HRSA sets $16 million fund for 4 rural telehealth grant programs (US)

August 24, 2016 | by

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is part of the Federal Health and Human Services (HHS) department, is making four grant programs available to support rural telehealth and quality improvement in 60 rural communities within 32 states, including a joint program with the Veterans Affairs Office of Rural Health. The four programs administered by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) within HRSA are primarily three-year programs and include:

  • The largest amount, $6.3 million, will go to the Telehealth Network Grant Program: $300,000 each annually in a three-year program to 21 community health organizations for telehealth programs and networks in medically underserved areas, with a concentration on child health
  • The Flex Rural Veterans Health Access Program: $300,000 each annually in a three-year program to three organizations providing veteran mental health and other health services. This is a joint program with the VA totalling $900,000.
  • Small Health Care Provider Quality Improvement: $21 million will support 21 organizations over three years in improving care quality for populations with high rates of chronic conditions, and to support rural primary care.
  • Seven Rural Health Research Centers: $700,000 per year for four years, totalling $4.9 million, to support policy research on improving access to healthcare and population health in rural communities. (Funds that more usefully would have gone to veterans health?–Ed. Donna)

HHS release, Mobihealthnews, Healthcare IT News

Paper beats the EHR rock when it’s about accuracy: JAMIA study

July 11, 2016 | by

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) may be one swallow and not the spring, but points to something doctors have been reporting anecdotally for years. Researchers examined initial progress notes of patients admitted to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan both before and after the Epic Systems EHR implementation (POLITICO Morning eHealth) in 2012. Their sample of 500 notes examined five specific diagnoses with invariable physical findings: permanent atrial fibrillation, aortic stenosis, intubation, lower limb amputation and cerebrovascular accident with hemiparesis. The error rate of EHRs compared to the paper charts was 24.4 percent versus 4.4 percent. Residents were better at EHR-ing than the more experienced attending physicians for inaccuracies (5.3 percent v. 17.3 percent) and omissions (16.8 percent v. 33.9 percent). As this is an older snapshot, it may have narrowed with familiarity and training, but this is in line with prior reporting in multiple countries (here) that customization by real clinicians needs to be part of the implementation (designed by IT people without clinical background), often design doesn’t meet clinical needs, many have glitches and that they take entirely too long to fill out, notoriously in mental health (see JAMIA study from April). And let’s not get into the plagues of hacking, ransomware and health data exchange. HealthcareITNews, JAMIA (abstract only)

Sonde Health using voice as a biomarker for diagnosis

June 30, 2016 | by

Back in 2013, we profiled Max Little of the UK-based Parkinson’s Voice Initiative, who was in the fairly early stages of voice testing and analysis to aid early diagnosis of this disease. By 2015, he had over 17,000 voice samples, was partnering with the Michael J Fox Foundation, and was seeking to develop a non-invasive, quick, accurate test based on acoustic markers. Dr Little is an Oxford University PhD, currently a Wellcome Trust/MIT fellow at the MIT Media Lab. The Voice Initiative has additional support from PatientsLikeMe, Twilio and Aculabcloud.  But also developed at MIT, by Thomas Quatieri’s team at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, is a broader platform for voice diagnosis. This has been applied to mental health conditions such as depression, respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, and in pilots for TBI, cognitive impairment and…Parkinson’s. This has been licensed to Sonde Health, which hasn’t much on their website but is out of the Boston-based PureTech R&D/venture firm. The acoustic markers they cite are ‘dynamic changes in pitch and harmonics, articulation timing and hoarseness or breathiness that indicate and requires no analysis of words’. MedCityNews, MedTechBoston

Two events of interest, especially to digital health entrepreneurs

August 26, 2015 | by

Prof Mike Short has drawn my attention to two events taking place in October:

‘The cupboard is bare: how technology can address key unmet needs in mental health’ – Cambridge Wireless Healthcare SIG event – this half day Cambridge event om 13th October, hosted by Philips Research Laboratories and jointly sponsored by TTP and Plextek, will explore the needs from the perspective of the healthcare professional and patient. More details here; book here.

6th Discovering Start-Ups Competition – a brilliant opportunity to win some really valuable prizes to get your start-up really started up, pitching to an elite panel of business leaders from Deloitte, Google, BT, IBM, Cambridge Angels, London Business Angels, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung and more. Finals will be held at Deloittes in London on 21st October. Note entries have to be submitted by 14th September at the latest.

