Telepresence robots on verge of going mass-market
Telepresence robots are about to become a mass-market item and may soon become reasonable substitutes for human presence, according to a report in Telepresence Options. Mountain View, CA-based Anybots.com recently announced plans to begin mass production of its “QA bot,” a wheel-driven, mounted-camera unit that allows physicians to remotely monitor patient activities from other rooms or buildings. And that robot is not the first telepresence robot to hit the market; according to Telepresence Options, Hong Kong-based WowWee’s Rovio is a fairly inexpensive retail bot that “lets you use telepresence to monitor your home,” while do-it-yourself enthusiasts can build a Sparky Jr. telepresence robot, from www.sparkyjr.com, and “customize it to fit their personality.” If Anybot’s mass production of the QA goes well, expect to see versions of the more human-like Dexter and Monty models hit the major markets soon as well. Full Story

Microsoft, Siemens sign agreement for HealthVault in Germany
Microsoft Corp. and Siemens AG have signed an agreement to license Microsoft’s personal health record platform, HealthVault, in Germany, the companies announced. According to Angelika Gifford, Public Sector Senior Director at Microsoft Germany, the agreement marks HealthVault’s first introduction to the European market. Siemens will host all the stored health data in what the two companies describe as “security enhanced” data centers in Germany. HealthVault, first launched in the United States in 2007, is an online platform that allows individuals to store their personal health data, import information from various medical devices, and decide who to share it with. Siemens will be the exclusive operator of HealthVault in Germany and will market the platform to developers, application providers and device manufacturers, Gifford said. Full Story

New portable DNA-based vaccine administrator unveiled
DNA vaccine designer Inovio Biomedical Corp. has unveiled a miniature electroporation device designed to be an easy-to-use, portable delivery product for DNA vaccines. According to Dr. Niranjan Sardesai, senior vice president of research and development at Inovio, the device may be used to inoculate large populations against infectious diseases such as influenza, dengue, and malaria. This new skin electroporation technology has been tested in human volunteers and shown that tolerability of the new skin vaccine delivery device was similar to conventional syringe-delivered flu vaccines. These important design outcomes could make such devices suitable for widely applied preventive vaccine regimens, Inovio President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. J. Joseph Kim said. Full Story

DoD, VA establish national EHR test center in Virginia
The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are looking for a military community to act as a test bed for new approaches to sharing electronic health records between the two departments’ clinics and local private healthcare providers. Hampton Roads, VA will be the second of three potential Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record Health communities, according to Col. Claude Hines, program manager of the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS). The VLER Communities project tests various local e-health record sharing networks, including those linking DoD and VA clinics, purchased care clinics, health information exchanges, community health centers, and federal health agencies. Hampton Roads follows San Diego, which recently announced a pilot project to test e-health record sharing between DoD and VA clinics, and healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. The third VLER regional project is expected to be established by the end of 2010, Hines said. Full Story

Prototype federal ‘Pillbox’ site grows in popularity
The federal Pillbox Web site from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has become a popular way for medical personnel, law enforcement, and certain consumers to identify medications. Launched in fall 2009, Pillbox initially was designed to help poison control centers identify pills but has since become an invaluable resource for other users, according to David Hale, NLM’s social media strategist and Pillbox project manager. Still in beta form and not approved for clinical use, Pillbox offers more than 700 high-resolution photographs and more than 5,600 descriptions of pill-form drug medications. Additional images are being verified for inclusion, and once that process is completed, the site will be allowed for clinical use, Hale said. The site is located at http://pillbox.nlm.nih.gov.  Full Story

Medicare to study impact of P4P programs in Indiana, North Carolina
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has implemented pilot programs in Indiana and North Carolina designed to improve the quality of care for 130,000 Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in those states. According to CMS Acting Administrator Charlene Frizzera, the demonstrations are part of the federal government’s national five-year Medicare Health Care Quality (MHCQ) program. Each state’s program will use a different approach, but they are ultimately designed to improve the quality of patient care while lowering cost to Medicare. Indiana’s Health Information Exchange demonstration will examine the impact of a multi-payer, quality reporting and improvement, and pay-for-performance program, while the North Carolina Community Care Networks plan will extend the “medical home” concept to low-income Medicare beneficiaries, Frizzera said. Full Story

