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April 1, 2011



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Motion CL900 Tablet PC Takes a beating while hammering away at germs • An advanced, durable medical tablet designed for tough on-field and in-hospital conditions. • Front- and rear-facing cameras for documentation, videoconferencing and collaboration. • IP 52-rated exterior protects against moisture and dust, and allows disinfecting. To learn more: Motion Computing Inc.

Abbot Labs gets FDA approval for bedside wireless testing device
Abbot Laboratories won FDA approval earlier this week for its i-STAT 1Wireless Point of Care Testing System, which can transmit the results of patient diagnostic tests worldwide and in real time. The system, with some 50,000 i-STAT installations worldwide, can perform a variety of tests using 2-3 drops of blood, including blood chemistry, blood gases, electrolytes and hematology. Full Story Further Information

Mobile devices will replace PCs in hospitals
Over the next decade, "the integration of interactive devices into a physician's daily workflow could become as commonplace in 10 years as the presence of hospitalists is today," Mark Cain, chief technology officer of MIM Software, Inc., tells The Hospitalist. Given the cost of tablet computers, hospitals will be motivated to use them in place of costlier PCs currently in many hospital exam rooms, Cain says. Full Story

Microscopy application approved for iPad
UK firm Room4 Group Ltd. announced that its Interpath multiplatform virtual slide application "was demonstrated on the iPad2." The announcement, which was made during the CATAI/UNESCO meeting on iPhone & 4G Mobile Phones in Telemedicine in Tenerife, notes that the application allows a remote pathologist to "review and navigate high quality images of diagnostic quality using either the cellular network or WIFI networks on the iPhone/iPad." Full story Further Information


	A provider of 24/7 nurse triage and other round-the-clock medical advice and health information services is looking to grow its presence among healthcare providers, both quickly and long-term. During the American Telemedicine Association's 16th Annual International Meeting and Exposition, set for Tampa, Fla., May 1-3, Fonemed will announce details of a 30-day "integrated care transition program." It will consist of remote healthcare services designed to reduce the readmission rates and projected Medicare spending of hospitals for patients with three avoidable illnesses: heart attacks, pneumonia, and congestive heart failure. A 2009 New England Journal of Medicine study found 19.6 percent of all hospitalized fee-for-service Medicare patients were readmitted within 30 days of discharge, 34 percent within 90 days, and more than half (56.1 percent) within a year. The study calculated the cost of the avoidable readmissions to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at $17.4 billion of the $102.6 billion in payments made in 2004 to hospitals from Medicare. "Basically, we're setting it up on the assumption that hospitals will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 patients per month they would want to turn over to us over time," Ken Bleakley, Fonemed's president and CEO, told the News Alert. While hospitals have historically found it profitable to readmit patients, that is about to change. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—the controversial healthcare law enacted last year by President Obama—created the Community Based Care Transitions Program [p. 333-334]. CMS will make available $500 million between the current 2011 and 2015 fiscal years in grants toward costs of care transition programs like the one Fonemed will introduce. Hospitals eligible to apply for the grants are those whose readmission rates place them within the top 15 percent nationwide, and community-based organizations that provide transitional care services. Hospitals in that group not enrolled in a care transition program face penalties. Although promised in December, 2010, CMS has yet to issue guidelines for the program. Once guidelines are issued, Bleakley said, Fonemed will work with hospitals to prepare and submit applications. Bleakley described similar integrated care transition programs that have used face-to-face meetings with a nurse or doctor. "The average cost that I've seen is in the neighborhood of $600 per patient per month in a program like that," he said. "We're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about $200 per patient per month. For that, they'll have a variety of different contacts, but they will be remote types of contacts instead of having expensive (home) visits from nurses. One may still be necessary, but not repeat visits," he added. Multiplying the 25,000 patient discharges per month for which the program is designed by the approximate cost of $200 per-patient per-month yields $5 million in eventual monthly revenue--a level that will take some time to attain. During that time, Fonemed hopes to expand the care transition program to other services. "In the longer term, what we're looking at is programs of disease management for diabetes, pneumonia and other long-term conditions and diseases," Bleakley said. Also longer-term, Fonemed is developing a network to deliver next-generation remote disease management services. The Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company's FoneMed@Home Division recently won C$2.4 million (about $2.5 million) from the government of Canada's Atlantic Innovation Fund toward the C$3.9 million ($4 million) cost of R&D for developing the network, the second stage of Fonemed's health information system. Fonemed says this is the first time it has had outside financial support; until now it has used internally generated funds. Part of the funding will go to universities supporting the effort, including McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Nova Southeastern University, which has its main campus in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The remote disease management network will integrate five "steps" or programs and services Fonemed already provides, but which not all of its 3,000 individual clients receive at present: collecting data from patients' electronic medical records; developing a health plan based on the data collected from patients; health coaching and direct intervention by registered nurses dealing with patients; monitoring remote medical devices such as blood pressure monitors and blood glucose readings, and integrated voice response into the homes of patients; and integrating the resulting data into patients' EMRs

