A growing number of health care-related organizations are using remote patient monitoring systems, signaling a surge in demand for such technology, according to a recent report from market research firm Frost & Sullivan, Healthcare IT News reports.
Reasons Generating Growth
The report found that the need to manage chronic disease among the growing elderly population has increased the demand for telehealth technology.
According to the report, systems and technologies that are driving the rise of telehealth include:
The report noted that a number of companies — including Google, IBM, Microsoft and Wal-Mart — are assisting in the development of remote monitoring products.
Arjunvasan Ambigapathy, a Frost & Sullivan research associate, said the increase in demand is discernible not only in the U.S., Europe and Japan, but also in emerging markets such as China and India.
Barriers to Implementation
The report also pointed to barriers to telehealth adoption, such as:
Source: iHealthBeat
Some developers of applications for mobile devices such as Apple’s iPad tablet computer are seeking FDA review of their products, HealthLeaders Media reports.
Seeking Approval
According to physicians, FDA has not provided guidance about which mobile health apps would need the agency’s approval and which would not. So far, few medical apps have undergone clinical trials or testing in academic medical centers.
Some developers of medical apps are pursuing FDA approval on their own. For example, AirStrip Technologies decided to classify its remote patient monitoring software as a medical device, making it subject to FDA safety and efficacy reviews. FDA cleared the app in July 2010.
Physician Input
Richard Katz — director of the cardiology division at George Washington University School of Medicine — said, “FDA is learning, or trying to figure this out. They’re trying to think of medical apps as either prescriptive or informative.”
Joseph Smith — chief medical and science officer at the West Wireless Health Institute — said FDA approval should be required for apps “that provide physicians with information that they use to make a diagnosis or treatment decision” (Clark, HealthLeaders Media, 3/4).
Source: iHealthBeat
The American Board of Medical Specialties recently announced the launch of a new website designed to help U.S. residents determine whether a physician is certified by ABMS, the United Press International reports.
The site includes data on more than 750,000 physicians that are certified in one or more of ABMS’ specialties and subspecialties.
Consumers also can use the site to learn:
In addition, the site offers tips for finding a qualified physician and guidance on getting the most out of physician visits (United Press International, 2/28).
Source: iHealthBeat
Updates to tablet computer technology and a surge in new devices, such as Apple’s iPad, have observers wondering whether physicians will make tablets their mobile device of choice, American Medical News reports.
Use of Tablet Devices
Since the iPad was released in January 2010, several health care initiatives have been launched using the tool. For example:
Eighty different tablet models are expected to be released in the next year to compete with the iPad, which will give health care providers more choices.
Meanwhile, numerous vendors of electronic health record systems are developing applications that allow physicians to access EHRs through a tablet.
Uncertain Future
Although using cloud-based EHRs means patient data would not be stored on a tablet, organizations still must develop ways to secure the devices, according to American Medical News. Hospitals are expressing concern about the implications of widespread adoption of such devices because of possible security risks to medical data.
In addition, many physicians say that despite the usefulness of tablets, they can never fully replace desktop computers. Some doctors note that information input on the iPad is best restricted to brief note-taking because of its small touch-screen keyboard.
In addition, Brian Reed — chief marketing officer and vice president of products for mobility management company BoxTone — said he does not expect tablets to replace smart phones, largely due to the convenience of the smaller devices (Dolan, American Medical News, 2/7).
Source: iHealthBeat
U.S. health care providers who volunteer their medical skills abroad could violate patient privacy ethics if they post pictures of their patients on Facebook or other websites, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, HealthLeaders Media reports.
For the study, researchers from the University of Florida’s College of Medicine examined the Facebook profile pages of 1,023 medical students and residents. Although researchers found no breaches of patient privacy in the U.S., they found 12 photos depicting patients in developing countries.
Lindsay Thompson — study author and assistant professor of pediatrics at UF College of Medicine — said HIPAA privacy and security rules do not apply to patients outside of the U.S.
However, she added that health care providers have an ethical obligation to follow the medical privacy laws of the state or country where they practice.
Challenges
According to the study authors, many medical students and health care providers might be unaware of patient privacy laws in other countries.
Erik Black — study author and assistant professor of pediatrics at UF College of Medicine — said using patient consent forms in other countries could pose ethical challenges if patients believe they need to sign the form to receive medical care.
Black added that posting patient photos online could put patients at risk if a particular culture has objections to receiving treatment from U.S. health care providers.
