The number of U.S. adults using their mobile phones for health-related activities grew from 61 million in 2011 to 75 million this year, according to a report from Manhattan Research, MobiHealthNews reports (Dolan, MobiHealthNews, 10/2).
For its 2012 Cybercitizen Health report, Manhattan Research surveyed 8,745 U.S. adults by landline, mobile phone and online in the third quarter of 2012 (Manhattan Research release, 9/27).
Additional Findings
The report also found that the number of U.S. adults using tablet computers for health-related activities nearly doubled from 15 million in 2011 to 29 million in 2012.
According to the survey:
Comments on Findings
Monique Levy — vice president research at Manhattan Research — said, “Growing ownership of connected devices and the access to digital health tools and information they provide is helping to drive the broader shift from intermittent to continuous care.”
She added, “This trend shows vast potential for changing key dynamics of health care delivery, including patient engagement, provider involvement and how preventive care is incentivized” (MobiHealthNews, 10/2).
Source: iHealthBeat
On Tuesday, officials from the Tennessee Department of Health presented Gov. Bill Haslam (R) with a budget request that, if granted, would allow the agency to convert its current computer system to one used by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Tennessean reports.
About the Current System
John Dreyzehner, the state health commissioner, said the department’s current Patient Tracking Billing Management System is more than 20 years old and is neither efficient nor effective.
He said the system is limited in what it can do, adding that it cannot create or maintain electronic health records that can be shared among local health agencies.
Details of the VA System
Tennessee health officials would like to replace the department’s old computer system with an open-source, non-proprietary system that VA developed.
Dreyzehner said that VA’s computer system has been praised for efficiently keeping track of more than eight million patients.
Costs Associated With the Conversion
Converting to VA’s system would take several years and cost nearly $9 million in the first year, according to the Tennessean.
The budget request would cover the hiring of 27 state workers to implement and manage the new system (Marsteller, Tennessean, 11/6).
Source: iHealthBeat
Many doctors are leaving small practices for larger health care systems in part because of the cost involved in meeting federal requirements for electronic health record implementation, according to a report released Wednesday by consulting firm Accenture, eWeek reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Report Details
After surveying 204 primary care physicians and specialists, Accenture predicted that the percentage of physicians who practice independently will drop from 57% in 2000 to 36% in 2013 (Horowitz, eWeek, 11/1).
The report found that:
Health IT Costs Could Play a Role
Kaveh Safavi — managing director for Accenture’s North America healthy industry group — said that business expenses, such as the cost of health IT systems, are leading doctors to join larger health care organizations. He added that large health systems often have the health IT expertise and capital that small practices lack.
Safavi said, “There’s a whole level of forces, expertise and purchasing power that the small practices don’t have,” adding, “They can’t simply choose not to have a practice that’s digital or connected.”
Small Practice Physicians Eye Telehealth
According to the report, physicians who remain in small practices likely will start offering new services like telehealth to maintain their profits.
Accenture predicted that the use of telehealth and other subscription-based services will increase threefold over the next three years (eWeek, 11/1).
Source: iHealthBeat
Hurricane Sandy offers lessons for hospitals about the importance of health IT systems — as well as data storage and backup plans — in disaster planning efforts, MedCity News reports (Baum, MedCity News, 10/30).
Some Affected Hospitals Revert to Using Paper Records
As a result of the storm, some hospitals and health systems were unable to access their electronic health record systems because of power outages that affected data centers or other buildings where patient data were stored.
The affected hospitals include:
How Data Exchanges Could Have Helped
The hurricane highlights the benefits of using a health information exchange, according to MedCity News.
The Statewide Health Information Network of New York — or SHIN-NY — connects 78% of hospitals across the state. If all of the state’s hospitals were connected to the exchange, any New York hospital patients who were evacuated to other facilities because of power outages or flooding still would have had their electronic medical data available through the network.
David Whitlinger — executive director of the New York eHealth Collaborative — said that even if the SHIN-NY data center in New York was inaccessible, another SHIN-NY data center in Texas could have taken over “within milliseconds” (MedCity News, 10/30).
Whitlinger also noted that even without a connection to SHIN-NY, having an EHR system in place was beneficial for the affected hospitals. He said, “At a minimum, a majority of all health care institutions have electronic health records, and the backups of those records are not even in the city, they’re elsewhere across the country. So even if the health care provider is not connected to the [SHIN-NY] network, at a minimum, the patient’s data [are] not lost” (Miliard, Healthcare IT News, 10/31).
Google Releases Resources for Emergencies
In related news, Google on Monday introduced several new online resources designed to help the public access information and resources about emergencies (Miller, “Bits,” New York Times, 10/30).
People who use Google’s search engine to look up information about hurricanes, natural disasters and other emergencies — or who search for locations affected by such events — now can view public alerts on the topic (Hepler, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 10/30).
In addition to the alerts, Google also released an interactive crisis map on Hurricane Sandy, as well as a New York City-specific interactive map. The maps allow users to:
Source: iHealthBeat
Many health care providers cite securing patient data as a major concern associated with the use of mobile devices, according to a report from research firm KLAS, Clinical Innovation & Technology reports.
For the report — titled, “2012 Mobile Applications: Can Enterprise Vendors Keep Up?” — KLAS surveyed more than 100 health care providers about their use of mobile devices to access patient data.
