Advertisement December 20, 2011

Advertisement

UK plans to invest in remote medical monitoring equipment
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced additional funding for telehealth, installing remote medical devices that can communicate data collected directly to the physician in the homes of 3 million at-risk patients, including those with diabetes and heart disease, during the next five years. The program is part of a Life Sciences Strategy outlined in a report called “Investing in UK Health and Life Science.” The authors report that such technology has demonstrated clinical effectiveness. Implementation of the telehealth initiative will be done in partnership with industry. The report states, “Delivery on this industrial scale has not been attempted anywhere else and would put the NHS at the forefront of the management of chronic disease globally.”
Read the report

Telemonitoring market to exceed $1B by 2015
A new report from Espicom (West Sussex, UK, and Princeton, NJ) predicts that the market for telemonitoring technology could exceed $1 billion in revenues by 2015 if user and patient concerns are addressed. The report outlines companies that have developed telemonitoring products, where they are best applied, and technologies available on smartphones and tablets. It also discusses the lack of clinical evidence affecting the field, health providers' concerns on cost effectiveness, and poor patient compliance. The authors suggest that easy-to-use technology with motivational tools and feedback are valuable to patients. The report highlights the need for more research and clinical data to support wider adoption of telemonitoring.
Read more about the report

AirStrip announces collaboration to develop home monitoring
AirStrip Technologies (Washington, DC) will collaborate with Qualcomm Life (San Diego, CA) to develop and execute a home health monitoring initiative that integrates AirStrip's mobile patient monitoring onto the Qualcomm 2net™ Platform, a cloud-based data server. Initially, the AirStrip will focus on congestive heart failure patients, with a goal of improving health outcomes by connecting the care team to patients at home. AirStrip says with its monitoring technology, clinicians can securely access and view on a smartphone or tablet patient monitoring data, such as heart tracings and waveforms, as well as blood pressure, weight, and heart rate. AirStrip will establish pilot projects in the United States during the first quarter of 2012. Existing AirStrip applications for the hospital setting are all U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared and currently in use at hundreds of U.S. hospitals.
Learn more about AirStrip Cardiology
Watch an AirStrip Cardiology demo

Telemedicine requirements issued by accrediting body
The Joint Commission has issued final revisions to requirements related to credentialing and privileging of telemedicine practitioners in hospitals and critical-access hospitals. The standard requires licensed independent practitioners who are responsible for the care, treatment, and services of the patient via a telemedicine videoconference to have credentials and privileges at the originating site.
Read the requirements

iPhone economical solution for remotely assessing stroke patients
Using an iPhone 4, with FaceTime software, to assess the severity of a patient's stroke symptoms was economical and readily incorporated into a telestroke network, according to an Emory University study recently published in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases. The team enrolled 20 patients admitted to the hospital for an acute stroke. An on-site physician and a physician at a remote location using an iPhone evaluated the patients and calculated a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score. The researchers found excellent agreement between the two doctors.
Read the abstract
Contact: Eric R. Anderson MD, PhD, Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA Email: eric.anderson[at]emory.edu

California pilot program receives $1M grant
The California Emerging Technology Fund (San Francisco, CA), which aims to close the digital divide, presented a check for $1 million to the California Telehealth Network (Sacramento, CA) to assist the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Health Care Pilot Program in its efforts to significantly increase access to broadband for healthcare sites in rural and medically underserved communities throughout California. The organization intends to build on existing investments in telehealth and to improve access to quality health care in medically underserved areas by supporting rural health clinics.
Learn more about the California Telehealth Network

Collaboration enables face-to-face remote visits by nurses
Verizon Wireless (Basking Ridge, NJ) and the insurer WellPoint (Washington, DC) have developed a videoconferencing initiative that will let the insurer's nurse case managers communicate face-to-face with health plan members on Verizon's 4G LTE network, using the member's mobile device. The companies said that the goal is easy and convenient consultations that will help consumers take a more active role in their care. Nurses will be able to make more timely visits. “By leveraging video, we hope to enhance engagement in healthcare management, improve the quality of services provided, and help consumers stay on track with their programs,” said Michael Tighe, executive director, mHealth solutions, Verizon Wireless.
View a map of the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network

MediView to serve first responder mobile health market
Beyond Lucid Technologies (Walnut Creek, CA) has launched MediView, a software platform that will allow first responders to relay real-time patient data to the destination hospital as it is collected, reducing paperwork, eliminating the risk of missing critical information as the patient is transferred from ambulance to the emergency department, and saving precious time. Beyond Lucid also released a white paper “improving Efficiency in Health: Emergency Medical Systems,” co-authored by Microsoft, surveying technologies available to connect ambulances with hospitals via telemedicine. The authors discuss the barriers to adoption of healthcare information technology by both public and private EMS companies.
Download the white paper

