Telemedicine coordinators help improve user numbers in Queensland

June 11, 2015 | by

The demand for telemedicine services in south western Queensland is reported to have tripled from 8 consultations a month [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Charleville-hospital.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]to about 35-40 following the appointment of coordinators who show patients how to use the service. The Queensland Government media statement issued last week quotes the coordinator at Charleville Hospital as saying 99% of people prefer the service to traveling to see a specialist face to face.

The video link service connects doctors with patients from 2 rural hospitals and one district hospital in south west Queensland. These are relatively small hospitals with 24 to 39 beds and use Flying Doctors to provide some of the facilities such as surgery. Alternative for patients, say in Charleville, could be a 7 hr 620 km drive to Toowoomba or a 8 1/2 hour 750km drive to Brisbane to see a specialist for a 10 minute appointment.

Georgia school telemedicine clinics to access EHRs

June 11, 2015 | by

Georgia Partnership for Telehealth which has telemedicine programs at about 60 schools in Georgia, [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Georgia-Partnership-for-Telehealth.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]has joined the Georgia Health Information Network, the state-wide Health Information Exchange, according to a recent press release. This will enable participating schools to securely exchange healthcare information with more than 3600 Georgia healthcare providers and have access to an immunisation register.
“Our Rural School-Based Telehealth Center Initiative offers a number of benefits to students and families,” Sherrie Williams, Executive Director of GPT is quoted as saying.  “Students receive quality care without having to miss class.  Parents don’t have to leave work and lose wages to take their child to see the doctor. If a specialist visit is needed, it doesn’t require hours in the car to reach a large healthcare center; the child can be examined right from the school clinic.”

Tunstall Goes Hawaiian with Kupuna Monitoring acquisition

June 11, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /] Tunstall Americas is acquiring Kupuna Monitoring Systems of Aiea (northwest of Honolulu), Hawaii, a medical alarm and medication manager provider. In the press release, CEO Casey Pittock confirmed that Tunstall Americas’ strategy is to acquire regional monitoring services, as we noted in their Mountain Home (Denver) purchase last year. Locally owned (kama’aina) and serving the four major islands, Kupuna (‘elder’) is currently using Philips Lifeline monitors and Philips med dispensers. We hope they are welcomed with warmest aloha. (Hawaii as a market and culture is like no other in the US, and in this Editor’s experience in a totally different industry, can be fiercely local.)

What’s news at the end of the week

June 11, 2015 | by

Care Innovations harmonizes seniors, Panasonic adds diabetes, Jawbone and Fitbit bite, the first EHR/PHR Hack and Concussion in Cleveland. Converging its interests in remote patient monitoring with its long-time footprint in senior housing resident monitoring (QuietCare), Intel-GE Care Innovations is testing its Health Harmony remote patient monitoring system, partnering with two California-located Front Porch communities and the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing. The residents selected have poor chronic condition management or have returned after a discharge from a skilled nursing facility. No disclosure on projected number or duration–and it doesn’t appear that QuietCare is part of the monitoring. Release….Panasonic just bought Bayer Healthcare’s diabetes/blood glucose monitoring device unit for $1.13 billion as Bayer continues to shed non-life science businesses. While old-school prick-and-bleed monitors are being eclipsed by continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and mobile-based devices such as Telcare in the US and in Europe, there’s plenty of market remaining in the West, and new ones in Asia and the Middle East for simple devices. It joins Panasonic’s existing blood pressure monitors. MedCityNews….Jawbone and Fitbit continue to snap at each other in court, with the former on Wednesday filing a second lawsuit on patent infringement, specifically “a wellness application using data from a data-capable band”, with the added fillip of going to the International Trade Commission, which could ban the import of Fitbit products or component parts. The 28 May lawsuit was about Fitbit’s hiring of five former Jawbone employees who allegedly stole IP. The companies between them have hundreds of patents, and as this Editor has noted in previous IP and patent troll articles, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is not especially rigorous in ensuring that patents are not overbroad. Wonderful for the IP attorneys, but not exactly what Fitbit wants as a runup to their expected IPO next week. Wall Street Journal….Now an EHR and PHR join Hackermania Running Wild. Medical Informatics Engineering reported Tuesday that in May their server was cyberattacked, exposing PHI of patients in five clients and separately information contained in the NoMoreClipboard PHR subsidiary. POLITICO reports that this is the first recorded instance of an EHR compromise. MIE Release, POLITICO Morning eHealth….If you are in the Cleveland, Ohio area and have an interest, Concussion: A National Challenge is a free, two-day event on detection and diagnosis sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Metro Health and Taipei Medical University. Advance registration required.

