Cerner’s takeoff delayed on DOD’s new EHR, MHS Genesis

October 20, 2016 | by

The new $4.3 billion US Department of Defense EHR, jointly developed by Cerner and Leidos, has taken another delay from the aggressive rollout schedule set in April.  The original test start date was 6 December at the Fairchild Air Force Base hospital in Spokane, Washington (state) and the Oak Harbor Naval Hospital on Washington’s Whidbey Island. Back in early September, it was reported that it would be delayed by at least a few months for technical reasons (Federal News Radio and Healthcare IT News). The rara avis in the latter is a mention of major dental supplier Henry Schein–along with Accenture, they were part of the award, but very much a junior partner in providing the dental EHR. (Leidos release)

The latest update on the start of MHS Genesis is February 2017 for Fairchild AFB and June for Oak Harbor. Healthcare IT News

Population health is everywhere (US)

October 20, 2016 | by

Last week, CMS published the ominously dubbed Final Rule on MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015) which utterly changes how physicians are compensated by Medicare and the various monetary incentives they have in quality and patient-centered care. This Editor is not going to get into interpretation of 2,300+ pages, but her belief is that this will not be effective in 2017 as designed, as literally it is over-complex and not understood by those who implement patient care. The dizzying models include Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and for the daring, the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM). All great business for the 100 or so ‘value-based consultants’ ready to help those expensively organized ACOs which thought they’d be rich from Meaningful Use. Oh, and what about the patient and their well-being in the meantime?? Healthcare Dive, Healthcare IT News and here  Don’t hunt for CMS’ fact sheet–it’s here. Don’t look for much about telemedicine and remote monitoring, which apparently was included in the law but not in the Final Rule for MIPS but is a part of the Advanced APM. Congress may act to expand Medicare’s payment policy on telehealth, but don’t hold your breath for it happening this year. POLITICO Morning eHealth 19 Oct

But population health and the data analytics that’s needed to get a handle on both large-scale patient health trends to allocate care where it is needed, and the financial metrics that organizations need, is hot. Verily Life Sciences (Alphabet-Google’s ever versatile healthcare tech arm) is allying itself with 3M Health Information Systems. (This Editor bets that you never thought that the Post-It Notes company was in health information!) According to the article, 3M’s part has to do with its business in coding, classification and risk-stratification methodologies. Verily will bring to the party data analytics, algorithms and software development. Healthcare IT News

This Editor also noted IHS Markit’s analysis of MACRA mixed with a bit from ATA’s Fall Forum. One insight: And now CMS plans to tie 90 percent of traditional Medicare fee-for-service payments to value-based payments in 2018. A lagninappe: “MACRA will help telemedicine to simply become another modality within healthcare delivery.” The wrapup is quite illuminating.

As identified during a recent consumer survey conducted by IHS Markit on digital health trends in the US, patients are interested now more than ever in sharing their healthcare data, and provider communication is at a low: (more…)

Breaking news – an NHS innovation failure

October 13, 2016 | by | 2 Comments

As a sad indication of the NHS’s – and the UK health & care system in general’s – inability to innovate, v-connect, previously known as Red Embedded, has made the following announcement:

“It is with great regret that we are discontinuing the v-connect service as of the 31st October 2016. I am sure that the reasons will be understandable to you but here is a short summary. The video technology has been in development for more than eleven years. The efforts to commercialise the technology, in care, have been in progress for more than seven. In that time we have developed many features that support people to live independently at home supported by a personalised set of connections and facilities matched to their needs. We were guided by the continual calls for integrated care, personalisation and care closer to  home. We have been somewhat successful in obtaining project and grant funding to facilitate this. (more…)

The Theranos Story, ch. 21: the denouement of tears, fears and lawsuits

October 12, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/upside-down-duck.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Finally, Theranos sinks its labs, Wellness Centers…and 340 employees. Since founder/CEO/controlling shareholder Elizabeth Holmes has been banned by CMS from running any labs for the next two years, shutting ’em down makes total sense in terms of saving her job. (Of course, if you are one of those fired employees in Arizona, California or Pennsylvania, it doesn’t. But hey, you may be worth more than Ms Holmes!) What she’s betting what is left of the company on is the miniLab, which hasn’t exactly come heartily out of the gate. It was Gimlet Eyed at the AACC annual meeting in Philadelphia, then shortly thereafter she withdrew from FDA review a Zika test using the miniLab due to lack of a patient-safety protocol approved by an institutional review board. (Tsk, tsk–Ed.)

Now the news of a lawsuit by a major investor will, in its process, reveal more of the Bubble That Was Theranos and possibly put the banana peel under the pivot. Investors sank over $800 million into the company, and one of them, Partner Fund Management, wants its $96 million back like Lee Marvin as Walker in Point Blank. According to the Wall Street Journal, which originally wielded the needle, the charges are that they and other funds were lured in by fraudulent claims and various misrepresentations of the Edison technology and its effectiveness–in other words, that they had labs and tests that actually worked. The SEC continues to investigate, including subpoenaing Partner and possibly other investors.  ABC News, Wall Street Journal (search on title ‘Major Investor Sues Theranos’ if you hit the paywall), Gizmodo 30 Aug, 11 Oct (a wonderfully Gimlety take by Eve Peyser), and a series of acid flashbacks in Forbes

See here for the 20 previous TTA chapters.

