China’s health IT equipment makers focus on home market
The global recession has forced Asia’s health information technology equipment makers to focus on their home market for expansion – resulting in a marketing challenge for U.S. firms that are trying to gain a foothold there, but better news for those trying to maintain their own sales in America. Until 2008, companies like Mindray Medical International, China’s largest medical device maker, spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to break into the U.S. market. But now the Chinese government has pledged to “build a clinic in every village and a hospital in every county” to the tune of $850 billion [USD] by 2011, meaning Mindray suddenly has a gold mine on its home soil when marketing its patient monitoring devices and ultrasound machines, according to Katherine Lu, an analyst with investment firm Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the government has just approved the first phase of a five-year, $90.6 million [USD] electronic health record implementation project. Foreign companies such as General Electric, Philips and Siemens will likely focus on supplying China’s top hospitals and markets where consumers can afford more expensive medical equipment, while Mindray and other domestic firms cater to the more-populated lower end, according to Lu. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/10/...  http://hkgcio.blogspot.com/2009/07/...

VA places home telehealth, 44 other overdue or over budget IT projects on hold
The Department of Veterans Affairs has put the brakes on nearly four dozen information technology projects – including home telehealth development and infrastructure enhancements, e-training, the health data repository data warehouse, and the national teleradiology program – because they are behind schedule or over budget, the VA office announced. According to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, 45 projects will be temporarily halted, pending additional review and a decision on which ones should be continued. In June, Shinseki ordered a review of the department’s 300 ongoing IT projects and implementation of the Program Management Accountability System, a protocol that requires projects to establish milestones on functionality. Missing three such milestones results in a project’s suspension and replanning, according to VA Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology Roger W. Baker. The projects, worth $200 million in fiscal 2009, were the unanimous choice for reworking, he said. “These are the 45 that we felt needed the most change, and where the pause would be most beneficial,” Baker said. “We’ve had some significant failures at Veterans Affairs...and we very clearly will not allow something like that to occur again [here].” A complete list of projects placed on hold is available at www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/index.cfm. http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/...

 World medical products center planned for NYC signs first tenants
An effort to gather medical technology companies under one roof in New York City has gained nearly one dozen charter members, including several key telemedicine and health information technology suppliers. Eleven companies have signed license agreements to reside in the World Product Centre (WPC), a 60-story, $1 billion skyscraper planned for midtown Manhattan by 2013, according to WPC Marketing President John Strong. The centre will feature a year-round trade show of medical technology, office space, and conferencing facilities, as well as a neutral environment in which companies can easily cooperate in product development and design, Strong said. Charter tenants include healthcare supplier Cardinal Health; orthopedic manufacturer Zimmer Inc.; healthcare textiles distributor Encompass Group LLC; biomedical and vascular engineering firm ACI Medical; injectable pharmaceuticals maker Bioniche Pharma; specialty medical products manufacturer Aspen Surgical; pharmaceuticals marketer CorePharma; medical implant supplier Avalign Technologies; healthcare practitioner device maker Excelsior Medical; and molding and extrusion manufacturer Vesta. Strong said site excavation – at the location of the original Copacabana night club on West 33rd Street – will begin in October, with groundbreaking in 2010 and opening in late 2013. http://www.worldproductcentre.com/article.php?id=13

Telehealth receives positive response from patients, according to Cisco pilots
More than 90 percent of patients who used a telehealth system to meet with their doctors remotely were happy with the service and would recommend it to others, according to results of two pilot programs by San Jose, CA-based networking giant Cisco. The Cisco HealthPresence™ program, designed to provide patients with a long-distance option in medical care, was piloted in 2008 at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Aberdeen, Scotland and at Cisco’s headquarters in San Jose. In the Aberdeen study, which also involved the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and the National Health Service, 99 of 100 participating patients said they were satisfied with the experience and 93 said they would recommend it. In the San Jose pilot, conducted in conjunction with UnitedHealth Group and HealthCare Partners, 97 percent of participants said they were able to effectively communicate with their doctors through the service, 98 percent said they were comfortable with the technology, and 90 percent would recommend the service to others. According to Kaveh Safavi, vice president of Global Healthcare Practice at Cisco Business Solutions Group, both pilots’ results show that “there is a clear demand for better access to healthcare resources that can provide patients with the best possible care.” http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_071509.html

Melbourne University to launch national broadband research institute
Melbourne University plans to open a $40 million [USD] national broadband research institute to help promote e-health, environmental monitoring, and e-commerce in Australia, Victoria Government Premier John Brumby announced. The Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES) will allow leading university researchers and major industry leaders to develop and test new broadband-related products and services, according to IBES Director Prof. Rod Tucker. The institute, to be located at Melbourne University, has the support of global and local companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent, Telstra, Bell Labs, and Ericsson. Such support, combined with that of the State Government of Victoria, “positions IBES to play a key role in the development of an Australian industry that is ready for the true broadband revolution,” Tucker said. http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-88

