It’s back to school time, and the healthcare industry is undergoing its fair share of transitions.
Archive for the ‘e-Health’ Category
mHealth: There’s a Grant for That
August 5th, 2011 by Cheryl MillerBy 2015 more than 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using healthcare applications, research studies show. So it’s not surprising the FDA is taking a closer look at some of these apps, specifically, those whose misuse could endanger its users.
These “medical mobile apps,” as the FDA is calling them, are specific to medicine or healthcare and are designed for use on smartphones and other mobile computing devices and will offer everything from blood sugar monitoring to ECG machines.
As we reported in a previous HBWU issue about IBM, the benefits of these health and medical apps are immeasurable, not just here, but in underserved, frequently rural communities around the globe, especially where patients have no access to doctors, these devices can save lives.
And they can save billions of dollars as well. According to studies from Juniper Research using mobile health, or mHealth, technologies for health monitoring could save from $1.96 billion to $5.83 billion in healthcare costs by the year 2014. So the Center for Technology and Aging (CTA) (techandaging.org), with funding from The SCAN Foundation, has awarded nearly $500,000 in one-year grants to five organizations that will demonstrate the best ways to implement mHealth technologies for older, chronically ill adults, ironically, the population least likely to own a smartphone. The grants will help the CTA to meet its four areas of opportunity that it feels can best transform lives: medication optimization, remote patient monitoring, care transitions, and mobile health. And in a recently published paper the agency discusses how
cell phones, smart phones, laptop and tablet computers, and other mobile enabled devices are being used to help millions of older Americans as well as their physicians and caregivers manage chronic disease, use their medications properly, avoid safety risks (e.g. fall detection), access online health information, and stay well.
With the exploding growth of mHealth technology it seems that smartphones will eventually be used for everything but plain old talking. Hopefully the dialogue between a patient and physician won’t be relegated to a tiny FaceTime screen on an IPhone.
New Study Documents Dissatisfaction with Patient Satisfaction Scores
August 1st, 2011 by Cheryl MillerAlmost 85 percent of healthcare executives are dissatisfied with their patient satisfaction scores, according to our “Improving Patient Experience and Satisfaction” survey conducted in May 2011. But more than 80 percent of survey respondents said they have programs in place to improve satisfaction levels. We surveyed 146 healthcare organizations, and identified areas for improvement, providing details on patient satisfaction surveys, estimating the impact of programs designed to improve patient satisfaction, among other areas. Download an executive summary of the results.
Healthcare costs for U.S. employers have slowed from last year. According to the Thomson Reuters Healthcare Spending Index for Private Insurance, medical costs for people in employer-sponsored health plans decreased by nearly 3 percent from the previous year. Hospital costs showed the steepest growth, with physician costs reflecting a 3 percent year-over-year hike, and drug costs increasing by less than one percent. More in this issue of the Healthcare Business Weekly Update.
By 2015, more than 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using mobile health and medical applications, research studies show. So it’s not surprising that the FDA is taking a closer look at some of these apps; specifically, those whose misuse could endanger their users. The FDA is currently seeking public input on its proposed approach.
It’s not too late to complete this month’s e-survey on patient registries. Respond by August 15 and you’ll receive a free executive summary of the survey results once they are compiled to learn key benchmarks and metrics for using registries to improve reimbursement and patient outcomes. You may complete the survey online. Thanks for participating!
Sensei mHealth App Coaches Diabetics Virtually
June 10th, 2011 by Cheryl MillerForget Angry Birds. There’s a new app on the market, and it’s promising to be a lot better for your health.
Sensei, Inc., a technology company that designs mobile health, or mHealth solutions, has been awarded a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant for diabetes and prediabetes research in association with the University of Miami, the Miami VA healthcare System, and the Health Foundation of South Florida. Together, they will trial Sensei’s new mobile application for diabetes and prediabetes users.
The application encourages simple lifestyle changes through personalized expert guidance. Users’ mobile devices are transformed into virtual health coaches that personally guide them to better health through healthier nutrition, fitness, weight loss and tips on self management.
Research shows that modest lifestyle changes, including losing weight and increasing activity, can improve or delay the onset of diabetes in almost 50 percent of cases, according to the Diabetes Prevention Program. Participants in this trial will be prompted to measure key biometric data, eat healthier, and learn and practice appropriate self management of diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. There will be daily health coach alerts that teach and create calls to action supplemented by a daily agenda and reference information around the different conditions and wellness.
Mobile Health, or mHealth, the utilization of mobile devices to improve health outcomes, is emerging as an important technology not only for developed countries but for developing countries as well. According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 80 percent of countries across the globe are using mobile phone technology in different ways to improve their health services. In fact, only 19 of the 114 studied countries have no mobile health initiative, although many of the initiatives in place are at the pilot stage. The most popular mHealth programs globally are mobile technology call centers, emergency services management, including toll-free telephone services, telemedicine services like text messaging with pill reminders and health information and transmission of tests and lab results, and managing emergencies and disasters. The survey goes on to state that many of these countries’ citizens have no other means of access to health care.
