ATA to broaden public acceptance of telemedicine
The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and DocTalker Family Medicine, a Vienna, VA-based patient-focused healthcare service, are piloting a program that promotes telemedicine as an employee benefit. According to ATA Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Linkous, the program will demonstrate how people can save money and stay healthier by accessing medical care via phone, e-mail, Internet, or videoconferencing. Through DocTalker, a phone-in and Internet medical advisory service established in 2002, more than 55 percent of patients’ medical issues can be solved via phone or e-mail consultation, according to Dr. Alan Dappen, founder of DocTalker Family Medicine. Telemedicine is key to potentially saving U.S. patients up to 1 million office visits to doctors per day, said Dr. Dappen. The program will help the general public become accustomed to using telemedicine as part of their everyday healthcare and will ultimately help the industry “garner the wide usage it deserves,” Linkous said. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3150064.htm    http://www.doctalker.com/

Mayo Clinic, STMicroelectronics team on patient monitoring platform  
Semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics and healthcare leader Mayo Clinic are collaborating on a telemedicine-based platform for remotely monitoring patients with chronic cardiovascular disease. According to Paul Friedman, M.D., a specialist in cardiovascular electrophysiology at Mayo Clinic, the platform, for which patient trials are already underway, uses a combination of sensors, ultra-low-power microcontroller and wireless modules, and interfaces to provide information about the patient’s heart rate, breathing rate, physical activity, and other measurements wirelessly obtained from external medical devices. This approach has many potential benefits, including maintaining wellness, earlier detection of developing health conditions, improving lifestyle, and lowering healthcare costs, Friedman notes. http://www.st.com/stonline/stappl/cms/press/news/year2009/t2425.htm

Next-generation version of WebMD slated for early 2010 launch
WebMD founder Jeff Arnold is developing a “next generation” version of his popular Internet-based health information portal and hopes to have it online in early 2010. The new system, Sharecare, will provide consumers with a multiple-source database for answers to medical questions, as well as offer social networking opportunities for consumers, physicians, and medical groups, Arnold said. Arnold’s initial creation, WebMD, was an instant hit with consumers when it debuted in the late 1990s. He sold the site to Healtheon in 1999. WebMD generated almost $13 million in profit during the third quarter of 2009 and has more than 59 million visitors each month, a 27 percent gain from 2008.     http://www.sharecare.com/PR/SharecareLaunchRelease110209.pdf

Roper Industries to acquire Verathon
Medical research and engineering firm Roper Industries Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire medical device maker Verathon Inc., the companies announced. The deal, for which terms were not released, is expected to close in early December. Bothell, WA-based Verathon specializes in proprietary medical devices, such as the BladderScan, a noninvasive portable ultrasound for bladder volume measurement, and  the GlideScope Video Laryngoscope, which improves intubation success for emergency departments, operating rooms, and rapid response applications such as EMS and military applications. Sarasota, FL-based Roper provides engineered products and solutions for global niche markets, including water, energy, radio frequency, and research/medical applications. http://www.roperind.com/news/?id=370

TeleHealth Manager gains FDA approval for marketing in U.S.
Alcatel-Lucent’s remote patient monitoring system, TeleHealth Manager, has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for marketing in the United States, the company announced. According to Tom Burns, director to Alcatel-Lucent’s enterprise and verticals business, TeleHealth Manager allows patients to provide health data to physicians using devices they are already familiar with, such as mobile phones and medical items such as blood glucose meters. The system can also provide reminders, alerts, and online reports to help patients and their healthcare professionals better understand and manage their conditions, and allows care providers to efficiently, accurately, and regularly gather potentially lifesaving data. Burns said the solution is especially relevant to an aging population, as well as patients suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/!ut/...

VA seeks proposals on Web-based PTSD-tracking system  
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has issued a request for proposals from vendors to create an Internet-based system of tracking and analyzing data on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The system will be connected to VA’s electronic health record system, VistA, and the monitoring system will use the data from veterans’ PTSD treatments for reports on their care. The contract will last one year, and vendors have until Nov. 13 to respond, according to VA. https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunit...

