M-Health forging Ahead

Here are some great articles from mobilehealthnews.com on the uptake of mobile health solutions, particularly using the iphone:

Roche decides it’s time to enter mHealth. Roche Diagnostics inked a deal with Glucose Buddy iPhone app developer Healthagen, because Roche believes that the time to get into the wireless health market is now. While the company’s Accu-Chek educational program for diabetics is a far cry from meter integration for mobiles, Roche plans to work toward integrating glucometers in the future.

Interview: Mayo Clinic forges its mobile strategy. Every major provider of health services and information is trying to figure out how best to go mobile. Scott Eising, director of product management for Mayo Clinic’s Internet Services offered a peek behind the curtain at Mayo to discuss how the not-for-profit, integrated medical practice is planning to do just that. It covers basic functions mhealth is likely to use such as symptom checkers, and find a doctor, as well as more complex things like health and wellness trackers. Great article for anyone going into the mHealth sector. Best quote, “It’s a ways out but the key is not to wait until it gets here“.

Aetna: Ultimate goal is health info on-the-go. Aetna’s Head of Digital Engagement Strategy and Innovation Robert Heyl understands that health decisions mostly occur while people are going about their daily lives, so that’s why his ultimate goal is to take the information in SmartSource, Aetna’s online patient portal, and bring it to the mobile platform.

Interview: Google Health on mobile is criticial. Google Health Product Manager Roni Zeiger makes it clear that mobile phones, connected devices and mHealth applications will become a crucial part of Google’s health plans moving forward.

How to help Patients make Wiser Health Choices

From Yahoo News:

There’s no single right answer for everyone yet patients often are ill-equipped to weigh increasingly complex medical options. Now there’s a small but growing movement to get unbiased reports of the pros and cons of different tests and treatments into patients’ hands before they fall back on, “Doc, just tell me what you’d choose.”

“No matter how hard I tried” to be objective, “inevitably my personal biases got involved,” recalls breast surgeon Dr. Dale Collins of New Hampshire’s Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which helped pioneer the concept that it calls shared decision-making.

Think of it as “informed consent 2.0,” going a step beyond the brief patient education that doctors are required to provide.

Read more about these new tools for decision making.

Websites for the Connected Doctor

A continuing medical education website has been launched that provides free virtual access to educational conferences and meetings. Medical Update contains video and power point slides from events from around the country. The site has been live since October, and currently includes presentations from local and international clinicians covering a variety of topics including eating disorders, cardiology and ophthalmology. 

A Facebook-style website has also launched for Australian doctors. Multimedix is designed for both professional and social use. On the site you can search  for friends, colleagues and contacts; discuss cases, ask clinical questions in a secure forum-like setting; and form special interest groups.

Digital Healthcare needs Incentives

This blog has often remarked that much of the healthcare system is either too distracted, poorly planned or too old-school to evaluate and implement digital solutions for practice and hospital management software.

The US government is trying to overcome this with incentives. Starting in 2011, physicians who show that they are “meaningfully” using health IT would be eligible for $40,000 to $65,000, and hospitals would be eligible for several million dollars. The incentives would be phased out over time, with penalties in place by 2016.

This news comes as another study is published showing that hospitals with automated notes and records, order entry, and clinical decision support had fewer complications, lower mortality rates, and lower costs.

The Australian government is trying to implement a Practice Incentives Program that encourages IT uptake, but is running into problems with disagreements over architecture.