GE Healthcare to supply mobile health system at 2010 Winter Olympics
GE Healthcare has been selected to provide a state-of-the-art mobile medical unit for medical emergencies during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the United Kingdom-based company announced. The $4.5 million [USD] deal calls for GE Healthcare, in conjunction with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the games (VANOC), to operate the medical unit during games time as an extension of the existing Olympic and Paralympic Village medical services. The unit is a 16-meter tractor-trailer that can expand to a 90-square-meter unit with 12 beds, a recovery/triage area, an intensive care unit, an operating room, and two independent surgical beds. Following the Games, the Province of British Columbia will buy the unit from VANOC. The XXI Winter Olympic Games are next Feb. 12-28, followed by the X Paralympic Winter Games from March 12-21.  http://www.genewscenter.com/content...

Rice, Methodist to share $2 million for new patient monitoring tools
A team of wireless researchers and doctors from Rice University and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute have won a $2 million federal grant to design and test next-generation wireless platforms and remote patient monitoring devices in one of Houston's working-class neighborhoods. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the money to a six-person team of researchers from Rice's Center for Multimedia Communication (CMC) and from the Abramson Center for the Future of Health, a joint effort by Methodist and the University of Houston. The funding, made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will allow researchers to continue earlier programs designed to promote use of wireless technology in healthcare, according to grant principal investigator and CMC Director Ashutosh Sabharwal. http://www.methodisthealth.com/tmhs...

Epilepsy Therapy Project unveils e-diary for epileptics
Middleburg, VA-based Epilepsy Therapy Project has released its new My Epilepsy Diary, a patient monitoring device that allows patients to enter details about their seizures, medicines, side effects, moods, and other personal events directly through their smart phones or Internet browsers. Patients may also generate personalized reports to bring to medical visits, providing their physicians with medical snapshots and long-term trend data, according to Joyce A. Cramer, president of Epilepsy Therapy Project. Physicians may also import patient data if the patient authorizes it. The product's launch coincides with the arrival of National Epilepsy Awareness Month in November. Epilepsy affects approximately 3 million Americans and 50 million people worldwide. http://www.epilepsy.com/newsfeeds/press_release/985860

BIOTRONIK wireless cardiac monitor approved in Europe
Implantable wireless cardiac device manufacturer BIOTRONIK SE & Co. KG has received the industry's first European CE Mark of approval for a device designed to replace hospital visits with cardiac device-based follow-ups. According to Marlou Janssen, vice president of global marketing and sales for BIOTRONIK's Cardiac Rhythm Management division, the European approval for the BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring unit resulted from a successful trial that proved the unit can safely and effectively replace conventional in-hospital device follow-up visits. Patients can be remotely monitored securely through the BIOTRONIK Home Monitoring^® wireless system with only one annual in-clinic visit, Janssen said. The device will free up time for consultations at many overburdened cardiology hospitals. The European approval follows that by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. http://www.biotronik.com/portal/19898...

High-tech groups consider upgrade of VA's VistA system
Nearly 40 high-tech corporations, including AT&T, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Oracle, Unisys and, Verizon, all members of the Industry Advisory Council (IAC), are considering forming a working group that will upgrade the Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA), an EHR system that the Veterans Affairs Department has operated for two decades. The upgrade might include using open source code, a move that would make a relatively cheap EHR alternative to clinicians nationwide.The IAC's efforts, if successful, could become a platform for the national health record network envisioned by President Obama. http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20091014_6336.php?oref=topstory

Mobile robots to play key role in at-home patient monitoring
Mobile robots have a place in remote patient care and home medical device monitoring reimbursements from the federal government should apply to them, according to Conyers, GA-based GeckoSystems International Corp. GeckoSystems, which makes the recently trialed CareBot at-home patient tracker robot, notes that such a device can actually be more cost-effective for physicians as well, when compared to stationary patient monitoring units. It is also a sign that home-based monitoring technologies, which have in recent years caught the attention of technology giants such as GE, Philips, and Intel, will be a major factor in healthcare in the coming years, according to GeckoSystems President and Chief Executive Officer Martin Spencer. http://www.geckosystems.com/investors...

