See you at Everywhere Healthcare
 With today’s wireless networks, the doctor is always in and the patient is ever-equipped. While connecting patients to caregivers has never been easier, the search for the right business models for wireless health devices and services has just begun. Tomorrow, at our co-located event at the CTIA WIT&E event here in San Diego, MobiHealthNews will be exploring the changing patient-doctor
relationship as well as the wireless tools that are moving care beyond the four walls of institutions and to consumers on-the-go and at home.
And remember: Our event is open to all registered attendees at CTIA
WIT&E — There is no separate registration fee for this event and it is included in all registration packages. So, if you are at the
conference here in San Diego — be sure to stop on by room 28-C at 11 AM following the morning’s keynotes.
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| White House hints: Text4Baby launch next week
The U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra told attendees at the Health 2.0 event in San Francisco this morning that next week the White House will announce a mobile health initiative it has been working on.
The only mobile health offering that the White House has been working on to our knowledge is Text4Baby a service that will provide free tips via text messages to mothers three times a week before their baby’s birth. The service’s reminders include ones for taking multi-vitamins, getting flu shots, and so on. After the birth, the mother is reminded about vaccinations, and other health issues. The service has some 300 text messages in the hopper.
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VZW offers home health care workers app
Verizon Wireless announced that it is now offering an application for home health care workers called OnCare, that was developed by Xora. The application aims to help home health care companies increase efficiency and productivity by allowing administrators to securely dispatch, track and communicate with mobile caregivers. The app runs on GPS-enabled mobile phones that also help care givers find their way to appointments with turn-by-turn navigation while helping the caregivers track their mileage. The OnCare app also includes reporting features that help ensure that care plans are administered properly and billing is handled correctly. Verizon Wireless said that OnCare by Xora requires the Field Force Manager Custom Base Client, which runs $20 per line per month and Field Force Manager add-on, an additional $15 monthly access fee.
For more on OnCare: read this press release from Verizon Wireless.
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Former Google Health head launches Keas
The former head of Google Health, Adam Bosworth, has finally launched his long-heralded consumer health start-up, Keas, according to a report today in the The New York Times. The site offers various personalized care plans for users that aim to take their personal health information and help them make healthier decisions:
“Using the Keas system, for example, a person with Type 2 diabetes might receive reminders, advice on diet and exercise, questions and prompts presented on the Web site or delivered by e-mail or text messages — all personalized for the person’s age, gender, weight and other health conditions.”
Bosworth told the New York Times that Keas will follow a similar model to Apple’s App Store — medical experts, like physicians, can add health plans to the site that they have designed. If users purchased one of these care plans, Keas would take a cut of the revenue and pass the rest onto the plan’s designers.
Keas’ initial launch partners include Healthwise, Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, Quest Diagnostics and Dr. Alan Greene. For more on Keas’ launch, stay tuned to MobiHealthNews — we’re here at Health 2.0 where Bosworth will discuss Keas.
UPDATE: Amy Tenderich from DiabetesMine just announced on-stage that her online community and blog about diabetes will also be a partner of Keas’.
Also, check out the NY Times article here.
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| Safeway: healthier employees pay less
Grocery store chain Safeway gives employees discounts on their health insurance for having certain body mass indexes, quitting smoking, controlling hypertension or lowering their cholesterol, according to a report from National Public Radio this week. Safeway CEO Steve Burd told the radio network that his company’s employees receive a discount on their health insurance if they have a body mass index (BMI) that is below 30, which is the cut-off at which people are considered obese.
“If it’s above 30, that means they pay about $318 more than someone who is in the other camp,” Burd told NPR. “But the beauty of our plan is that if you make a reduction of, let’s say 10 percent of your body mass index, we write you a check at the end of the year for making that progress.”
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CTIA: 4.5 billion texts sent everyday in U.S.
Wireless industry association CTIA’s President and CEO Steve Largent kicked off the organization’s bi-annual event this morning in San Diego with a number of key metrics that quantify the industry’s growth in the past year:
The total number of wireless subscribers in the U.S. is now more than 276 million, Largent said. In the first half of 2009, some 740.3 billion text messages were transmitted over U.S. carrier networks. Largent said that makes for 4.5 billion text messages transmitted everyday. The number of picture messages, also called MMS, increased to 10 billion sent during the first half of 2009. Largent said that the figure represents an 83 percent increase over the same period last year.
In April, at the last CTIA event, Largent released these metrics:
Subscribers: The total number of subscribers at the end of 2008 was more than 270 million, which is 15 million more than year-end 2007. Text Messages: Some 1 trillion text messages were sent and received during 2008, triple the number of texts in 2007. Interestingly, 620 billion texts were sent during the second half of 2008.
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Google Health inks deals with two insurers
On the same day that its former leader launched his own online healthcare start-up, Google Health announced that it had inked deals with two more health insurers: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and American Postal Workers Union Health Plan. That brings the count up to three insurers since Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA signed on last year. Google released the announcement at the Health 2.0 event, which is taking place in San Francisco this week.