Artificial intelligence with IBM Watson, robotics pondered on 60 Minutes

October 12, 2016 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This Sunday, the long-running TV magazine show 60 Minutes (CBS) had a long Charlie Rose-led segment on artificial intelligence. It concentrated mainly on the good with a little bit of ugly thrown in. The longest part of it was on IBM Watson massively crunching and applying oncology and genomics to diagnosis. In a study of 1,000 cancer patients reviewed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s molecular tumor board, while 99 percent of the doctor diagnoses were confirmed by Watson as accurate, Watson found ‘something new’ in 30 percent. As a tool, it is still considered to be in adolescence. Watson and data analytics technology has been a $15 billion investment for IBM, which can afford it, but by licensing it and through various partnerships, IBM has been starting to recoup it. The ‘children of Watson’ are also starting to grow. Over at Carnegie Mellon, robotics is king and Google Glass is reading visual data to give clues on speeding up reaction time. At Imperial College, Maja Pantic is taking the early steps into artificial emotional intelligence with a huge database of facial expressions and interpretations. In Hong Kong, Hanson Robotics is developing humanoid robots, and that may be part of the ‘ugly’ along with the fears that AI may outsmart humans in the not-so-distant future. 60 Minutes video and transcript

Speaking of recouping, IBM Watson Health‘s latest partnership is with Siemens Healthineers to develop population health technology and services to help providers operate in value-based care. Neil Versel at MedCityNews looks at that as well as 60 Minutes. Added bonus: a few chuckles about the rebranded Siemens Healthcare’s Disney-lite rebranding.

Telehealth in China: the largest market of them all?

October 12, 2016 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HC_Bulletin_F14_bigdata_china_feature.jpg” thumb_width=”250″ /]Is China ready for telehealth, and the needed investment? It turns out that according to this article, the market does strongly resemble Western, Latin America and APAC countries in its needs and aging, dispersed population. The numbers (left) say yes. The market divides into three for the writer:

  1. A supplement to the public community care system, which has motivated most of the interest the Chinese government has in telehealth to care for millions (defined in the article as patient-doctor video consults, but doesn’t appear to exclude remote patient vital signs monitoring) as well as EHRs, scheduling, online access to diagnostic test results, and e-prescribing.
  2. Rural health care, not as unique as the writer seems to believe. Virtual consults and telehealth are used, and paid for, by CMS in US rural areas and on Native American reservations by the Indian Health Service. We also wrote about it in Brazil [TTA 27 Feb].
  3. Second opinions by Western physicians desired by high net worth individuals and upper middle class families. Again, not that unusual as this resembles the health tourism practiced by the affluent in Latin America and the adoption of video consults. This is denoted as the narrowest and chanciest of the three markets.

Chinese patients in (1) and (2), for the most part, would see any of these as an improvement. Their experience is that they get little time with a physician, don’t have a personal relationship with one or more doctors, and don’t expect much of a personal relationship with their doctor. So telehealth and RPM would be huge upgrades for China.  From Healthintelasia. Illustration from Analysis Group

Tunstall Americas adopts belle

October 12, 2016 | by

We haven’t heard much from Tunstall Healthcare in the past two months, but Tunstall Americas has announced that the belle PERS unit has been added to the US line of products which now . The belle is on the AT&T GSM cellular network for two-way voice communication with their 24/7 call center and GPS location technology. The pendant has a rechargeable battery that can last up to 30 days on a single charge, and can be either worn or carried in pocket or purse. Also new in the line is the Tunstall flood detector which signals the call center through the Vi+ and CEL.  Release, Tunstall Americas website.

Who’s hiring? 3rings (UK)

October 11, 2016 | by

Steve Purdham, who is the Chairman of 3rings, is advising our readers of two new Business Development Manager opportunities with his company.

The ‘Internet of Things’ is going to change the future of care and 3rings is at the centre of this fantastic opportunity. Due to expansion in its operation, 3rings, is looking for two ambitious BDM’s to join our digital team. If you have passion to change things then contact Steve on steve@3rings.co.uk

Full details @ https://news.3rings.co.uk/?p=237

3rings has developed and markets an electrical plug that, when the appliances are used, tracks a person’s activities of daily living. The information is delivered to the 3rings app so that family, friends and neighbors not only know of normal behavior but also when something is ‘off’. (Our past two years of coverage is here.)

Call for project presentations for the King’s Fund Digital Health & Care Congress 2017

October 7, 2016 | by | 1 Comment

The King’s Fund is looking for projects to be presented at the Digital Health and Care Congress 2017.

