Year-long study looks at benefits of remote monitoring on elderly
Intel, GE Healthcare, and the Mayo Clinic plan to conduct a year-long study to determine if remotely monitoring elderly patients with gear made by the two companies and connected to a home broadband connection can reduce those patients’ trips to emergency rooms. According to study principal investigator Gregory Hanson, M.D., at Mayo’s Department of Primary Care Internal Medicine, the project calls for 200 high-risk patients over the age of 60 who suffer chronic conditions such as heart failure, diabetes, and lung disease, to use at-home medical devices every day to measure vital signs such as blood pressure, peak air flow, weight, or blood sugar readings. Mayo clinicians will monitor the online data, looking for “red flag” vital sign readings. Physicians will also be able to communicate with the patients online if necessary, Hanson said. The project is the first to study the care and cost benefits for a broader population of individuals – in this case, elderly patients – with various chronic conditions. Full Story

HHS awards $100 million for children’s health IT programs
Ten states will receive more than $100 million in federal health information technology grant funds to improve quality of care and delivery systems for children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced. Sebelius said the grants, which will be awarded over a five-year period, will help states implement and evaluate provider performance measures and utilize health IT items such as pediatric electronic health records and other quality improvement initiatives. Recipient states are Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah. Each state will receive between $7.8 million and $11.3 million, with no more than $2.9 million awarded during the first year. Eight other states were named as “partners” and will share in the grant funding for some of the states. Full Story

Outcome Sciences, REACH Call to tap AHA stroke prevention effort
Outcome Sciences Inc., a Cambridge, MA-based provider of services and technologies focused on evaluating the safety, effectiveness, and quality of healthcare products and services, and REACH Call, an Augusta, GA-based provider of Web-based telemedicine services, are joining forces in an effort to integrate stroke-telemedicine data into the American Heart Association’s “Get With The Guidelines – Stroke” prevention program. According to Outcome President Dr. Richard Gliklich, the collaboration’s goals include promoting the sharing of knowledge between rural emergency departments and specialists at major medical centers; helping them gain insights into the continuum of care for stroke patients treated via telemedicine; and streamlining data collection for hospitals in the Get With The Guidelines program and Joint Commission certification. REACH Call will automatically integrate data collected from a stroke telemedicine consult into the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke registry. This integration will save customers time in data collection and reporting, enhancing overall compliance with their quality initiatives, Gliklich said. Full Story

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InfoLogix, CareTrends partner on new EMR adoption initiative
Hatboro, PA-based healthcare mobility solutions provider InfoLogix Inc., and Sunnyvale, CA intelligence software company CareTrends Systems are developing a program designed to increase nursing efficiency and speed the adoption of emergency medical record (EMR) systems. According to InfoLogix President David Gulian, the company will begin using CareTrends’ wireless vital signs collection and dissemination system to automate vital signs documentation and trending, and make the information accessible from any point within the healthcare organization’s system. Gulian notes that with the federal government’s push toward EMR implementation at healthcare facilities, “it’s critical to ensure that newly digitized healthcare information is available at the point of care, wherever that may be.” InfoLogix currently mobilizes and manages healthcare solutions for 1,500 hospitals nationwide. Full Story

Telemedicine could counter doctors’ ‘out migration’ from rural states
Telemedicine could become a crucial tool in counteracting the “out migration” of physicians from largely rural states, according to a report by St. Paul, MN-based thinktank Minnesota 2020. Health Care Policy Associate Nina Slupphaug notes that the state’s growing, aging population places it in a position where increased healthcare services will be needed within a few years. But already-scarce medical practitioners continue to leave the state, leading to the prospect of increased telemedicine use. Various studies, including one conducted by the Baltic Rural eHealth Project in 2007, and later studies in Maine, Tennessee and North Dakota, indicate that telemedicine’s benefits help areas deal with the loss of physicians, Slupphaug said. Increased use of telemedicine might prevent out-migration of healthcare professionals, as rural healthcare jobs “will be able to offer more professional support and a higher degree of prestige,” she said. Full Story

U.S. Army tests out telemedicine on troops in remote European posts
Telemedicine may become a way to give patients at remote U.S. Army posts in Europe better access to American specialists. According to Col. Steven Brewster, commander of U.S. Army Medical Activity in Bavaria, telemedicine can help the Army tighten its oversight of soldiers’ medical treatment and give them the same level of care that they would receive in the states. A three-month telemedicine program, launched in January at two on-post clinics in Vilseck, Germany, has already prevented dozens of troops from making several-hour trips to see specialist surgeons for pre- and post-operative examinations for specific sports-related injuries. If the program proves successful, it will be extended to all troops’ family members and those persons who have more-serious musculoskeletal injuries, Brewster said. Full Story