Cavit Sciences goes direct-to-consumer with My Healthy Lifestyle^® site
Paterson, N.J.-based biotechnology company Cavit Sciences Inc. is launching a subsidiary that will offer customers secure online access to health risk assessments, personal health records, and a family health history storage site. According to Cavit Sciences, the new division, “My Healthy Lifestyle HRA,” will be able to import information directly from Google Health, Google’s online health compendium. Results may be accessed by the user’s approved medical health professionals or kept completely private. Originally created and launched in 2002 to deliver turnkey wholesale discount wellness programs to the national healthcare marketplace, My Healthy Lifestyle^®was acquired by Cavit Sciences in June, site creator Elizabeth Gannon said. The portal is being expanded to serve the direct-to-consumer market due to the increasing consumer demand for wellness products and services, according to Cavit Sciences Chief Executive Officer Maggie Smyth. http://www.cavitsciences.com/cavit-sciences...   http://www.myhealthylifestyle.com

Pediatric healthcare system Cook Children partners with athenahealth, Microsoft
Fort Worth, TX-based Cook Children’s Health Care System has entered a partnership with electronic health record (EHR) service provider athenahealth Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to launch a national clinical platform to improve care for pediatric patients. Cook will deploy the athenaClinicals^SM EHR service for its Cook Children’s Physicians Network (CCPN), which employs more than 350 medical providers. Cook will also implement the Microsoft Amalga Unified Intelligence System 2009, a data aggregation platform that will unify Cook’s various medical businesses, including CCPN, its medical center and its health plan. Patients will also be able to connect with Microsoft HealthVault’s online personal health platform. “This unique venture with these proactive organizations brings a fresh solution that will be reproducible and sustainable in medical practices across the country at a very low cost,” said Rick Merrill, president and chief executive officer of Cook Children’s Health Care System. “Most importantly, it gives a child, regardless of their insurance or ability to pay, collaborative care, and the starting point for a permanent Internet accessible medical record.” http://www.cookchildrens.org/aboutus/...

Government work group proposes allowing multiple organizations to certify EHRs
The Certification Committee for Health IT (CCHIT) could soon have company when it comes to approval of electronic health record (EHR) systems, under a proposal being considered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). EHR certification is required for physicians and hospitals to be eligible for forthcoming Medicare and Medicaid incentives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. HHS’ Health IT Policy Committee certification and adoption work group has recommended multiple organizations be allowed to provide “HHS certification” for EHRs because CCHIT’s process is “excessively detailed” and pays “too much attention to specific features and functionality.” Under the proposal, EHR vendors could obtain certification from one accredited certifying body and update their certification no more frequently than every other year. CCHIT does, however, do a good job of offering “transparent discussion of requirements and a fair process of testing and certifying EHRs,” the recommendations note. http://fcw.com/articles/2009/07/17/...    http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open...

Spain-based company to produce laparoscopic robots
Doctors at the Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria in Malaga, Spain have successfully used a robot to help perform laparoscopic surgery – reducing the amount of time spent and the degree of fatigue experienced by human surgeons, according to hospital physicians. The robot, developed by the medical robotics group at the University of Malaga, is voice controlled and able to move an endoscope with the precision required for minimally invasive procedures, according to Dr. Victor Munoz, project leader. The university’s model, financed for a mere $25,370 [USD], uses control algorithms and has a passive wrist in its articulated arm, allowing it to move quickly in any direction and ensuring that it makes an accurate incision, Munoz said. A prototype was tested in 2004 and surgical trials run on humans and animals in 2007. The robot will now be mass-produced by the Vizcaya, Spain-based engineering firm SENER . The laparoscopic robot is the first such device to have been exclusively developed by Spanish scientists, Sener notes. http://www.uciencia.uma.es/index...

Efforts grow to ensure physician use of telehealth technology
The House Ways and Means Committee has added several provisions into its healthcare legislation that could make it far easier for practices to adopt telehealth technology. According to Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), the panel has addressed several legal barriers to implementation of telemedicine by hospitals and doctors. These include streamlining the process by allowing doctors to carry credentials with them regardless of what state their patient is in, and establishing a telehealth advisory committee to make recommendations to the government and expand Medicare’s coverage of using telehealth at stand-alone kidney dialysis centers. But the thorny issue of licensing physicians who practice across state boundaries is “the next one we have to do,” Thompson said. Normally, doctors are licensed by the state in which they practice, but telemedicine-based physicians can consult across state lines, making it unclear where they should be licensed. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/...

Europe debates need for in-person vs telehealth doctor visits
No matter what country they come from, European consumers believe they know when a visit to a doctor is needed, but not all doctors agree with those findings, according to a study by International market research firm TNS Healthcare. According to the survey of consumers in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, more than 8 in 10 consumers believe they know when to visit the doctor and when to self-medicate. But half of the doctors surveyed disagree with that statement. The consumer-medical specialist relationship also varies based on country surveyed: for example, 64 percent of consumers in the United Kingdom say they would rather buy medicine than be seen by a doctor, while only 18 percent of UK doctors surveyed agree with that statement, according to TNS Healthcare UK consumer health researcher Ginny Rose. But in Spain, it’s nearly the opposite, with only 33 percent of consumers saying they prefer to buy medicine instead of visiting a doctor. Only 10 percent of all Spanish doctors surveyed agree with that finding. http://www.tnsglobal.com/news/...