If this technology can be so beneficial for some of the poorest countries in the world, it isn’t hard to see how beneficial it can be for some of the richest countries in the world. And if users, like the diabetes and prediabetes patients being trialed with Sensei’s app, devote only a fraction of the time, passion and commitment to these kinds of health apps that others do to apps like Angry Birds, then they are sure to be an important resource for healthcare.
Get Smokers to Quit in Four Months
March 4th, 2011 by Jessica PapayHave payment and shipping bans for online cigarette purchases decreased traffic to cigarette-selling Web sites? Find out in this week’s issue of the DM Update, along with the kind of smoking cessation messages that get smokers to quit in four months.
Also this week, learn how incentives can improve health outcomes and change end-of-life behavior, and take our second annual Health & Wellness Incentives Use e-survey.
5 Key IT Capabilities to Support ACOs
February 23rd, 2011 by Patricia DonovanThe Accountable Care Implementation Collaborative IT capability roadmap outlines key IT capabilities for coordinating accountable care.
The model is designed to support the evolution of organizations from the current care delivery model to a fully coordinated accountable care model, the collaborative explained in a press release.
Roadmap designers developed a phased approach that ultimately will lead to seamless accountable care coordination and clinical integration through the following “levels of maturity:”
- Transaction – IT supporting individual providers in delivering care and measuring outcomes.
- Interaction – Basic care coordination capabilities with initial population-based metrics.
- Integration – Care coordination capabilities improve, and health status measurement is possible.
- Collaboration – Seamless care coordination with demonstrable improvement in population health status.
- Transformation – Realize across the population the Triple Aim™ goals of improving the health of the population, enhancing the patient care experience and controlling the per capita cost of care.
Each stage incorporates capabilities specific to transaction management, integration and the analytics necessary to support coordinated care delivery models.
The collaborative is part of the Premier healthcare alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 72,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care.
From IPA to ACO: The Queens County Medical Society Accountable Care Organization
February 8th, 2011 by Jessica PapayThe Queens County Medical Society IPA is the chassis driving its evolution into an accountable care organization, explains Jeffrey R. Ruggiero, Esq., a legal advisor for Queens County Medical Society’s ACO development process.
Why did the Queens County Medical Society form an independent practice association (IPA)? And what is an IPA? An IPA traditionally is an independent practice association, which is a rather loose affiliation of physicians that come together for the purpose of engaging in joint managed care contracting. In this case, that is not what this IPA is going to be doing. This IPA merely is a legal structure that forms a conduit or a vehicle for the purpose of evolving into an accountable care organization (ACO). At this stage, the Queens County IPA will not be engaging in commercial managed care contracting, but rather developing an organizational structure for the purpose of participating in the CMS Shared Savings Program as an ACO.
The difference between an IPA and an ACO is that IPAs have traditionally been loosely structured. That’s probably the reason why they’ve had some mixed success, because they aren’t sufficiently integrated to be able to achieve efficiencies and utilization management and therefore have not done well economically.
An ACO has to be a much tighter structure. There has to be buy-in by the participants and agreement to formulate and abide by utilization standards, which need to be strictly imposed on the participating physicians. They also have to agree in advance to clinical protocols and guidelines and to the use of health IT and electronic health records (EHRs). These are all components that may or may not exist in a traditional IPA loosely affiliated structure.
The Queens County IPA/ACO will be managed and operated strictly by physicians for the benefit of physicians, and that’s an important feature. Once the physicians are selected that are capable of managing and leading other physicians, you have to empower those physicians to fulfill those obligations and take on the task of leading and managing their fellows and colleagues in this effort.
What Are the Top Technologies in Telehealth?
January 24th, 2011 by Jessica Papay
Data monitoring and wireless technologies edged out land lines this year as the top technologies utilized in telehealth initiatives, according to the second annual Telehealth e-survey by the Healthcare Intelligence Network.
Powered by provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordability Act, healthcare delivery via telehealth and telemedicine is transforming wellness, disease management, medication management services and illness prevention while extending and enhancing access to critical healthcare services.
Survey Highlights:
- About 70 percent of responding healthcare organizations use telehealth for clinical and non-clinical purposes.
- Diabetes and heart failure are the top health targets of telehealth initiatives for 61 percent of respondents.
- About 46 percent of organizations said reimbursement comes from private payors, while nearly 37 percent are reimbursed by public payors.
- Nearly 64 percent of responding organizations say it is too soon to determine ROI from current telehealth efforts.
- Of respondents with no telehealth programs, more than a third — 37.5 percent — plan to launch telehealth services within the next year.