St. Louis healthcare providers gravitating toward telemedicine
Two critical care physicians and nine nurses are all that's needed to watch over 400 patients located at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, and at a dozen other hospitals in four states. While telemedicine may not be new, it's a relatively recent phenomenon in the St. Louis area, where specialists affiliated with the Sisters of Mercy Health System, SSM Health Care, BJC HealthCare, and Washington University have begun using the technologies to serve outlying areas, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Full story

Secure physicians network launched
Designed in part "to help physicians search for and communicate with colleagues for consults and referrals," a new online network, linking some 7,000 physicians was launched by start-up firm Doximity, according to Health Data Management. The network, which offers secure communications, has been in beta testing since October. Doximity reportedly is free to physicians. The company will generate revenue through "market research, continuing medical education, and premium services," the article notes. Full story   Further Information

Web network combats drug addictions
The National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment reports in a statement that its free online network TreatmentMatch recently referred its 40,000th patient. The network, which allows users to register anonymously, "connects patients looking for lifesaving modern addiction treatment with one or several of the few providers who are able to prescribe buprenorphine." Currently, more than 3,000 physicians nationwide participate in the network. Full Story   Further Information

OneHealthPass under development
Capital Group Holdings announced that by the end of 2011 it will launch what the company describes as a "complete telemedicine offering of products and services delivered via a centralized platform." The 24/7 network, dubbed OneHealthPass, available via subscription through health plans and other means, will allow members access to telemedicine services, including Internet consultations with physicians, personal health record storage, wellness and lab testing information. Full Story

Google's proposed high speed network would boost telemedicine at Kansas hospital
Dr. Roy Jensen, director of the KU Cancer at the University of Kansas Medical Center, says that while practitioners at the facility already coordinate with the state's rural clinics via telemedicine, Google's proposed high speed network will extend that model to home care, as reported by the Kansas City Business Journal. The twice-as-fast network should also make the facility more competitive in vying for research grants, Jensen notes. Full Story   Further Information

iPad competitors possess advantages, too
Despite the resounding popularity of the iPad among the medical community as a point-of-care digital device, competitors to the Apple tablet could weigh in with attractive features, writes Ken Congdon, editor in chief, Healthcare Technology Online. BlackBerry's PlayBook, for example, "promotes its out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, allowing for centralized security and management of the devices (which is ideal for HIPAA compliance)." Windows based tablet PCs also readily integrate with Windows IT systems. Full Story

Movers & SHAKERS

Isabella Cattelan, former CFO and executive VP of Maritz Canada, has been named CFO of Healthscreen Solutions…Richard Toren, chair and president of CodeRyte, has been named to the board of directors of Medsphere Systems…Dr. Tim Smith, VP of research for St. John's Mercy Medical Center's Center for Innovative Care (St. Louis), discussed their telemedicine initiatives on Stltoday.com website…Karen Albritton president of Capstrat, announced the results of a poll finding that Americans are usually willing to use the Internet for some healthcare activities, but have not embraced social media as a way to communicate with physicians…Dr. Jeremy M. Kahn with the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, recently published "Intensive Care Unit Telemedicine" in the Archives of Internal Medicine…Dr. Sachin Jain, senior advisor in the Office of the Administrator at CMS, gave the keynote address at a March 10 symposium titled "Balancing Access, Safety, and Quality in a New Era of Telemedicine"…Laura McCrary, director of the Kansas Health Information Network, announced that it will help rural medical providers in Kansas exchange digital health records.

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Med-e-Tel 2011
April 6-8, 2011 – Luxembourg, G.D. of Luxembourg
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ATA 2011
May 1-3, 2011 – Tampa, Florida
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May 17, 2011 –Washington, DC
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		*Telemedicine and e-Health* delivers more authoritative content from the peer-reviewed journal of record. The peer-reviewed publication,*Telemedicine and e-Health,* is published 10 times a year in print and online covering all aspects of clinical telemedicine practice, technical advances, enabling technologies, education, health policy and regulation and biomedical and health services research. The journal also deals with the clinical effectiveness, efficacy and safety of telemedicine and its effects on quality, cost and accessibility of care, medical records and transmission of same. For complete information and to subscribe, check out our website. *Telemedicine and e-Health* is an Official Journal of the American Telemedicine Association.

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