3 billion [USD] Enterprise Division’s annual business, according to Jan Zuurbier, A-L’s vice president of sales and support for emerging markets. The Middle Eastern market by itself grew by more than 15 percent in 2008. That pace should continue in the next few years thanks to rising expectations from patients and citizens, and an aging population, Zuurbier added. Similarly, Nortel account director Steve Joyner expects healthcare in the area to remain one of the company’s top five segments. “Despite all of the economic downturn, this is a vertical that can’t afford to rationalize too much,” Joyner said. “I would expect that it at least maintains, if not grows, in the single digits.”  http://www.itp.net/news/546630-healing-power