Health IT added to cybersecurity standards legislation
Legislation requiring the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop a plan to ensure cybersecurity coordination within the U.S. government’s electronic infrastructure has been approved by the House Committee on Science and Technology’s subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. The Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act includes an amendment that adds health information technology systems to the ones covered by the bill’s cybersecurity requirements, according to Subcommittee Chairperson David Wu (D-OR). Wu said the government’s increased efforts to stress adoption of health IT by the medical industry makes it vital that adequate privacy safeguards be implemented and enforced. The bill is now under consideration by the full House Science and Technology Committee. http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2675    http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/...

iSOFT updates Lorenzo electronic patient record program
Australia’s largest health information technology company, iSOFT, has implemented the latest version of its Lorenzo electronic patient record product. The Lorenzo Regional Care 1.9, for referral and caseload management as well as inpatient and outpatient functionality, supports almost 600 community-based clinical and administrative users working across two wards and 1,200 clinics, according to iSOFT Executive Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Gary Cohen. The trust also plans to introduce clinical functionality in the coming months by using assessment functionality for orthopedics and dietetics. http://www.ehealthnews.eu/content/view/1804/26/

Text messaging improves medication adherence
Liver transplant patients who use text messaging are more likely to adhere to their medication regimens than those who do not, according to a study by researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Over a one-year period, researchers used the CareSpeak program from CareSpeak Communications to text medication reminders to 41 pediatric liver transplant patients. After receiving the reminder to take a certain medication, patients were required to text back within an hour to confirm that they had complied. If patients failed to respond, their caregivers or parents were alerted. Study lead author Tamir Miloh, assistant professor of pediatrics and surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, notes that text messaging provided an additional bonus: 12 liver transplant patients experienced organ rejection in the previous year, while only two did during the texting study. Report findings were published in the November issue of Pediatrics.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/health/05chen.html?_r=1    http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/5/e844

HL7 publishes new standard for EHR clinical research
Health information technology standards group Health Level Seven (HL7) has published an electronic health record (EHR) standard for clinical research. The standard identifies functionality requirements for using EHR data in regulated clinical research and acts as a roadmap for integrating information to support patient care and clinical research processes, according to Donald Mon, Ph.D., co-chair of the HL7 EHR Work Group and HL7 board of directors member. The American National Standards Institute has approved the standard. In developing the plan – the first of its type – pharmaceutical, biotechnology, clinical research technology vendor, healthcare technology vendor, and federal regulatory stakeholders from the U.S. and the European Union worked for two years to identify and address a broad list of data protection, regulatory and ethical research requirements, Mon said. http://www.hl7.org/documentcenter/public/pressreleases/HL7_PRESS_20091105.pdf

SSA, VA, DOD to share health information network in February
In early 2010, the Social Security Administration will begin sharing health information electronically with the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments to speed the processing of claims by veterans who apply for SSA disability benefits. According to Jim Borland, SSA’s special advisor for health IT, SSA, VA, and DOD in February will begin exchanging structured, machine-readable health data across a network that conforms to nationwide health information network (NHIN) standards. The program follows a planned pilot of a similar program between DOD, VA, and Kaiser Permanente, set to begin in January. In both cases, faster claim processing is expected to be the outcome: A state-level pilot of the NHIN conducted in Virginia has cut SSA’s traditional three-month response time in disability determination cases down to 47 days, Borland said. http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=72352

U.S. health IT access improves, but still behind much of world  
The United States spends more on healthcare per capita than 10 other industrialized nations but lags behind those countries in terms of health information technology access, quality and use, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund. The New York City-based research firm’s “12th Annual International Health Policy Survey” notes that the U.S. spends almost $7,300 per capita – about 1.5 times as much as the next-highest country, Norway, at $4,800. The survey’s other industrialized nations included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, nearly half (46%) of U.S. primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records (EMRs) – up from 28 percent in 2006 – but American primary care practices, along with those in Canada, are still way behind other leading countries. EMR usage tops 90 percent in the Netherlands, New Zealand, the U.K., Australia, Italy, Norway and Sweden, according to the study. http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/241711/topic/...    http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/...