Virtualization Archives

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now has an app geared toward the iPad generation.

The CDC's leap into mobile health gives iPad users touchpad access to the organization's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites, as well as articles about health topics, a health-related blog, updated CDC announcements and news releases, and the CDC's podcast library.

With the ability to quickly update public-health information, the site could become an important mHealth resource during times of a public health crisis, such as a flu pandemic.

Download the free app at the CDC's website.

An industry trade group is proposing that Congress authorize Medicaid coverage for maternal and neonatal care via telemedicine "birthing networks." Medicaid recipients with high-risk pregnancies would be eligible for the program.

The proposal, by the Washington, D.C.-based American Telemedicine Association, encourages adoption of state networks through a "shared savings approach" that rewards participating health-care providers. To encourage state participation, it also recommends that the federal government cover 90 percent of network development costs in the first two years. The birthing network would be modeled after the nearly 10-year-old University of Arkansas ANGELS (Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System) Program, the association says in a press release.

The networks "could leverage telemedicine technologies to more effectively treat major conditions associated with high-risk pregnancies, including pre-term labor, gestational hypertension, mild preeclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus," the ATA says. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would monitor network performance.

The association cites a study it funded, saying birthing networks could save taxpayers up to $186 million over 10 years. The study, by Avalere Health of Washington, D.C., finds that savings would come from less use of hospital and physician services.

Children's Hospital Boston is testing a small fleet of robots that go home with patients who have been discharged from the hospital. The robots use two-way video and audio technology that lets doctors assess how surgical scars are healing, for example, and whether to prescribe certain medications, the Boston Globe reports.

The hospital plans to test the robots with 40 patients in the first stage of a pilot program. The next stage is to test whether a robotic companion will allow patients to go home earlier, according to the newspaper.

At 4 ½ feet tall, the robots are about the size of a child. They whir around on two wheels and have a 5-inch video screen for a face. Hospital personnel remotely control the robots, made by Vgo Communications, Inc. of Nashua, N.H., the Globe reports. The robot communicates over high-speed 4G cellphone networks, so patients don't need high-speed or Wi-Fi Internet connections.

Later generations of the robot likely will measure vital signs and perform blood and urine tests, Dr. Hiep T. Nguyen, director of Children's Hospital's Robotic Surgery Research and Training Center, tells the newspaper.

Other companies also are working on robots for the health-care market, according to the Globe, among them iRobot Corp. of Bedford, Mass., and InTouch Health of Santa Barbara, Calif.

"This technology is definitely where health care is going," Jorge Sanchez de Lozada, assistant IT director at the Institute of Health Professionals at Massachusetts General Hospital, tells the paper.

More than one-third of health care providers use mobile health applications daily in their practice, according to a new IT trade group study. Within a year, about half of providers will be using mHealth apps to access electronic health data, predicts the association, CompTIA.

Until recently, laptop and notebook computers have been the mHealth tool of choice. Now, tablets, smartphones and apps represent the "next wave of mobile adoption," according to a news release put out today by CompTIA.

More than half of the 350 providers surveyed online by CompTIA for the "Third Annual Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities" study say they already use smartphones for work. The study suggests that they soon will be using those smartphones and other devices for work daily, especially to access EHRs.

About one-quarter of the doctors, dentists and other providers surveyed say they use tablet computers in their practice, with another 21 percent telling researchers they will start using tablets in the next year. Two-thirds said implementing or improving their mHealth technology is a high or mid-level priority for the next year, CompTIA says.

Only 5 percent of the providers reported using cloud computing, but researchers said some are likely using cloud-based applications without realizing it. Providers familiar with cloud computing -- only 57 percent knew much about it -- saw potential in the data storage and backup capabilities of cloud-based EHRs, the study says.

Telemedicine isn't foremost in providers' minds either, according to CompTIA, with only 14 percent of respondents saying they actively follow news of the sector. But providers acknowledged telemedicine's potential for providing continuing professional education, specialist referrals and patient consultations.

CompTIA, based in Downers Grove, Ill., is a nonprofit trade association for the information technology industry.

Mobile health rocks, dude.

Users of a new device that combines heart-rate and other monitors with performance analysis software and a music player can use the gadget's wired sports headphones to toggle between the real-time thumping of their heart and the thump of a music beat.