Black said, “We are not telling people not to do anything. We are telling them to think about it. Use your moral and ethical compass” (Commins, HealthLeaders Media, 2/22).
Source: iHealthBeat
Health care providers might not meet Stage 2 meaningful use rules unless they more actively engage patients about their role in the use of health IT, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute report, InformationWeek reports.
Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Report Details
The report was released Wednesday at the Healthcare Information and Management System Society’s annual conference in Orlando, Fla. (Mitchell, InformationWeek, 2/23).
For the report, PwC surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers and more than 300 health care executives in fall 2010.
Key Findings
According to the report, 82% of the 300 health care executives surveyed expect their organization to achieve meaningful use before penalties go into effect in 2015, down from 90% in spring of last year (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 2/23).
Bruce Henderson — director and national leader of the EHR and health information exchange practice at PwC — said hospitals will need to fold in patient input to efforts to comply with Stage 2 criteria of the meaningful use program. Stage 2 rules could require health care providers to offer patients more thorough access to online medical data, according to the report.
However, the report found that 30% of patients do not know why they would need to get their medical files electronically.
Henderson added, “Health systems need to have both patients and physicians actively using the health information to make care decisions, and they aren’t there yet” (Commins, HealthLeaders Media, 2/24).
Other Findings
The report also stated that patients are required to populate many commercial personal health records. According to PwC, integrating PHRs with a health care provider’s EHR system could remove that task from the patient and give health care providers more accurate patient information (vanSonnenberg, CMIO, 2/24).
In addition, the report found that:
Comments
Henderson said, “There’s a lot of activity around meaningful use,” adding that “the industry is doing its best to understand and learn the value of these systems, the best way to implement them, and how to achieve positive results, but I’m not sure everyone fully understands their impact — intended or otherwise — and this is contributing to the lack of connecting with key stakeholders in the process” (InformationWeek, 2/23).
Source: iHealthBeat
The vulnerability of medical data is becoming more evident as the U.S. health care system moves toward use of electronic health records, according to a recent report by Kaufman, Rossin and Co., the South Florida Business Journal reports.
Key Findings
According to the report, 166 data breaches compromised the personal health information of 4.9 million patients during the first year after the HITECH Act was signed into law. The HITECH Act was part of the 2009 economic stimulus package and mandated heftier fines and reporting requirements for breaches (Miller, South Florida Business Journal, 2/23).
Among the causes of the 166 reported breaches:
Most breaches — 42 incidents — occurred through laptops. Breaches from laptops also affected 1.5 million people, more than any other breach location (Simmons, FierceEMR, 2/24).
Conclusions
Jorge Rey — study co-author and director of information security and compliance with Kaufman, Rossin and Co. — said that “many businesses are not properly prepared or are completely unaware of just how vulnerable this information is.”
He added that the HITECH Act is changing how personal health information must be protected and that companies that fail to protect such data can face “serious reputation, legal and financial repercussions” (South Florida Business Journal, 2/23).
Source: iHealthBeat
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Does your practice have a reliable and stable internet connection? If your internet connection goes down, do you have a back up plan to be up and running within minutes? Are you experiencing decreased network performance as you increase the number of processes you handle electronically?
With practices depending on more electronic processes these days, there must be solutions in place to insure the maximum amount of up time possible. This can be accomplished by having internet redundancy and load balancing.
In this edition of “The Pulse Beat”, you will find articles that provide more information about why two internet connections are better than one.
Thanks again and GREAT READING
Two Connections Are Better Than One
The theft of network cards from a Verizon office last May caused many Manhattan businesses to lose Internet service for nearly a day. Outages such as this convey to all businesses-not just the affected ones-how dependent they have become on Internet access and how vulnerable they are to disruptions. A few hours of downtime-even outside normal business hours-could mean thousands of dollars in missed opportunities and lost customers… Read More
Redundant Internet Access for Businesses
Businesses are increasingly reliant on internet availability for their critical business operations and revenue generation. What were once brick and mortar stores targeting customers in their local geographic area are now interactive websites offering products and services to customers throughout the world. This drastically changing face of commerce revolves around the availability one crucial element: the internet… Read More
Colocation Benefits – A Simplified Solution
Colocation hosting services means locating your IT infrastructure to the third party data centers. The data centers which are highly reliable, secure and has fully equipped redundant infrastructure. Colocating your web servers to the data center is always a wise choice as it provides many benefits and secured physical atmosphere to your server. Colocation web services offers all the added features and also secures the data from any natural calamity disasters… Read More
Colocation hosting services means locating your IT infrastructure to the third party data centers. The data centers which are highly reliable, secure and has fully equipped redundant infrastructure. Colocating your web servers to the data center is always a wise choice as it provides many benefits and secured physical atmosphere to your server. Colocation web services offers all the added features and also secures the data from any natural calamity disasters. Colocation is a type of web hosting, whereby customers who have their own server can host it at a purpose built Data Center (or Colocation Center). Customers rent rack space where they keep their server, while maintaining control of it themselves.