Health Datapalooza 2015: more data, better health

June 10, 2015 | by

Guest columnist and data analytics whiz Sarianne Gruber (@subtleimpact) sat in on the Health Data Consortium’s 2015 edition of Health Datapalooza last week in Washington, DC. It was all about the data that Medicare has been diligently harvesting. Also see the US-UK connection on obesity.

Health Datapalooza 2015, now in its sixth year, welcomed more than 2,000 innovators, healthcare industry executives, policymakers, venture capitalists, startups, developers, researchers, providers, consumers and patient advocates. Health Datapalooza brings together stakeholders to discuss how best to work the advance health and healthcare,” said Susan Dentzer, senior policy adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a member of the Health Data Consortium. The Consortium promotes health data best practices and information sharing; and works with businesses, entrepreneurs, and academia to help them understand how to use data to develop new products, services, apps and research insights. This year’s conference was held on May 31 through June 3 in Washington, DC. And how best to celebrate is with the gift of more data!

New Medicare Data Means More Transparency
The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its third annual update to the Medicare hospital inpatient and outpatient charge data on June 1, 2013. (more…)

Teladoc sued by American Well

June 9, 2015 | by | 1 Comment

American Well has launched a patent infringement case against Teladoc according to a news release yesterday.
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Teladoc-logo.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The 10-page submission to the courts by American Well claims the infringements to be
– accessing a data repository that stores information pertaining to medical service providers including present availability of the medical service providers for participating in a consultation
– receiving in a computer, indications that members of a pool of  medical service providers have become presently available
– receiving in the computer, a request from a consumer of services to consult with a medical service provider
– identifying in the computer, an available member of the pool
– and establishing a real-time communication channel between the consumer of services and the identified member of the pool

This author is wondering who thought this was such a novel technology as to warrant a patent? What were they thinking? Having worked on developing unified messaging systems for a mobile phone operator at the turn of the century (now that’s a scary 15 years ago) I am just picking myself off the floor after reading this.
Surely all these functions are no more than what is in every instant messaging program, dating back to 1990s? Replace the words “medical service provider” by “friends” or “contacts” and “consultation” by “chat” or “call” it seems to me you get … Skype and Face Time and more! If I am missing something I’ll be happy to be put right.

It turns out that Teladoc also noticed something along these lines and told the patent office as much in March, according to Med City News. Not surprisingly American Well hasn’t taken too kindly to that and hence the law suit.

Let’s watch the outcome

Nurses, China, ageing, longevity, TV, mobile data, Magna Carta, even logarithms – something for everyone!

June 5, 2015 | by

This editor has always felt that telehealth and allied technologies is a nurse’s friend, enabling them to treat more people, with less stress, in short delivering more care and driving less car. It’s therefore great to see the European Federation of Nurses so active in the mHealth event in Riga recently, and to see them making a strong case for nurse engagement in the mHealth care pathways.

However this editor could not restrain a small chuckle at presumably a wayward spellchecker resulting in the phrase “incorporating big data logarithms for clinical pathways” appearing in the Presidential Message in their June-July 2015 Update.

Staying, briefly, overseas – the UKTI and co want to take you to the Expo 2015 in Milan on 28 September to 1 October to find new export opportunities. Programme for the main day is here. Book for the whole event here. Looking further afield, there is more info about the China Healthcare & Life Sciences Roadshow 2015 taking place in London, Manchester, Belfast, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff between 29 June – 8 July here. For those interested in exporting to China, the roadshow will highlight the extensive work that has been done to identify and scope current opportunities in the healthcare sector there. Great stuff.

