Mayo Clinic study shows telemedicine leads to improved stroke treatment
Telemedicine evaluation of stroke patients results in more accurate diagnoses, better emergency decision-making, fewer complications and encouraging long-term outcomes, according to a study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. The five-year study, “Pooled Analysis of the (Stroke Team Remote Evaluation using a Digital Observation Camera) STRokE DOC and STRokE DOC-AZ Telemedicine Stroke Trials,” showed that the correct emergency stroke treatment decision-making was made 96 percent of the time with the audio/video telemedicine technology, compared with 83 percent for telephone only. Telemedicine also increased patients’ access to life-saving, clot-busting medication by almost 500 percent, according to Bart Demaerschalk, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist and principal investigator of the Arizona trial. Only 55 percent of Americans have access to primary stroke centers within an hour of their home, according to current data.  Full Story

First sensor-based hearing system gets okay from FDA
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the nation’s first totally implanted, sensor-based hearing system, designed to treat one of the most common forms of hearing loss. According to Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, the Esteem system developed by St. Paul, MN-based Envoy Medical Corp. alleviates the effects of sensorineural hearing loss in patients age 18 or older. Sensorineural hearing loss is caused by genetic factors or damage to the inner ear caused by noise, viral infections or aging. Esteem’s three-component system consists of a processor, sensor, and driver that may each be implanted to sense vibrations from the eardrum and middle ear bones, and convert these mechanical vibrations into electrical signals to compensate for the patient’s hearing loss. Envoy must still conduct two multi-year post-approval studies to gauge product effectiveness, Shuren said. Full Story

AMD Telemedicine expands services into Europe
In response to a growing European e-health market, Chelmsford, MA-based telehealth technology provider AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc. has opened an office in Denzlingen, Germany, the company announced. According to AMD Vice President of Finance and Operations Eric Bacon, the Denzlingen location will provide a distribution, service and operations support office for all of Europe, as well as serve clients in the Middle East and Africa. The European presence, which is “a natural fit for AMD,” will enable the company to handle service calls, shipping/receiving and all customer service issues in a timelier manner, Bacon said. Establishing a European office is also part of AMD’s long-range strategy for increasing the depth and breadth of its European product in order to drive European sales, he added. Full Story

Medtronic MRI-safe pacemaker moves closer to FDA approval
Minneapolis-based electronic cardiac product maker Medtronic Inc.’s Revo MRI SureScan pacemaker – the first designed to work within the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) environment – has received conditional early approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to Pat Mackin, president of Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management business, the FDA’s Circulatory System Devices Panel has voted unanimously to recommend SureScan as MR Conditional, or safe for use in MRI systems under specified conditions. An estimated 200,000 pacemaker-using patients annually in the United States have to pass on an MRI scan due to the risks involved, including interference with pacemaker operation, damage to system components, lead or pacemaker dislodgement, heating of the lead tips and unintended cardiac stimulation. The panel’s decision brings Revo MRI “one step closer” to full FDA approval, which would allow the product’s marketing in the U.S., Mackin said.  Full Story

NIST launches first of four-part health IT technology test suite
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the first of four installments of a new health information technology test method and related software to help health IT vendors test their products and ensure basic functionality. According to NIST Director of Media Relations Ben Stein, the health IT testing infrastructure does not create any new standards, only the tools necessary to test for compliance with existing standards that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in late 2009. NIST is working with HHS and health IT system vendors, standards organizations that include the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel, certification bodies and system implementers to develop the test method. NIST has also created a new Web site to provide more information on the program and the testing infrastructure suite. Full Story    Further Information

iSOFT, Medic4all enter patient monitoring distribution agreement
iSOFT Group Ltd., Australia’s largest publicly traded health information technology company, has entered a distribution agreement with Swiss healthcare monitoring services provider Medic4all, the companies announced. According to iSOFT Executive Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Gary Cohen, the two companies will work together to develop improved home-based delivery of telehealth services and systems to a marketplace that is growing by 10 percent per year. Platforms focused on will include a Home Care Platform, which allows the healthcare professional to remotely monitor, diagnose and care for patients at their home or work; Monitoring Gateways that communicate wirelessly with medical monitoring devices in the patient’s home or workplace, and transmit patient data to a monitoring centre and Web-based personal health record; and WristClinic, an all-in-one wireless remote medical monitoring device for telemedicine and homecare applications that enable timely intervention, care management, and improved compliance. Full Story

Home patient monitoring popularity to push Lifeline worldwide after 2010
Aging baby boomers and continued downward pressure on healthcare costs have an already-popular Lifeline patient monitoring service gearing up to go worldwide after 2010, according to officials at Philips Healthcare. Walter van Kuijen, general manager at Philips’ Home Monitoring division, said the home healthcare division – which already accounts for 15 percent of the Netherlands-based home firm’s overall revenue – is expected to grow by double digits this year because of a senior population that desires to live at home despite a growing risk of injury from falls and chronic illnesses. The company estimates that Lifeline saves the healthcare system about $41 million per year in emergency dispatch costs, and even more in avoided hospital admissions, Kuijen said.  Full Story