FDA considers first-ever regulation of health IT devices
In response to potential safety risks in health information technology, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering regulating the systems for the first time. According to Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, possible scenarios for tighter scrutiny include requiring makers of health IT devices to register them with the government and to submit reports on safety issues and correct problems that surface. Or, the agency could require manufacturers to report safety concerns and set minimum guidelines to assure the quality of products on the market. In a third approach, the systems could be subject to the broader regulatory actions required by new medical products before they ever reach the market. Much discussion must take place for any of these actions to occur, but none of them are impossible to fathom, according to Shuren. Full Story

Researchers developing brain implant that affects neurons with light
Researchers at medical device maker Medtronic are working on a prototype neural implant that uses light to alter the behavior of neurons in the brain, a move that could lead to improved treatments for Parkinson’s and other neural disorders. According to Tim Denison, senior IC engineering manager in Medtronic’s neuromodulation division, the USB flash drive-sized module would use a fiber-optic wire to direct light from a blue or green LED at target neurons in the brain, causing them to fire on cue. The research is in an extremely early phase, but could one day result in a product that will be available commercially, Denison said. Medtronic is not the only company tackling Parkinson’s; earlier this month the Mayo Clinic announced research involving use of targeted bursts of electricity from a deep brain implant to control neuron activity.  Full Story

Stanford scientist nears completion of first ‘virtual’ cell
A Stanford University scientist is on the verge of developing the world’s first “virtual” cell, one that could speed up researchers’ ability to develop cures for diseases and physical disorders. Markus Covert, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, said his completely computerized model of the microbe Mycoplasma genitalium – a sexually-transmitted parasite – could be ready in a few months. If complete, it can drastically improve the ability of researchers to examine cellular function. Currently, cells must be cultured, nurtured and perturbed according to an experiment’s protocol. Covert chose to replicate the Mycoplasma cell because of its fairly simple structure – 521 coding regions, or DNA segments. Success with this model will lay the basic groundwork for tackling more-complicated and biologically important organisms, such as yeast and E coli, he said. Full Story

VA management and accountability program now covers all IT projects
A federal project development that was originally designed only for information technology projects that were behind schedule or over budget is being expanded to include all IT programs, the Veterans Affairs (VA) department announced. According to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, the program management and accountability system, which was initially applied to 45 underperforming projects, will now address the department's entire IT portfolio of 282 projects. First announced by Shinseki in June 2009, the system requires IT projects to deliver new functionality within six months and keeps projects tied to established milestones. Shinseki said the department will “end projects that don’t work, streamline those that do, and focus on the responsibility we have for achieving maximum value for our Veterans.” Full Story

Canadian prison inmates to receive access to psychiatric care via telemedicine
Mentally ill inmates in federal prisons in Ontario, Canada will soon receive long-distance psychiatric treatment through a new telemedicine program. The service will be provided by the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN), OTN Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ed Brown said. While other telemedicine services have recently been introduced inside Ontario’s federal prisons, this will be the first time psychiatric services will be provided to inmates by two-way videoconferencing systems. According to the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), nearly a quarter of female offenders and 13 percent of male offenders were identified as having a mental health disorder at admission in 2008, an increase of 85 percent and 86 percent, respectively, since 1997. Full Story

Mississippi State Senator W. Briggs Hopson III and Representative Daniel Holland have introduced two bills in the Mississippi State Legislature to establish a Health Information Technology Act that would require all agencies in Mississippi involved in providing HIT services to coordinate their efforts with other state agencies…Alexei Shvilkin, MD, PhD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, announced the acceptance by the Heart Rhythm Society of an abstract detailing the performance of the NewCardio CardioBip technology for remote wireless monitoring and detection of atrial fibrillation…Kevin Neighbor, IT Director of Clear Choice Healthcare, reported they had selected Ruckus Wireless’s “Smart Wi-Fi” products for its nine skilled nursing and assisted living facilities throughout Florida, because of its rigor and reliability in hostile Wi-Fi environments like healthcare institutions…Joy Pritts, an attorney and Georgetown University professor, was named the first Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) chief privacy officer…Jeffery E. Heck, MD, executive director and founder of Shoulder to Shoulder, announces that Medweb’s recent donation of a DICOM virtualPACS gateway is connecting teleradiology applications between Honduran health clinics and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center…Dr. Greg Reger, Army psychologist with the Defense Department’s National Center for Telehealth and Technology discusses his use of virtual reality systems for dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder on the NextGov website…Don Jones, vice president of Health & Life Sciences, Qualcomm, and Eric Topol, chief medical officer of West Wireless Health Institute, are the keynote speakers for the March 22-23 Burrill Consumer Digital Health Meeting to be held in Burlingame, California…Please send us your news on Movers and Shakers in the field.