To be accepted, projects must show progress and improvements in at least one of these areas:

  • enabling patients to take an active role in their health and care;
  • improving data sharing and interoperability across the health and care economy;
  • demonstrating the benefits and improving productivity;
  • using technology and data to improve experience and quality of care.

Acceptance is via submission of an abstract, which should not be a sales pitch. Presentations should focus on digital health and care in practice. If you’re a commercial organisation working in partnership with an NHS organisation, you should ensure your NHS partner is available to present.

Note that in a change from previous years, single speakers will not be required to pay congress fees; for projects accepted for presentation, there will be one free speaker place allocated.

More details here.

The Congress will be on 4th & 5th July 2017.

The deadline for abstract submissions is Friday 9 December 2016.

Disclosure: this editor is on the organising committee of the Congress.

GE Healthcare gets into accelerator biz with five.eight

October 5, 2016 | by

Having tip-toed around the accelerator action with StartUp Health Academy (GE Ventures), GE Healthcare (GEHC) is taking the full dive in with five.eight, named after the 5.8 billion people worldwide (citation not provided) who lack access to quality, affordable healthcare and need tailored approaches. Up to 10 startups in the initial program will be sourced from four social impact investors – Acumen, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, Unitus Seed Fund and Villgro. The five.eight funding will be up to $50 million, with each startup funded up to $5 million. The first startup in the program is Tricog, a Bangalore-based startup focused on improving survival rates in India by decreasing the average time between symptoms and treatment of heart attacks. Of course this ties into GEHC’s business in emerging markets, which is their Sustainable Healthcare Solutions, their “affordable care portfolio of high-value, low-cost technologies and healthcare delivery solutions for emerging markets.” HIT Consultant, HealthcareITNews

Ireland telecare monitoring a relative price bargain

October 5, 2016 | by

Our former Ireland editor Toni Bunting, in her business development capacity with TASK Community Care in County Meath and Belfast, notes that Irish pendant alarm (PERS) monitoring charges are on average considerably lower than charges in the UK and in Europe. At current advertised rates of approximately €65 – €80 annually, the rates are lower than the 2010 study of UK rates of £170-200 and £200 – £300 in Europe. (Of course with fluctuations in the pound, that may change!) Toni is asking if there are rates in Ireland which fall substantially outside this range, so please be in touch here or on Telecare.ie-Ireland’s Telecare Magazine, which provides information on emergency pendant alarms, telecare and 24/7 monitoring for Irish individuals, community workers and health professionals.

IBM Watson Health computes into diabetes management, UK care budgeting (US/UK)

October 5, 2016 | by | 1 Comment

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/SugarIQ2-712.jpg” thumb_width=”250″ /]IBM Watson Health, the advanced cognitive computing division of IBM, with Medtronic has developed an app that may, when marketed after FDA approval, help to ease for diabetes patients their daily ‘Battle of Stalingrad’. Sugar.IQ is an app that finds patterns in diabetes data through combining Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities with diabetes data from Medtronic and other sources. The app then uses continuous glucose monitoring data from Medtronic insulin pumps and glucose sensors to give specific, personalized information to the patient on their health trends and how to better manage their diabetes. The analytic features are impressive. Glycemic Assist lets the patient ask the app to follow specific food or therapy-related actions and events to see their exact impact. The Food Logging feature can track specific foods in a diary to determine the effects of specific foods. It is being tested presently on 100 MiniMed Connect users. Previewed at last week’s Health 2.0 conference. HealthcareITNews (photo), Medtronic blog post, Medtronic release (PDF) (This MiniMed Connect is not to be confused with the Medtronic MiniMed 670G artificial pancreas–hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery system for type 1 diabetes patients–just approved by FDA. MedCityNews)

In the UK, Harrow Council in northwest London is using IBM Watson Health’s Care Manager for social care service matching and budgeting. Using “cognitive technologies that provide personalised insight and evidence based guidelines”, Watson will match individuals’ needs and budgets to providers, and will be further able to manage costs over the ten-year agreement by “control(ling) the contract and payments between the individual commissioning for support, and social care providers competing to supply the service.” It’s not entirely clear to this Editor how the individual flexibility of care and services works with the recipient, however. The IBM Watson Health announcement follows on last May’s announcement with Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and the Hartee Centre to transform Alder Hey into the UK’s first “cognitive hospital”. DigitalHealth.net  Hat tip to reader Paul Costello of Viterion Digital Health

A couple more grant opportunities for SMEs

October 3, 2016 | by

This editor was recently rendered temporarily speechless by an entrepreneur who complained that there was no money available any more to help him start his business. Upon recovering my power of speech I suggested he read Telehealth & Telecare Aware more avidly as we publicise many grants, awards, accelerators and other types of assistance. Here are two more:

mHabitat

mHabitat are launching a Digital Development Lab to accelerate the adoption of digital technologies in mental health.

They anticipate working with around six to eight Digital Development Lab participants over approximately seven months who will have access to a share of a £400k grant to accelerate their technology towards endorsement and adoption by NHS services and service users.

The Lab is open to applications from innovators (more…)