Health systems extend EMRs to smaller hospitals with meaningful use needs
Larger hospitals and health systems are becoming service providers to give physicians and smaller community hospitals in their region access to their emergency medical record (EMR) systems, according to a report by HealthLeaders Media. Most of the more than 4,000 hospitals with fewer than 250 beds will have to undergo “a lot of heavy lifting” to meet the federal meaningful use requirements – and thus qualify for incentives – by 2011, according to Chuck Podesta, senior vice president and chief information officer at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, VT. Fletcher Allen, a 562-bed licensed healthcare facility, is extending its software licenses to independent community hospitals and physician practices. Others, like Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, OH – which has about 2,200 physicians and 10 regional hospitals – offers a software-as-a-service product. Officials note that such efforts benefit the larger hospital because all patient information is in a single database, while smaller hospitals and physicians gain an EMR system that is more likely to qualify for meaningful use and is more affordable. Full Story

UC system could oversee state prison healthcare and expand telemedicine use
The University of California system could be placed in charge of state prison inmates’ medical needs to help save the state $12 billion over a decade, under a proposal by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The arrangement, similar to a centralized system of managed care, would dramatically expand the use of telemedicine and institute electronic record keeping so providers could access medical information from anywhere, according to Schwarzenegger Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy. The project would reduce, and ultimately end, oversight of California’s prison medical care by federal courts, an action that has caused prison healthcare costs in California to skyrocket since 2006, according to a report by NuPhysicia, the state’s consultant. If accepted by the UC system, the project would start at 11 Northern California prisons before being expanded to all 33 statewide. Full Story

Arizona to pilot telemedicine-based mental health improvement program
Arizona, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, will be part of a new federal program that aims to use telemedicine to provide better treatment and follow-up care to people suffering from depression and other serious mental health problems. According to Dr. Frank LoVecchio, lead researcher at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix – one of eight facilities nationwide selected for the program – the five-year pilot will try to find ways to ensure the mentally ill can get the critical medications and psychiatric care they need, in the most cost-effective fashion. Arizona regularly ranks in the top 10 in the U.S. in suicide rates per capita, a situation that has worsened with the decline of the economy. The $12 million program is sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Mental Health. Full Story

Mobile technology market expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2014
Despite its fragmented nature, the mobile technology market is expected to bring great benefits to healthcare, growing from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $4.6 billion by 2014, according to a report by Overland Park, KS-based consulting firm TMNG Global. TMNG Chief Executive Officer Rich Nespola said the increase in medical devices containing embedded wireless chips and smartphones that are able to send increasingly larger amounts of data translates into more cost-effective and viable mobile healthcare options. But broader reform of the healthcare industry is needed before mobile health can reach its full potential, Nespola noted. In addition, telemedicine could save $700 billion in healthcare costs over the next 15 to 25 years, but medical care providers will need to be reimbursed for the cost of those devices to encourage their use, the report noted. Full Story

UK’s EHR database includes patient-threatening errors, report states
The United Kingdom’s new electronic health record database has many errors and omissions that could jeopardize the safety of patient health, according to a draft report by University College London. The UK Summary Care Records database, which currently includes records for 1.2 million residents, or 10 percent of the eventual patient total, includes cases where the database failed to indicate allergies or adverse reactions to drugs, and lists medications that some patients are not taking. No patients are known to have been harmed by these errors yet, and the UK Department of Health attributes the errors to faulty information, not the database system itself. The report will officially be published in April. Full Story

C. Martin Harris, MD, chief information office at the Cleveland Clinic, discussed a pilot project with Microsoft that lets patients use mobile medical devices to submit health information online to physicians…Terrie Dean, senior director of St. Joseph’s Health Centre in London, Ontario, announces expanded use of telemedicine technology in their ambulatory care area…Rachel Mertz, spokeswoman for The Medical Society of Virginia, announced the organization’s support of a Virginia Senate bill that would require health plans to pay for telemedicine services…Dr. David Cochran, president and chief executive officer of The Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL) announced that Chittenden Bank has created a loan program to help Vermont doctors finance electronic health record systems…Dr. John Scott of the University of Washington’s Allergy and Infections Diseases department, and Dr. Sergio Flores, interim chief medical officer of La Clinica, announce Project ECHO, a telemedicine initiative to help handle hepatitis C patients…Please send us your news on Movers and Shakers in the field.

IMPORTANT! Make sure you receive your chosen Mary Ann Liebert e-Newsletters, alerts and news updates. Add telemed@liebertpub.com to your Address Book or Safe Senders List. It's easy! View instructions HERE.

Forward Alert to a Colleague

For advertising
Contact us to maximize your print and/or online opportunities


This email was sent by: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor, New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215, USA
Phone: 914-740-2100 or 1-800-M-LIEBERT    Fax: 914-740-2101    Email: info@liebertpub.com