Minnesota considers additional online prescription barriers
Minnesota lawmakers are considering legislation that would severely restrict the pharmaceutical industry’s relationship with doctors and their use of online prescription services. The proposals, originally introduced in 2009 but retained for this year’s session, include legislation to block drug companies' access to physicians' prescribing data for marketing purposes. Another would create an academic drug-vetting program to take that responsibility away from pharmaceutical representatives. A third bill would tighten an existing gift ban for drug companies, lowering the limit from $50 to about $5, and require medical device manufacturers and distributors to report compensation payments to physicians. Minnesota was one of the first states to require drug companies to report payments to doctors for lectures, consulting, research and other services, revealing lucrative arrangements between some physicians and drug makers. Full Story

Israel researchers develop new ‘sampling’ technology for CT scans
Researchers from the Technion-Israel institute of Technology (TIIT) have developed a way to use “sampling” technology to significantly improve capabilities of radar and audio recording devices, and reduce patient exposure to radiation during such procedures as MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans. According to Prof. Yonina Eldar of Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, increasing the bandwidth of the signals that can be sampled while maintaining a low sampling rate would increase the various devices’ capabilities. The breakthrough “could revolutionize the way broadband signals are sampled, recorded and processed,” Eldar said. TIIT is Israel's leading science and technology university. Home to the country's winners of the Nobel Prize in science, TIIT has a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, computer science, biotechnology, water-resource management, materials engineering, aerospace, and medicine. Full Story

FDA launches ‘transparent’ Web site on health data, operations
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a “transparent” Web site designed to explain to the public how the health regulatory agency operates and how it makes decisions in the drug approval process. The site at www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Basics/default.htm will provide Web-based videos about the agency’s tasks, such as how to find out if a drug is approved, and online forums where the public may question senior officials about how drugs and medical devices move to market. According to FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, the project is part of the Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative, a plan to make federal agencies more accessible and to share information more widely. Full Story

EHRs, e-prescription networks held back by technology gaps
E-prescribing technologies are gaining ground in doctors’ offices and hospitals, but are hampered by gaps in the systems and worries about reliability, according to a report given to the HHS Information Exchange workgroup which is part of the federal Health Information Technology Policy Committee. E-prescribing is included as a component of electronic health record systems in recent regulations from the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which is distributing at least $17 billion in incentive payments to doctors and hospitals who buy and “meaningfully use” such systems. When hub networks are down, there are interruptions in communication between the doctor’s office and the pharmacy systems’ interface. This can prevent prescriptions from reaching pharmacies, and the problems are not always noticed until hours later, resulting in duplications of work, inconvenience and delays in obtaining treatments, the report notes. Full Story

Medical records should stay with hospitals, survey notes
Most people prefer to have hospitals, clinics, or physicians store their records in a database instead of having the federal government do so, according to a survey by the Ponemon Institute in Traverse City, MI. In the survey, 71 percent of respondents said they would rather keep their records comparatively local, instead of granting access to federal agencies. In the latter case, only 27 percent said they would be comfortable with that choice. Twenty-seven percent also said they would be comfortable with a technology firm such as Google, Microsoft, or General Electric operating or accessing an electronic health record (EHR) database. Nearly all respondents – 99 percent – said their top choice for granting access to their database would be their personal physicians. Institute director Larry Ponemon said the findings could reflect resistance to the Obama administration’s push for widespread EHR adoption. Full Story

Revolution Health to end personal health record service
Washington, D.C. -based Revolution Health has announced that it will discontinue its personal health record (PHR) service at the end of February. In an e-mail issued last week to program users, the company said it was terminating the program and advised people to download their PHR to save for their records. No reason was given for the ending of service. Revolution Health was launched by America Online co-founder Steve Case in 2005; in 2008, the firm merged with Waterfront Media's Everyday Heath Network, which provides online health information and resources in an effort to compete with online medical Web site WebMD. Everyday Health’s various Web sites, have a combined 38 million registered users and receive nearly 25 million unique visitors per month. Full Story