Google Health has been shy about its mobile strategy, but the service’s product manager Roni Zeiger told MobiHealthNews earlier this year that “it’s certainly clear that for consumer health applications like Google Health that being able to use them wherever you are — obviously, including mobile devices — is critical. And we are certainly going to make that happen.”
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Phreesia adds automated POC eligibility check
Phreesia, a start-up that offers wireless tablets to practices in an effort to optimize patient check-in, announced today at the Heath 2.0 event in San Francisco that it had added an insurance eligibility check to its service.
Phreesia provides practices with “Phreesia Pads,” wireless touchscreen tablets that are meant to replace the old school check-in clip boards. Phreesia’s pitch is that doctors who have patients check in with the Phreesia Pad get better updated, readable data from patients, and patients don’t have to repeatedly provide doctors the same information with each check in. The information from the laptop then can sync to an electronic health record or can be printed – what ever the preference is of the doctor. Phreesia includes advertisements on their check-in Pads, typically after the check-in process is complete.
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Medtronic looking for wireless health partners
Medtronic group president for diabetes and other device franchises Christopher O’Connell told the Wall Street Journal that his company saw “potential” in partnering with other companies for wireless health and was already in discussions with a number of undisclosed companies.
The WSJ also quoted ABI Research analyst Stan Schatt quoting a market value for wirelessly relaying healthcare information at $1 billion over the next five years. The report pointed to the opportunity for diabetic care since it affects 7.8 percent of the population already and it’s increasing every year.
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ScanAvert: Drug efficacy, food allergies
ScanAvert, a wireless health application that alerts users before they eat something that they are allergic to or that might interfere with the effectiveness of their prescription drugs, officially launched this week at Health 2.0 in San Francisco. ScanAvert currently runs on Android phones, however, ScanAvert CEO and President Ellen Badinelli told MobiHealthNews that the company plans to create versions for the iPhone 3GS and some BlackBerry models. ScanAvert uses the smartphone’s auto-focus camera to scan products barcodes while consumers are at the grocery store, so the key limiting factor is whether the phone’s camera has auto-focus.
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Calit2: mHealth to drive preventative medicine
Larry Smarr, Institute Director at Calit2 (California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology) has big ideas for the digital transformation of healthcare over the next decade and he plans to leverage Calit2’s resources to push the trend forward, according to a report from Xconomy. Smarr said he’s pushing the digital transformation of healthcare along with similar transformations in energy, the environment and “our culture” itself.
Like many thought leaders in the healthcare industry, Smarr sees healthcare moving toward a prevention and wellness model that is beginning to rely on wireless health technologies. He points to today’s most advanced cars to illustrate his vision for connected health:
“I just bought a new car, a hybrid,” Smarr told Xconomy. “It has 30 computers in it. It probably has another 60 or 70 sensors, actuators, and memory chips. So my car will easily run for a couple of hundred thousand miles with no problems. How is that possible? Because every important subsystem is being monitored. And it’s not just being monitored, because when you take it in for your 10,000-mile checkup, the memories are read out, and the spark plugs, brakes, fuel injection, and pollution controls are checked against the population of cars that are the same make as yours. As long as you’re still in the bell curve of performance, then you don’t spend any money. And if there is the beginning of a deviation from normality, you catch it so early, so that it’s just the removal or replacement of a small piece. And then you’re back to perfect health. Until you are able to monitor your processes and compare against population numbers, though, you really can’t do a scientific job of preventative medicine.”
For more from Smarr: Be sure to check out Bruce Bigelow’s article over at Xconomy
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By 2012, 81% of physicians use smartphones
According to a recent report from Manhattan Research, by 2012 the percentage of U.S. physicians using smartphones will increase to 81 percent. The current rate of penetration is 64 percent, according to the research firm’s report “Physicians in 2012: The Outlook for On Demand, Mobile, and Social Digital Media.”
Manhattan believes that as physicians currently using smartphones age their use of smartphone technologies will become more proficient and “the Internet will become physicians’ primary professional resource,” the research firm stated.
“Mobile will become even more indispensable to physicians as they start to expand the range activities they perform on these devices to include administrative tasks and patient monitoring,” Manhattan’s press release stated. “By 2012, all physicians will walk around with a stethoscope and a smart mobile device, and there will be very few professional activities that physicians won’t be doing on their handhelds.”
For more on the report, read the release here.
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Voalte’s pilot results from Sarasota Memorial
Voalte announced this week a collaboration agreement with Sarasota Memorial Hospital that sees the care facility’s nurses using Voalte’s iPhone-based voice, alarm and text offering. Trey Lauderdale, Vice President of Innovation at Voalte explained to MobiHealthNews in a recent interview that the service allows Sarasota Memorial’s nurses to send and receive text messages, make voice calls, and receive critical care alarms through their iPhones in an effort to provide faster response times for their patients. The hospital began piloting the Voalte service in June.
“The way we have structured the deal is as — what we call — a ‘development partner relationship,’” Lauderdale said. “They have piloted our solution and we received an unbelievable amount of information about how the solution needs to be built and what different functionality and features nurses and physicians are looking for in a communications platform.”