On a different tack, this editor has just been made aware that the University of Greenwich has established (more…)

Medtronic favoring early-stage acquisitions, diabetes; American Well and Teva

June 4, 2015 | by

Medtronic plc, now firmly planted in the Auld Sod of Ireland, reported a tidy $7.304 bn in its 4th quarter global revenue closing 24 April versus a prior year of $7.257 bn, with a net loss of $1 million. Their report yesterday (2 June) was primarily centered around the integration of Covidien and the foreign currency loss. Results were especially strong in the US with an 8 percent gain in fourth quarter. Earlier speculation that the major Covidien acquisition in addition to Corventis, Zephyr Technologies (through Covidien) and telehealth provider Cardiocom would slow future investments seems to be the direction CEO Omar Ishrak is taking, based on his comments during the analyst call. The Covidien strategy of making early-stage company acquisitions is to his liking and with new revenues from Covidien (and a more favorable tax domicile) certainly there is not a lack of funds despite a small loss in fourth quarter revenues. Another change from being a cardiac-centric device company is apparent in the growth area of global diabetes, shifting from pumps to diabetes management. They have a minority investment in diabetes manager Glooko, a partnership with IBM Watson Health for diabetes management, and acquired a Dutch clinic and research center, Diabeter. Jonah Comstock at Mobihealthnews has more on that call.

In a surprising move, Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals is putting a reported ‘tens of millions of dollars’ into American Well and their telemedicine (virtual consult) platform. The pharma interest at once may be narrow in utilizing these consults in clinical trials, but as we have seen with Merck’s telemedicine clinics in Kenya, there’s also a focus on monitoring critical medication at long distances. Late last year American Well completed an $81 million Series C, but it is not clear whether Teva is a part of this and the news is just now catching up. MedCityNews, Globes (Israeli business website)

The leaky roof of healthcare data (in)security–DARPA to the rescue?

June 4, 2015 | by

This week’s priceless quote:

“A lot of the response was, ‘We live in a cornfield in the middle of Minnesota,’” he said. “’Who wants to hurt us? Who can even find us here?’”–Jim Nelms, Mayo Clinic’s first chief information security officer, 

We know where you are and what you do! The precarious state of healthcare data security at facilities and with insurers, plus increased external threats from hacking has been getting noticed by Congress–when you see it in POLITICO, you know finally it’s made it into the Rotunda. It was over the horizon late last summer with the FBI alert and legislators in high dudgeon over the Community Health Systems China hack [TTA 22 Aug 14]. It’s a roof that leaks, that costs a lot to fix, doesn’t have immediate benefit (cost avoidance never does) but when it does leak it’s disastrous.

This article rounds up much of what these pages have pointed out for several years, including the Ponemon Institute/IBM study from earlier this week, the Chinese/Russian connections behind Big Hacks not only for selling data, but also IP [TTA 26 Aug 14] and how decidedly easy it is to hack devices and equipment [TTA 10 May 14]. Acknowledgement that healthcare data security is about 20 years behind finance and defense deserves a ‘hooray!’, but when you realize that on average only 3 percent of HIT spend is on security when it should be a minimum of 10 percent (HIMSS) or higher…yet the choice may be better security or uncompensated patient care particularly in rural areas, what will it be for many healthcare organizations?

The article also doesn’t go far enough in the devil’s dilemma–that the Federal Government with Medicare, HITECH, meaningful use, rural telehealth and programs like Medicare Shared Savings demand more and more data tracking, sharing and response mechanisms, stretching HIT 15 ways from sundown. At the cutely named Health Datapalooza presently going on in Washington DC, data sharing is It for Quality Care, or else. Yet the costs to smaller healthcare providers to prevent that ER readmission scenario through new care models such as PCMHs and ACOs is stunning. And the consequences may be more consolidated, less available healthcare. We are already seeing merger rumors in the insurer area and scaledowns/shutdowns/buyouts of community health organizations including smaller hospitals and clinics. Also iHealthBeat.