Customer-driven medicine on way with right policy changes
A future consisting of customer-driven medicine – in which patients monitor their own health through home-based and portable medical devices linked to the Internet and cell phones, and only visit doctors in-person if there is a serious healthcare problem – is not far off, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. But according to “Customer-Driven Medicine: How to Create a New Health Care System,” major policy changes will be necessary to make that happen. Those include reimbursements for providers for preventative care, electronic communications with patients and remote monitoring, and incentives to consumers that encourage them to live healthier lifestyles.    http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/1008_mhealth_west.aspx

AirWatch, Homecare Homebase to license wireless device tracker
Mobile device management software maker AirWatch is partnering with Homecare Homebase in licensing of Device Link, a unit that provides home healthcare and hospice staff with a real-time view of the location of every mobile and wireless device in their inventory. The system, expected to track devices of more than 20,000 customers, will help Homecare Homebase keep up with a growing demand for the product, according to Homecare chief technology officer Guy Conces. The solution will also allow an agency's IT staff to remotely update and troubleshoot device issues remotely, as well as instantly connect to the device if it is stolen and delete all confidential and sensitive information, Conces added.  http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/airwatch...

Iowa Health, Allscripts offer free e-prescribing program
Iowa's largest integrated healthcare system and the nation's largest provider of electronic prescribing software have launched an initiative to encourage physicians to switch from paper prescriptions to electronic ones. The ePrescribe Iowa program from the Iowa Health System and Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions is a free Web-based e-prescribing system offered to doctors throughout Iowa and western Illinois. Similar to Paper-Free Tampa, an initiative currently offered by Allscripts and USF Health to 8,000 physicians in Florida, the goal for both programs is to reduce the number of paper prescriptions in use, and help reduce the number of medication errors, according to Allscripts Chief Executive Officer Glen Tullman. The Iowa Health System has 559 physicians in 117 clinics using Allscripts as their electronic health record provider.      http://www.ihs.org/body.cfm?id=1222&action=detail&ref=127

UK primary care trust wins telehealth management award
Dudley Primary Care Trust (DPCT) in Dudley, United Kingdom, has won a regional “Celebrating Success Award” for its use of telehealth in at-home management of long-term conditions such as heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to DPCT Chairperson Rachel Harris, telehealth systems supplied by Tunstall Healthcare are set up in patients' homes and measure a patient's health and well-being in the home environment. Patients trained to use the monitor by nursing staff then take their own blood pressure, oxygen levels, weight, and temperature, on a daily basis. The information is automatically transferred using the telehealth monitor to Dudley Community Alarm's monitoring centre, where the information is checked and any problems raised with PCT nursing staff. http://www.tunstall.co.uk/news.aspx?PageID=14&NewsID=167

Canada could scrap 2015 deadline for EHR implementation
A seven-year, “painful and expensive experience” in trying to implement an electronic health record (EHR) program in Ontario, Canada may result in a scrapping of the project 2015 completion deadline, according to Premier Dalton McGuinty. The premier said his first order to new Health Minister Deb Matthews was to “take a long hard look" at whether the original completion date was realistic, given a recent auditor general's report into the $1 billion spent on the project since 2002. The report cost Matthews' predecessor David Caplan his job. The report notes that “hundreds of millions” of dollars were wasted on “single-source tendering contracts and slipshod controls.” McGuinty said he wants to take a cautious approach with whatever plan is ultimately chosen for EHR implementation. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2009/10/15/11408436-sun.html

iSOFT to launch updated patient management software
Sydney, Australia-based healthcare delivery software maker iSOFT Group Ltd. will launch a revised version of its Lorenzo program in November, the company announced. The updated version will feature new patient management and clinical functions developed for the United Kingdom's National Programme for IT. More than 13,000 provider organizations in 40 countries currently use iSOFT's systems to manage patient information and drive improvements in their core processes, according to iSOFT Executive Chairperson Gary Cohen. http://www.ehealthnews.eu/content/view/1775/26/