According to the report, seven out of 10 surveyed health care organizations said that their electronic health record system is accessible through mobile devices. Of those respondents:
When asked about the types of security methods they use to protect patient data on mobile devices:
However, respondents said they encountered several challenges to using mobile devices to access patient data, such as:
Source: iHealthBeat
Many surveyed health care executives say that efforts to measure the return on investment in electronic health record systems should begin earlier, according to a report from Beacon Partners, a Massachusetts-based health care consulting firm, FierceEMR reports.
For the report, Beacon Partners surveyed more than 300 health care executives over the summer about how they use performance measures to evaluate the ROI of EHR systems.
Measuring ROI
The report found that:
Fifty-one percent of respondents said that their organization should have implemented performance measures sooner to evaluate the ROI for their EHR system (Hall, FierceEMR, 10/25).
Use of Clinician Feedback
The report also found that 78% of respondents said that they collect feedback from physicians and nurses to gauge EHR satisfaction. Of those respondents:
Source: iHealthBeat
Venture capital funding in the health IT industry has remained strong for the fifth consecutive quarter, and the trend is expected to continue regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group, Healthcare IT News reports.
Report Findings
The report found that 58 investors participated in funding rounds during the third quarter of 2012, with some investors participating in multiple deals.
According to the report, the top-funded types of health IT companies during Q3 2012 were:
In addition, the report found that 37 merger and acquisition transactions occurred in Q3 2012, amounting to $3.2 billion.
Comments
Raj Prabhu, managing partner of Mercom, said, “2012 has the potential to be a billion dollar VC funding year for the sector,” adding, “[T]here continues to be a strong interest and demand in the (health IT) sector with a consumer angle as health apps and social health networks are becoming popular and more mainstream.”
He credited the HITECH Act, the Affordable Care Act and HHS’ Health Data Initiative for fostering growth in the health IT market (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 10/23).
Source: iHealthBeat
At-risk teenagers are very interested in accessing their health records online and are open to sharing their records with physicians, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, FierceHealthIT reports (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 10/22).
Study Details, Findings
For the study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center conducted in-person interviews with 79 incarcerated teenagers who received treatment at the medical center.
The study found that at-risk teenagers had similar rates of Internet use as the general adolescent population, with 87% reporting that they used the Internet at least once per week when they were not in juvenile detention (Digitale, Stanford release, 10/21).
In addition, 90% of the at-risk teenagers said they would be interested in having online access to their health records.
A significant majority of the teenagers said they would be willing to share their electronic health records with physicians, but only half said they would be willing to share their health records with their parents.
Implications
Arash Anoshiravani, lead author of the study, noted that such teenagers generally are not included in discussions about how to better engage patients in their health (FierceHealthIT, 10/22).
Anoshiravani — an adolescent medicine specialist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, a clinical assistant professor of adolescent medicine at Stanford and the medical director of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Custody Institutions — said, “I didn’t expect this level of interest because [such teenagers] don’t typically think of health as something that’s part of their daily lives.”
However, the researchers noted that at-risk teenagers are uniquely positioned to benefit from online health records because they generally have worse health than other adolescents and often do not have family members tracking the health care they receive.
According to researchers, the biggest challenge will be addressing the issue of health information sharing. The at-risk teenagers expressed reluctance to share their health information with their parents, but minors’ parents are permitted to view certain parts of their health records. However, minors must provide consent for other health information to be shared with their parents.
Anoshiravani said the next step is to implement and evaluate online health records for at-risk teenagers (Stanford release, 10/22).
Source: iHealthBeat
Beginning this season, NFL doctors have access to a host of health IT tools designed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of player injuries, especially potential concussions, the New York Times reports.
Previously, cell phones, radios and monitors were prohibited on the sidelines of NFL games because they could provide teams with an unfair advantage. However, the league recently changed its technology rules to improve medical services, according to the Times.
NFL’s Use of Health IT
After testing the technology late last season, the NFL has launched a sideline replay system for injuries. Each team places a certified athletic trainer in the press box during each game. That trainer is responsible for alerting the team’s medical staff of potential injuries and operating replays for the team doctors to study.
In addition, 16 teams are using iPads to conduct standard league concussion assessments. The technology is expected to be expanded to all 32 teams next season. In addition, some teams are using iPads to view digital X-ray results.
Meanwhile, the league is hoping to implement a cloud-based electronic health record system next season, according to Ronnie Barnes, vice president for medical services for the New York Giants.
Some teams already store players’ health records electronically, but a league-wide system would eliminate redundancies, the Times reports.
For example, a top-level free agent might undergo health screening — including X-rays — during visits to five or six teams, according to Barnes. He said, “Electronic medical records league-wide would save a player from a lot of unnecessary radiation” (Borden, New York Times, 10/20).
Source: iHealthBeat
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has commissioned the creation of an open source tool — called Cypress — to test the ability of modular or complete electronic health record systems to meet clinical quality measures in Stage 2 of the meaningful use program, Health Data Management reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.
Details of the Tool
According to ONC, Cypress could be used to test the ability of EHR technology to:
According to ONC, Cypress will be offered at no cost to EHR vendors and testing laboratories (Goedert, Health Data Management, 10/17). Cypress will not allow health care providers to directly attest to meaningful use, but it will allow certain EHR systems and modules to qualify as certified EHR technology.
Timeline
Cypress’ developers plan to release:
The tool could be ready to be installed by authorized testing labs in December, according to Health Data Management (Health Data Management, 10/17).
Source: iHealthBeat
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