 

NHS Apps Library embraces mental health…and Mole Detective vanishes

March 24, 2015 | by

Thanks to Mike Clark for pointing this editor to the breaking news that the NHS Mental Health Apps Library has now gone live. It features online tools, resources and apps that they claim have a proven track record of effectiveness in improving mental health outcomes.

It is accessible through the NHS Choices platform, a website that gathers over 40 million visits per month, 9.7 million of which are to pages on depression; 6 million per month to stress and 9.4 million to anxiety.

This is likely to be a major benefit to those who have difficulty obtaining access to face:face mental health services, especially as a number of presentations in the Royal Society of Medicine have suggested that online mental health services can often be more effective (more…)

Dr Topol’s prescription for The Future of Medicine, analyzed

January 12, 2015 | by

The Future of Medicine Is in Your Smartphone sounds like a preface to his latest book, ‘The Patient Will See You Now’, but it is quite consistent with Dr Topol’s talks of late [TTA 5 Dec]. The article is at once optimistic–yes, we love the picture–yet somewhat unreal. When we walk around and kick the tires…

First, it flies in the face of the increasing control of healthcare providers by government as to outcomes and the shift for good or ill to ‘outcomes-based medicine’. Second, ‘doctorless patients’ may need fewer services, not more, and why should these individuals, who represent the high-info elite at least initially, be penalized by having to pay the extremely high premiums dictated by government-approved health insurance (in the US, ACA-compliant insurance a/k/a Obamacare)–or face the US tax penalties for not enrolling in same? Third, those liberating mass market smartwatches and fitness trackers aren’t clinical quality yet–fine directionally, but real clinical diagnosis (more…)

Addiction: Improving Outcomes using Computer-based Therapy

May 27, 2014 | by

Computer-Based-Behavioral-Therapy-Shows-Promise-For-Addiction-Treatment

A recent randomised control trial gives support to the use of computer-based therapy for treatment of addictions. The results were reported this week at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, following publication in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Although the trial focused specifically on cocaine-dependent individuals, it replicates findings of a RCT carried out in 2008, in which participants had a wider range of substance addictions.

Results of this latest study show that those who received computer-assisted therapy were significantly more likely to attain three or more consecutive weeks of abstinence from cocaine as compared to those not receiving any form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – 36% compared with 17%. And the effects appear to last; the control group also had better outcomes six months after treatment had ended.

Individuals who receive CBT learn to identify and correct problematic behaviours by applying a range of techniques.  Central elements of the therapy include anticipating likely problems, correcting harmful thought patterns, and developing effective coping strategies. The techniques enable people to counteract addiction’s powerful effects on the brain, so they can regain control of their behaviour and lives. (more…)

The Future of Mental Health in the Workplace

October 8, 2013 | by

Wednesday, 23 October, 11 The Strand, London, WC2N 5HR

The Workplace Health & Wellbeing Movement, in conjunction with Mind and Punter Southall, will be addressing the current and future landscape of mental health at work.

AGENDA:

1730 – Welcome & networking
1800 – Introductions (John Dean, Managing Direct Punter Southall Health & Protection)
1830 – Paul Farmer (Chief Executive of Mind) on Taking Care of Business Campaign
1900 – Q&A / Networking

More information on this Meetup here. Thanks to reader Stephen Haynes of Navigator Health.

Now a virtual therapist

May 23, 2013 | by

“Ellie” the Virtual Analyst has it right down to the  ‘uh-huhs’  in responding to her patients, but she really excels at taking the measure of body language. According to the NPR interview with University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies’ lead developers, psychologist Albert “Skip” Rizzo and computer scientist Louis-Philippe Morency, “Ellie tracks and analyzes around 60 different features — various body and facial movements, and different aspects of the voice. The theory of all this is that a detailed analysis of those movements and vocal features can give us new insights into people who are struggling with emotional issues. The body, face and voice express things that words sometimes obscure.” Movement is tracked by Microsoft Kinect, voice by a microphone. This is the flip side of their original telementalhealth research from last year with simulations of virtual patients for training psychiatric residents [TTA 14 Aug] and PTSD assessment [TTA 28 Oct 11]. Like both of these, this was originally commissioned by the US Department of Defense for PTSD diagnosis, so Ellie provides a report at the end of each session. Your Editor also thinks there’s commercialization potential in the growing category of ‘couch apps’. [TTA 11 May] If Your Shrink Is A Bot, How Do You Respond?