Funding secured to commercialize mobile X-ray technology
Tribogenics (Los Angeles, CA) has received $2.5 million in funding from a variety of sources to commercialize a hand-held, mobile X-ray technology developed by the University of California, Los Angeles with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center. Tribogenics expects the device will be available within one year and could be used in mining, military, and healthcare industries.
Learn more about the mobile X-ray device

Pilot study shows benefits of telemedicine for IBD patients
A pilot study reported in The American Journal of Gastroenterology observed a high level of patient satisfaction with telemedicine consults for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The team compared remote consults with an IBD specialist with standard in-person visits. Both groups rated their experiences as excellent. Wait times and median number of patients per clinic were similar. Fellows and subspecialists gave high grades to the technical and informational quality of the telemedicine sessions.
Read the abstract

IHE-Europe launches vendor-neutral service to test software interoperability
IHE-Europe (Brussels, Belgium) in partnership with Kereval (France) has created IDE-Services, to offer professional interoperability testing services for health systems and projects. IDE-Services will facilitate a technology transfer from the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA). “The lack of interoperability between the systems used by different healthcare providers has been the greatest obstacle to a wider use of information technologies for better healthcare,” said Jacqueline Surugue, the Users Co-Chair for IHE-Europe. “Offering a responsive service with access to the testing tools and expertise developed for IHE-Europe responds to a growing demand from e-health initiatives across Europe.”
Learn more about IHE-Services

Movers & SHAKERS

Hon Pak, MD, a healthcare IT innovator and member of the Telemedicine and e-Health editorial board has become interim CEO of Diversinet Corp. (Toronto, ON, Canada). He succeeds Albert Wahbe, who has retired as Diversinet CEO but remains chairman of the company's board of directors…W. Scott Rombach, CEO of Rombach Capital, has been appointed to the board of directors of CompuMed (Los Angeles, CA)…Tim Smith, MD, VP of research for Mercy Healthcare System's Center for Innovative Care (St. Louis, MO), announced the health system had received a $500,000 telemedicine grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture…Steven Ferguson, former VP of product management for Myca Health (Quebec, Canada), has been named patient management officer of the company…Rory Moore, director and CEO of CommNexus San Diego, has been named chair of the board of directors of Perminova (La Jolla, CA)…Gil Benghiat, former VP of engineering for Phreesia (New York, NY), has been named VP of engineering for HealthEdge (Burlington, MA)… Pierre Samec, former executive VP and chief technology officer at Expedia (Bellevue, WA), has been named executive VP and CTO of the TriZetto Group (Denver, CO)…Michael Grayson, formerly of IDX Systems (Torrance, CA), has been named VP of strategic partnerships for Emdat (Fitchburg, WI)…Chester Billingsley, CEO of Mentor Capital (San Diego, CA), announced the company has entered into a Letter of Intent for a 50% ownership in Brighter Day Health, LLC (Houston, TX)…Jeremy Coote, CEO of InterComponentWare, Inc. (Walldorf, Germany and Wayne, PA), announced the company had received the 2011 Karl Storz prize for Telemedicine by The German Society for Telemedicine…Paula Guy, CEO of the Georgia Partnership for Telehealth (Waycross, GA) announced that they have received a $20,000 grant from The Amerigroup Foundation (Virginia Beach, VA).

• e-Health GCC Conference & Exhibition
  February 7–8, 2012—JW Marriott, Kuwait
  More Info
  
  
• Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth 2012 Annual Spring Conference
  March 14–16, 2012—The Ritz-Carlton, Reynolds Plantation Lake, Oconee, GA
  More Info
  
  
• Med-e-Tel
  April 18–20, 2012—Luxexpo Exhibition and Congress Center, Kirchberg, Luxembourg
  More Info
  
  
• ATA 2012: 17th Annual International Meeting & Expo
  April 29-May 1, 2012—San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, CA
  More Info
  
  
• Global Connected Care Conference and 3rd MediTour Expo
  May 6–8, 2012—Flamingo Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
  More Info
  
  
• GSMA-mHealth Alliance Mobile Health Summit 2012
  June 6–9, 2012—Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
  More Info
  
  
• UPMC International Telemedicine Symposium
  June 7–8, 2012—Brussels, Belgium
  More Info
  
  

		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.