Tags: AT&T | Cardinal Health | Dossia | Intel | PHR | Vanguard Health Systems | Wal-Mart |
Vanguard Health Systems has become the tenth company to join the Dossia Consortium, which is a non-profit organization made up of U.S. employers that seek to empower their employees to make smarter, more informed healthcare decisions by providing them with access to their healthcare data through what the consortium calls a personally-controlled health record (PCHR). That sounds a lot like a personal health record (PHR).
The other nine members of Dossia: Applied Materials, AT&T, BP America, Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, Abraxis BioScience, sanofi-aventis and Wal-Mart.
“I am very excited for Vanguard to be a part of Dossia’s mission to bring vital healthcare tools to our employees, and look forward to further developments from this partnership in the future,” Charlie Martin, Chairman and CEO of Vanguard Health Systems said in a statement. “Current market conditions are creating a great need for untethered PHRs, and Dossia’s PCHR is perfectly positioned to fill that need. Transportability of healthcare data is key to empowering employees with control over their own healthcare.” More
ALSO: Dossia has its eye on mobile applications, too — to learn more about its perspective on the mobile opportunity in healthcare, be sure to attend MobiHealthNews Presents: Everywhere Healthcare at the CTIA I.T. & Entertainment event in San Diego in October. Dossia CEO Colin Evans is one of the speakers at the event.
Tags: ARRA | Dartmouth College | Google | Intel Labs | National Science Foundation | stimulus | TISH | wearable wireless sensors |
The National Science Foundation has awarded Dartmouth College a $3 million federal grant, which is part of the federal stimulus bill, to develop secure, efficient systems that enabled physicians to monitor patients through mobile phones and wearable wireless sensors. The three year project aims to explore the security challenges related to protecting patient data while also making sure that the healthcare providers can access the information that they need.
Dartmouth College faculty will work with partners from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vermont along with industry partners Intel Labs and Google.
The project is called the Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare (TISH) and its full agenda sees the team examining privacy concerns, security challenges and studying economic risks and benefits.
“The team will develop new secure, efficient, and easy-to-use protocols that allow remote health monitoring through mobile phone and wearable wireless medical sensors; design new machine-learning methods for analyzing and summarizing sensor data; seek a deeper understanding of the economics of information security in healthcare; and explore how patients and clinicians trade off usability, security, and privacy,” according to the team’s press release. Keep reading>>
Tags: Health Populi | IBM | primary care physicians | wellness | wireless healthcare | worried well |
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn has a great post over at Health Populi on a recent survey conducted by IBM that uncovers some stats about patients’ relationships and attitudes toward primary care doctors, proactive healthcare and its associated costs.
IBM’s survey found that the number one reason why Americans deter proactive health care is cost and that goes for the insured, uninsured, employed and unemployed. Postponing a visit to the doctor when feeling well is a common practice:
55 percent of all Americans say they can’t afford the cost of wellness visits out-of-pocket
81 percent of uninsured Americans say they can’t afford the cost of wellness visits out-of-pocket
76 percent of unemployed Americans say they can’t afford wellness visits costs out-of-pocket
25 percent of Americans did not see their physician for a wellness visit in the past year
54 percent of those Americans who did not have a wellness visit said that it was not worth the out-of-pocket expense Keep reading>>
Tags: 4G | eHealthInsurance | Evernote | health insurance | HIPAA | iPhone medical apps | WiMAX |
eHealthInsturance goes mobile: Mountain View, California-based eHealthInsurance launched their mobile site late last week: www.ehealth.com. The public company is offering Individual, Family and Short-term health insurance products through its new mobile site. While shoppers for the Individual and Family plans can look up coverage details, create and account and start an application, they still need to call the company’s call center to compete the process. Shoppers for Short-term coverage can complete the whole process from their mobile phones. More
Evernote needs HIPAA certification? One doctor believes that the Evernote iPhone app, which is an organizational tool, is the “near-perfect” application for doctors. A lack of HIPAA certification is one of the app’s drawbacks, however. The app developer said: “At this time we do not plan to pursue HIPAA certification for our (consumer) Evernote service.” More
Wireless health banks on 4G? Richard Nespola, CEO of TMNG Global believes that “thanks to the technological advancements in wireless broadband – so-called ‘4G’ standards such as WiMax and Long Term Evolution (LTE), patient care is as easy as a few taps on a smartphone.” Whether or not you consider WiMAX a 4G technology, clearly wireless healthcare does not require a 4G network. That’s part of the thesis in Nespola’s recent column for CNN Money, however. More
Tags: adherence | medication compliance | medication reminders | NEHI | Proteus Biomedical | text message reminders |
A new report conducted by the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI) found that not taking medications as prescribed leads to poorer health, more frequent hospitalization, a higher risk of death and as much as $290 billion annually in increased medical costs. Anywhere from one-third to one-half of patients in the U.S. do not take their medications as instructed. Not taking the medication on time, in the proper doses, or at all are just some examples of poor patient medication adherence. Reasons for following the proper medication regimen include: unpleasant side effects, confusion, forgetfulness, language barriers, and feeling “too good” to need medicine. Those with chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure are among the groups that are less likely to follow their medication regimen. NEHI is urging the federal government to the issue a part of the national healthcare reform debate.
NEHI’s report is an update on a 2001 report. The new one is based on seven systematic reviews of the medical literature plusinterviews with 16 health care organizations, insurers, drug makers and technology companies — the report was financed by this group, NEHI said, but it was written independently of them. Keep reading>>
Tags: AMA | Bones in Motion | health apps | The Pill Phone | Verizon Wireless |
Verizon Wireless recently sent out a press release promoting their mobile health and fitness applications, some of which have been around for a number of years: Bones in Motion, Diet Fitness Diary, The Pill Phone, Healthy Body and Howcast. The applications are available for select Verizon Wireless phones and can be downloaded directly to the phone via the Media Center/Get It Now portal.
Unlike most iPhone, Palm Pre or Google Android health apps, Verizon Wireless’ apps cost upwards of $5.99 per month in subscription fees. That said, the carrier’s announcement about these tools, which could help Verizon Wireless’ 87.7 million customers better manage their health and fitness, serves as a reminder that the wireless health opportunity isn’t just for smartphones. At these prices, however, it may as well be.
Here’s a quick rundown of the health and fitness applications Verizon Wireless recently promoted: Keep reading>>