There are numerous benefits which can be classified as follows:
Cost effective :
The colocation service is considered as one of the cost effective solutions for your servers to maintain. Basically you don’t need to build and maintain the in-house requirements that your server demands can cost you valuable capital in facilities, Internet connectivity and maintenance personnel. The colocation hosting providers has such kind of full facility available with their infrastructure.
Reliable Uptime :
Uptime is always a major concern for the server owners. With colocation facility one can be rest assured that his server is getting proper uptime. Within colocation facility everything is redundant so that if anything goes down the colocation customers server and network equipment will not even notice it as there are redundant systems in place that automatically replace those that went down. This may include the air conditioning systems, UPS (uninterruptible power systems), power generators, utility power, network routers, redundant Internet backbones with plenty of extra capacity, and redundant onsite network engineering staff.
More Security :
Security is of prime importance when it comes to the servers or leasing any services for your IT equipment. Data centers are generally considered to be secured and well established infrastructure. Data centers should be monitored 24-7. Your systems should be housed in a state-of-the-art data center, with redundant air cooling and filtering systems, designed to operate even in the event of a power failure. Data centers should be located and built to withstand natural disasters, and other emergencies.
Network Speed & Reliability :
Getting good speed and that too with reliability is a matter for every server owner. The hardware basically resist on the climate controlled environment as well as the power conditioning. Server hosting can allow you to access enterprise level backup, and monitoring tools. Many of the colocation service providers run BGP and have redundant Internet networks and different Internet backbones coming into their facility. When a company sets up a network at an office they usually just get the Internet bandwidth capacity that they need such as a single T3, which is 45 Megabits, or an OC3, which is 155 Megabits without the redundancy.
Outage Protection :
Power redundancy and backup are very important factors to be considered while one is looking to colocate their servers to the data center. Colocation data centers often offer power redundancy through the use of power generators and backup power supplies. This will allow networks to remain up even in the instance of a long-term power failure. Colocation providers often offer server protection from floods and fires as well.
Source: esds
Businesses are increasingly reliant on internet availability for their critical business operations and revenue generation. What were once brick and mortar stores targeting customers in their local geographic area are now interactive websites offering products and services to customers throughout the world. This drastically changing face of commerce revolves around the availability one crucial element: the internet. The internet’s widespread availability and ever improving speed and capacity has given it a stronghold in a world that in the not so distant past was constrained by geography and logistics. The internet carries with it countless advantages for businesses, such as rapid communication between employees, erased geographical boundaries and the convenience of reaching out to customers seeking services from their own homes. Today, many businesses rely solely on the internet for their mere existence, making internet availability a critical element of their business strategy.
With one outage, the grandeur of the internet is instantly diminished. Not only does internet downtime prevent website visitors from patronizing a business, but it hurts customer goodwill and inhibits valuable communication between employees of a company. For instance, a corporate headquarters in Massachusetts utilizing a virtual private network (VPN) to securely share files and data with its branch in Colorado would be brought to a halt by a lack of internet access. The loss of revenue associated with internet downtime can be substantial, prompting businesses to seek out preventative measures to ensure consistent availability such as redundant internet access.
Typically, home and business internet users rely on a single link to an internet service provider’s network for their internet access. Internet outages are not generally caused by a system wide failure, but rather because of a problem with an organizations sole link to its provider. Technical failures or physical cable damage caused by construction, for example, can cause internet service to be disrupted indefinitely. The loss of revenue associated with an uncertain amount of internet downtime beyond their control is a risk many businesses cannot afford to take. Redundant internet access facilitates the flexibility to automatically switch traffic among multiple connections, eliminating the uncertainty associated with relying on a single link. This is accomplished by subscribing to multiple internet service providers allowing for the use of multiple types of physical connections. For instance, a company may use a T1 connection as a primary internet service, and also subscribe to a telephone based DSL service for backup in the event of failure.
Effectively implemented internet redundancy allows for continued internet access even during a primary ISP failure, thus preventing losses in revenue associated with internet downtime.
Source: streetdirectory.com
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