DARPA to the rescue? The folks who brought you the Internet may develop a solution, but it won’t be tomorrow or even the day after. The Brandeis Program is a several stage project over 4.5 years to determine how “to enable information systems that would allow individuals, enterprises and U.S. government agencies to keep personal and/or proprietary information private.” It discards the current methodology of filtering data (de-identification) or trusting third-parties to secure. Armed With Science  FedBizOpps has the broad agency announcement in addition to vendor solicitation information.

Healthcare vulnerability in a concatenation of data breaches

June 2, 2015 | by

Concatenation is one of those lovely English words that express far more than its simpler synonyms: sequence, series or chain of events. Perhaps we have experienced that concatenation of data breaches which connect and demonstrate a critical mass that motivate healthcare organizations, including insurers, to ensure that data security and privacy gets primacy in HIT. Our Readers know we’ve been on the case since 2010; we’ve been noting Ponemon Institute and ID Experts studies since then.

While simple, straightforward theft can be the cause of smaller breaches and not part of a Big Hack, it’s not as Three Stooges or Benny Hill-esque as perhaps the JAMA study earlier this year made it out to be, especially if it’s your personal record, or your patient’s, which is breached, identity and financials damaged. (See this Security Intelligence article on a minor health breach and how it affected an individual who happens to be in IBM’s security arm.)

Just in the past few weeks, in the US we have experienced the following major and minor breaches:

  • CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Maryland–an insurer, not a hospital or practice–had a Big Hack of 1.1 million health records, with names, birth dates, email addresses and insurance identification numbers (but not SSI or credit card numbers) revealed.
  • Beacon Health Systems (Indiana) had a phishing attack into employee email boxes dating back to 2013. This was a Medium Hack that affected about 220,000 patients. Data taken included SSI and driver’s license. Health Data Management today.
  • Advantage Dental in Redmond, Washington had a 152,000 patient hack during three days in February.
  • Also in February, a New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation employee transferred patient files to her personal and new work email. 90,000 patients may have compromised data as a result. Becker’s

More breaches are listed today in iHealthBeat and the ever-growing list on Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Ponemon Institute’s 2015 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global Analysis, with IBM, was published last week. (more…)

Good news on telemedicine from the US…and one small potentially dark cloud

May 31, 2015 | by

According to FierceHealthIT, last week three more states – Indiana, Minnesota and Nevada – enacted telemedicine parity laws, bringing the total to 27 plus the District of Columbia, to make it that much easier to provide – and to request provision – of a telemedicine service.

  • Indiana’s requires coverage of the services under private insurance through video, audio or other media. The law prohibits a provider from having to obtain written consent for use of telemedicine.
  • Minnesota’s law says health plans must cover and reimburse for telemedicine the same way and at the same cost as in-person service. Medicaid coverage, according to the law, is limited to three telehealth services per week per beneficiary.
  • Nevada’s requires coverage and reimbursement for telehealth under private insurance and Medicaid, as well as workers compensation (the first state to include this) to the same extent and at the same price as provided in person.

Meanwhile MorningStar reports that a Federal Court ruled in favor of Teladoc, blocking as illegally limiting competition  (more…)

The health disruptors, about to be themselves disrupted

May 31, 2015 | by

FierceMedicalDevices on Friday had an article on disruption of the hearing aid business that looks like it could have slipped through a time warp from a few years back – it even mentions faxing as a part of the new process.

The disruption it transpires is separating hearing test from hearing aid provision, the results of the test being sent to a provider “via fax or email”. This it seems is likely to reduce device costs (no mention of the tests costs) from $1,000-$6,000 to some $700/pair.

