The 800-pound gorilla in the room around healthcare reform is not the red herring of the privacy issues related to the mass adoption of electronic health records but rather America's momentum in the direction of the cashless society--the framework necessary to get optimal fraud prevention and prosecution impact out of the monitoring of healthcare payments. Read »

Can a Web-based decision support solution make a real difference in helping healthcare organizations navigate the recent changes to the Medicare home health Outcome Assessment and Information Set (OASIS-C)? Sansio, which touts its HomeSolutions.NET software as the only offering aimed at giving healthcare customers the flexibility of gathering patient encounter information using intelligent scannable forms or mobile device-based data collection options, claims to be doing just that. Read »

With healthcare becoming a major adopter of mobile solutions due to a combination of stimulus dollars, increasing safety regulations and a growing need to increase efficiencies, vendors are following the money. But healthcare can be a tough nut to crack for independent software vendors and value-added resellers, who must contend with the domination of mostly-closed hospital information systems in the clinical arena of large healthcare organizations. The good news is that healthcare is rife with white space opportunities for any innovator with the vision to see beyond the big eight HIS firms. Read »

The jury may think it's still out regarding the role virtual doctor visits will play in the future of patient care, but anyone who chooses to follow the money can see that telehealth initiatives are being positioned for widespread deployment. Read »

Three Senate Democrats--Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas--are voicing their doubts over proposed health care legislation, raising the prospect that one or all three of them could scuttle the bill before the fight over it gets underway on the Senate floor, the New York Times reports. As this highly controversial piece of legislation continues to draw the scrutiny it deserves, the ZigBee Alliance and the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) are stepping up to educate both health care professionals and consumers on the benefits of telecommunications technologies. Read »

Last month, I referenced FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's warning of a "looming spectrum crisis." At the time I said that with wireless traffic set for a thirty-fold increase due to the rise of online video and other bandwidth-heavy applications, the government was scrambling to figure out where this much-needed bandwidth would come from. They're still scrambling, but now there's new fuel for the fire: the wireless sensor networks that we rely upon so heavily for homeland security surveillance, smart-grid technologies and--you guessed it--telemedicine programs, may well eclipse consumer demand in the not too distant future. Read »

As Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives attempt to figure out how to merge five healthcare bills into something the president can quickly sign off on, healthcare organizations like El Camino Hospital are implementing telehealth solutions in an effort to increase organizational efficiencies and to slash costs. El Camino has been using three video collaboration applications from Hillside, N.J.-based Glowpoint, Inc. to better serve patients at both its Mountain View and Los Gatos, Calif., campuses. Read »

Administration officials spent Sunday hammering opponents of the health reform bill, seeking to maintain momentum for the measure as criticism continues to pour in from both Republicans and Democrats. As they struck out at insurance companies and their Republican allies over what they described as efforts to undermine the legislation, administration officials managed to float the possibility of further compromise with labor unions, which are blasting a proposed tax on high-cost health-insurance plans. But beyond the televised D.C. drama, a recent open letter from National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal outlining progress made toward defining "meaningful use" as it relates to health care providers qualifying for the financial incentives outlined in the HITECH Act has raised an excellent question: If it weren't for the $19 billion in incentive payments on the table, would we really care what meaningful use means? Read »

Is health reform already underway in home care? National Association for Home Care (NAHC) president Val Halamandaris believes so. He points to the growing use of modern technologies, patient-centered outcome measures, and evidence-based best practices as a sign that home care is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of a growing senior population. A major new study due out later this year--conducted by Fazzi Associates--is expected to back Halamandaris' claim. Read »

When people talk about medical staffing needs of the future, the discussion generally starts with acknowledgment of the fact that we won't have nearly enough qualified physicians to handle demand. That's usually when the conversation turns to the promise of technology, or, more specifically, EHRs, telehealth and mobile point-of-care technologies. But for all the promise health IT brings to the table--to increase efficiencies, cut costs and improve the quality of care--we should also be asking whether or not we're likely to have nearly enough qualified health IT professionals to keep pace with mushrooming demand. Read »