Motorola Mobility Inc.'s MOTOACTV fitness device can be worn on the wrist or arm. The device's sensing and GPS technology measures time, distance, speed, heart rate and calories burned during a workout, as well as the route covered. Information appears on a 1.6-inch full-color touch screen. Motorola unveiled the device on Tuesday.

The user's "performance data" can be uploaded or wirelessly synced to the MOTOACTV Web portal for analysis, the company says in a news release. The device also can sync data to Android smartphones.

Meanwhile, the music player measures performance against the music playing at the time and uses the analysis to create a "personal high-performance playlist," the manufacturer says.

Sanjay Jha, chief executive of Motorola Mobility, calls the device the "first multi-activity music and fitness tracking device with the brains to push you beyond your limits."

The device retails for $249 for the 8 gigabyte version and $299 for the 16GB version. The sports headphones cost another $99 to $149.

A California venture capital firm has selected 11 finalists in a nationwide contest to find the country's most promising health IT startups. Now all the finalists have to do is present their cases to 200 venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs next month in hopes of persuading someone to finance their dreams.

The contest is sponsored by Morgenthaler Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., which has invested in more than 300 IT and life sciences companies. The firm is bringing together the rest of the investors for its invitation-only meeting with the 11 health IT firms, scheduled for Sept. 22 in Mountain View, Calif.

The finalists, selected from among 117 applicants, are divided among those needing seed money and those offering preferred stock to investors, called Series-A funding.

Seed-money finalists are:

• Careticker of Miami, with a platform to help patients plan in advance of a hospital or outpatient procedure.


• EyeNetra of Cambridge, Mass., with a mobile eye diagnostic allowing patients to take their own eye test, get an eyeglass prescription and connect with eye-care providers on a cellphone.


• Skimble of San Francisco, with a mobile wellness coaching application.


• SurgiChart of Nashville, Tenn., with a mobile, cloud-based network for surgeons to exchange case information.


• Telethrive of Los Angeles, with an audio and video conference application for medical consultations.


• Viewics of San Francisco, with a cloud-based hospital analytics and business intelligence application.

Series-A funding finalists are:

• AbilTo of New York City, which develops and delivers online mental health programs to managed-care members and enterprise workforces.


• Axial Exchange of Raleigh, N.C., with a pay-per-performance program that enables providers to coordinate care across different settings.


• Empower Interactive of San Francisco, with an e-learning platform for psychotherapy methodologies.


• Jiff of San Francisco, with an iPad platform used by doctors, nurses and others to educate patients.


• YourNurseIsOn.com of New Haven, Conn., with a bi-directional text, phone and email health-care provider employment placement system.

The $198 million in venture capital investments in health IT in the second quarter of 2011 was up 27 percent from the $156 million invested during the same period in 2010, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

A smart carpet could be in your future as part of the soon-to-explode home health IT market, the National Academy of Sciences predicts.

In its new guide, "Consumer Health Information Technology in the Home," the National Research Council of the National Academies says "high-tech devices that use complex networks of sensors and advanced appliances" are already being built for home environments. The example cited is a carpet embedded with sensors that can tell if someone's gait is normal or whether the person is becoming unsteady.

The guide refers to "the full range of IT developed for consumer use in the home -- including Web interfaces, special-purpose tools like lifting devices, and computer systems," as well as devices with embedded computer processors.

The council's target audience is designers and developers of home health IT devices, including those intended for self-care, self-monitoring, disease management and communication.

Health IT designers need to keep in mind factors such as variations in users' cognitive, physical and sensory abilities, home layouts and services such as telephone and Internet connections, according to the guide. Additional variables include other technology devices in homes, cultural differences and the fact that not everyone in every home will use the health IT devices.

The guide, penned by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under contract for the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, includes an extensive "design consideration checklist" to keep in mind when designing home health IT applications.

It does not, alas, include any more details about the smart carpet or just how Stanley Steemer would go about cleaning it.

Telehealth played a key role in significantly increasing hepatitis C cure rates in a New Mexico medical trial, according to an article published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Treatment of hepatitis C, a chronic infectious disease of the liver that can be fatal, requires 12 to 18 visits to a specialist in a year. According to the study, there aren't enough specialists to provide timely treatment to the 30,000 New Mexicans who are infected with the hepatitis C virus.

The Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) study teamed primary-care clinicians with specialists at academic medical centers for videoconference training on hepatitis C treatment. The clinicians were organized into "knowledge networks" that meet weekly to present and consult on patient cases using Web-based disease-management tools and shared best practices.

Armed with specialist-level knowledge, the health-care providers -- physicians, nurses, physician assistants and community health workers -- are able to effectively treat hepatitis C patients in their own communities. The cure rate for patients treated under Project ECHO was virtually identical to that of those treated at the University of New Mexico Medical Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, and significantly higher than those in previous community-based treatment programs. Additionally, the program reduced racial and ethnic disparities in treatment outcomes by providing specialty services to minority communities.

The university medical center conducted the project, which was funded in part by a three-year, $5 million grant from the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"Project ECHO has the potential to transform health care as we know it," Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of the foundation, said in a news release. "What began as a truly disruptive innovation in New Mexico for treatment of hepatitis C has the capacity to re-engineer health care delivery and training across the health-care system."

Since the Project ECHO hepatitis C clinic launched in 2003, it has expanded to include videoconferencing clinics in asthma, mental illness, chronic pain, diabetes and cardiovascular risk reduction, high-risk pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, pediatric obesity, rheumatology and substance abuse. More than 1,000 New Mexico clinicians have participated.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is applying the Project ECHO model nationwide, with programs already under way in Washington state and Chicago.

Talk about health care on the go. Ford Motor Co. is driving into the health IT world with in-car systems that will monitor heart rate, glucose levels and other symptoms of chronic illness and alert drivers to seek treatment.

The Detroit automaker's health and wellness research portfolio includes a seat with six sets of electrodes to sense heart activity, a continuous glucose monitoring device, and localized information on pollen counts and UV indexes. It also is working with mobile-health company WellDoc to provide health-coaching services through Ford's in-car SYNC system.

"Health and wellness provides a tremendous opportunity for Ford to provide peace of mind and a personal benefit to drivers and passengers while they are in our vehicles," says Gary Strumolo, Ford's global manager for interiors, infotainment, health and wellness research. "As more and more devices and technologies lend themselves to such connectivity in the car, it is our responsibility, our philosophy, to examine those possibilities and open our doors to industry relationships that can help us do it intelligently, efficiently and economically."

Ford researchers are teaming with Bluetooth and mobile health device manufacturers. Strumulo says some apps, such as an allergy alert from SDI Health, could be implemented fairly quickly, since it is an existing smartphone app. Ford would need to develop voice-controlled access through SYNC.

Other projects are longer-term, such as the heart-monitor seat. Ford and its research partners in Germany are looking at possibly including links to remote medical services and vehicle safety system, as well as alerting drivers of imminent heart attack, says Achim Lindner, medical officer for the Ford European Research and Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany. Early research shows the electrodes can receive signals through 10 layers of cotton, Lindner says.

Ford is also researching technologies to improve driver alertness by reducing stress, the company says.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency known as CMS, is streamlining the telemedicine physician-credentialing process to end "burdensome" regulatory requirements that might have hampered innovation in health-care delivery.

The revised rules also will make it easier for small, rural and critical-access hospitals (CAHs) to offer telemedicine services, according to the 83-page CMS rule-change to be published Thursday.

The change eases the credentialing rules hospitals must follow for physicians and practitioners who want to confer with their patients via telemedicine but don't work onsite or need hospital privileges. That would include specialists at large academic medical centers who confer with local physicians via a computer teleconference, for example, or who interpret MRI images remotely. Under the old rules, practitioners already credentialed by their own hospitals nonetheless had to go through a multistep credentialing process for the rural hospital.

"The removal of unnecessary barriers to the use of telemedicine may enable patients to receive medically necessary interventions in a more timely manner" and enhance chronic-disease management, according to the CMS document.

"These revisions will provide more flexibility to small hospitals and CAHs in rural areas and regions with a limited supply of primary care and specialized providers," the document continues. "In certain instances, telemedicine may be a cost-effective alternative to traditional service delivery approaches and, most importantly, may improve patient outcomes and satisfaction."

The rule change goes into effect in 60 days. CMS is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.