However, as a Royal Society of Medicine audience heard recently, (more…)

Telstra has spent $100M on telehealth

May 29, 2015 | by

Telstra Health has splashed out $100 million buying up other telehealth companies, it was revealed at a recent conference. Bronwyn Pike, former Minister of Health in Victoria and now Community Care Lead at Telstra Health, addressing the 13th National Rural Health Conference[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Telstra-Health.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /] held in Darwin from May 24th to 27th, described how Telstra Health wants to transform rural health in Australia.

“Increasing demand, rising costs and more people with chronic illness are among the challenges Australia’s health care industry is facing. Working harder can only go so far — we need to reimagine what the future could look like”, Pike wrote in her abstract.

“Helping users to do more for themselves has been a key feature of almost every other industry change of the last decade. Banking is a perfect example — where once every single interaction required your physical presence in front of a teller, now you can manage almost every aspect of your banking needs securely online.

“Health is caught in a model that is inconvenient for patients and labour intensive for health care providers. We need to tailor the model to suit the health industry and capitalise on the benefits connection can provide. Those living in rural and remote communities without regular access to all levels of care stand to benefit enormously if we can unlock the potential of ehealth”

Tunstall adds services for Australian veterans, upgrades US call centers

May 29, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Big-T-thumb-480×294-55535.gif” thumb_width=”150″ /]Tunstall has been quiet on the newsfront lately, so these two items from Australia and the US are to be noted. In Australia, the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) rehabilitation appliances program (RAP), which provides subsidized personal response systems to veterans, now includes Tunstall’s PERS, iVi fall detector pendant, PIR movement sensor and GPS watch. The program requires that veterans be evaluated for need by a qualified health provider. Tunstall has participated in the RAP program since 2002. Pulse+IT (Australasia) In the US, a significant part of Tunstall’s purchase of AMAC were medical answering service operations in Long Island City, NY, Pawtucket, RI, and Newington, CT. A $10 million upgrade of their 24/7 service includes CRM for healthcare providers for after-hours, overflow support, appointment reminders, insurance verification and help desk services. Release

Telehealth reimbursement makes legislative progress in Texas, US House

May 29, 2015 | by

In Texas, telehealth reimbursement as part of the state Medicaid program passed their House resoundingly (120 to 5!) and moved to the state Senate. (In Texas, if your bill makes it through the scrum that is their House, the Senate moves expeditiously.)  HB (House Bill) 2641 would authorize Texas’ Health & Human Services Commission (HHSC) to extend reimbursement for home telemonitoring (telehealth) services under the state Medicaid program from September this year for four years. Health care providers in Medicaid would be reimbursed for review and transmission of electronic health information. The caveat of course is that it is ‘feasible and cost effective’–it is designed to be expenditure neutral. The bill also includes extensive stipulations on health information exchanges based on national standards (ANSI) as well as amending the health and safety code for immunizations and other health conditions. The ‘criminal offense’ pertains to protected health information breaches as a misdemeanor. Telehealth inclusion in Medicaid is positive as this state insurance plan serves the poorest and often sickest, as well as many federal Medicare ‘dual eligibles’. Texas, being a large state, also sets trends (including the most reluctant to adopt cross-state telemedicine licensure.)  Text of HB2641

Would that telehealth reimbursement have the same chance in that large, exceedingly deliberative body called the US House of Representatives. HR2066, the Telehealth Enhancement Act of 2015, is similar to a bill that expired in committee in the last session. It was introduced (more…)

Two telemedicine clinics open in Kenya

May 28, 2015 | by

Two telemedicine clinics have been opened in Nairobi and [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/kenyatta_hospital.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Machakos, 63 km from Nairobi, in Kenya, according to a report in HIT Consultant. The clinics, based at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi and the Machakos Level 5 Hospital in Machakos, will provide patients in remote areas the ability to consult cancer specialists at the Kenyatta Hospital using video conferencing.

Both hospitals are state run hospitals and the telemedicine service is being funded by Merck, the international pharmaceutical company.

Merck recently acquired remote cardiac monitoring company eCardio shortly before eCardio merged with remote monitoring device maker Preventice. Previously we reported that Merck invested heavily in WellDoc when WellDoc raised $20m of funding.

Read more about the Merck project in Kenya here.