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Shorts: Continua, NetMotion, Men’s Health
Continua Health Alliance adds another company: ZeroG Wireless has joined the Continua Health Alliance. The company’s low power “Wi-Fi I/O” solutions is targeting embedded systems, including “microcontroller-based systems that have limited processing power, few memory resources, and minimal or no operating systems,” the company stated in a release. More
NetMotion Wireless has promoted two executives from within: As VP of technical sales and support, Matthew Scott will now lead all customer-facing technical sales teams for the company. As VP of business development, Rob Mattson will now be responsible for the indirect go-to-market strategy and the development of new strategic relationships, the company announced in a release. NetMotion’s Mobile XE solution is targeted for the healthcare industry (among others) because it enables mobile workers to maintain secure connections to applications as they move through wireless coverage gaps or across various networks. More
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| What’s Happening |
MobiHealthNews PRESENTS:
Everywhere Healthcare
October 8, San Diego
With today’s wireless networks, the doctor is always in. While connecting patients to caregivers has never been easier, the search for the right business models for wireless health devices and services has just begun.
Don’t miss your appointment at the MobiHealthNews Presents: Everywhere Healthcare event during International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2009!
Register here
CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2009
October 6-9, San Diego
No matter what your business is – healthcare, entertainment, fleet management or financial planning – wireless can transform how you do business. International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment brings this possibility to life. With a focus on applications, network architecture and technologies such as LBS, machine-to-machine and WiMAX (just to name a few), this international event brings a community of users, carriers, developers and manufacturers together to generate dialogue, share ideas and debate the economics of MOBILE BUSINESS.
Register here
6th Annual Connected Health Symposium
October 21-22, Boston
Up from Crisis: Overhauling Healthcare Information, Payment and Delivery in Extraordinary Times
hosted by the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare
Healthcare will have its renaissance when it moves beyond the hospital and clinic and into the day-to-day lives of patients and consumers. The Connected Health Symposium asks how information technology — cell phones, computers, the Internet and other tools — can help people manage chronic conditions, maintain health and wellness, and age with independence.
Use invitation code mobihealth to receive a $100 discount!
Register here
TEDMED 2009
October 27-30,
San Diego
The fifth in a series created by Marc Hodosh and Richard Saul Wurman, TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital. Together, this encompasses more than twenty percent of our GNP in America while touching everyone’s life around the globe.
Register here
e-Patient Connections 2009
October 26-27,
Philadelphia
Join hundreds of fellow healthcare marketing and communication
professionals at e-Patient Connections 2009 on October 26 and 27 in
Philadelphia, PA.
It’s the one conference you need to attend to make sense of the
radical changes taking place in health marketing, such as social media marketing, web conversations, and mobile health. Discover new ways to connect, educate, and engage digital health consumers. Don’t miss this REDUCED PRICING of only $2,195 which expires in October.
Register now!
2009 NIH mHealth Summit
Oct. 29-30,
Washington, DC
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Will Bring Together Researchers, Mobile Technology Experts, Policy-Makers Industry Visionaries
This two-day event, a public-private partnership of the Foundation for NIH, is being produced in partnership with the NIH, the premiere biomedical research institute in the U.S. It is the first Summit focused on exploring the partnership between biomedical research and the use of mobile technologies to improve public health.
Register here
9th Transforming Healthcare through Health IT Summit
Nov. 4-5,
Beverly Hills, CA
The Transforming Healthcare through Health IT Summit is designed to help top-level executives, legislators, physicians, regulators, and technologists come to grips with the swirling forces of health information technology change, policy development, and changing business models. Participants include CEO’s, CIO’s, CMIO’s, VP’s, Directors, etc. from rural hospital, health systems, single facility hospitals, IDNS, and other health care providers.
Register here
The 5th Annual World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress
Nov. 8-10,
Alexandria, VA
The 5th Annual World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress (WHIT v.5.0) is the premier industry event for senior executives tasked with making these multi-million dollar IT decisions. WHIT v.5.0 presents the latest innovations and initiatives in accelerating the adoption and implementation of information technology in the health care setting.
Register here
Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit
Dec. 1-2,
London, UK
The ONLY Event For Best Practice and Innovation In Global Wireless and Healthcare Convergence
With a special keynote delivery from Vittorio Collao, CEO, Vodafone Group we bring you the lead pioneers in wireless and healthcare convergence and best practice. Expect two days of 50:50 representation from the communications and healthcare sectors working towards services innovation and partnership – with Continua Health Alliance, GSMA, NHS, M Health Alliance, Vodafone, Orange, Verizon, Microsoft, Bluetooth Special Interest Group and more.
Register here
Coming up in 2010:
CIO Healthcare Summit
May 9-12, Scottsdale, AZ
The CIO Healthcare Summit is a gathering for C-suite executives and industry thought leaders to discuss IT challenges currently facing the health care industry, including improving patient care, controlling costs and meeting government regulations.
Register here
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