SaaS-based EMR vendor ClearPractice releases Nimble EMR, designed specifically for the iPad. The EMR works over 3G or WiFi. The first 500 providers to sign up get a free iPad.
West Wireless Health Institute names Dr. Mohit Kaushal EVP of business development and chief strategy officer. Dr. Kaushal was formally Director of Connected Health at the FCC.
Mega-insurer Aetna offers its members home sleep studies with NightWatch Home Sleep Testing from LifeWatch.
The Heart of England NHS Trust is installing Panasonic Toughbooks on mobile carts for wireless tablet access. Trial of the Toughbook found a 12% increase in nursing time spent with patients.
Maybe the NHS should have held out for the new Modo Feather mobile cart designed for the iPad. The new cart should be available in early 2011.
The Quebec College of Physicians comes out in disagreement with the recent report by the Montreal Economic Institute, which found telemedicine as a cure to physician shortages. The College of Physicians stated there is no substitution for the “human presence.”
After Google’s pilot of the use of TV broadcast white spaces, which we reported on last week, the FCC endorses a proposal to free up white spaces for unlicensed use. This is seen as a key to enabling rural and underserved broadband access.
The Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development announces $630K pledge and partnership with Columbia’s Earth Institute to improve telemedicine and SMS-based services to the UN Millennium Development Villages.
Pfizer and Vodafone work together to support “SMS for Health,” a program “aimed at improving access and reliability of medicine supply using mobile phone technology.” The program is being tested in Gambia.
Telestroke service company REACH Call completes a $5 million Series A funding round. The money will be used to expand service offerings and increase marketing. We reported several months ago on REACH Call getting a $1 million investment from the Medical College of Georgia Health Inc.
Leslie A. Saxon, MD, writes an interesting commentary on the Huffington Post about the future of wireless technology in healthcare, both in the US and abroad.
The University of Leeds loans iPhones to medical students as a hygienic solution to paper-based reference materials traditionally used in hospitals.
Dr. K’s Breast Checker iPhone app ($1.99) is released. It helps women stay on top of breast cancer screening and provides advice about findings.
Sanofi-Aventis and AgaMatrix introduce the first-ever medical device — the iBGStar — that physically plugs into the iPhone and iPod Touch, at the annual EASD (European Association for the Study of Diabetes) conference. Pending FDA review, the highly compact device is expected to be available in January 2011 and can be used separately and/or with the free iBGStar Diabetes Manager app.
Dean Clinic becomes the first healthcare organization in the country to offer its patients mobile access to Epic-based medical records with an iPhone app — MyChart.
Scribe Healthcare Technologies announces its new mobile dictation app, Scribe Mobile, that offers the ability to dictate on the go, transfer voice files via 3G or WiFi, view physician schedules, specify file priority, select templates, and track pending dictations.
Researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill produce an iPhone/iPad app to track the latest drug study updates from the FDA and other sources. The app will also allow users to submit side effects of drugs to the FDA after it is screened by Children’s Computational Epidemiology Group.
MD-IT, provider of medical documentation software and service to ambulatory clinics and physician offices, announces the release of MD-IT iConnect, an iPhone app for dictating patient visits.
St. Vincent’s Health System introduces a new iPhone application for its Dial-A-Nurse service that offers free general health and medical information, links to maps, services, and STVHS websites.
Enterprise Mobile Today provides yet another listing of healthcare iPhone apps.
M is an anonymous contributor to HIStalk Mobile, focusing on new mobile applications and iPhone/iPad news.
Sanofi-aventis and AgaMatrix jointly unveil iBGStar, which is a glucose monitor attachment for the iPhone/iPod. The device facilitates communication to providers and provides feedback and reminders, turning the Apple mobile devices into medical devices.
Growing concern is voiced about consumers seeking medical advice through Google searches, which, according to the article, is the number two most influential source of health information after a physician.
The new California Telehealth Network, the largest of its kind launched earlier this summer, gets $14 million to extend telehealth services, with a focus on training.
Bassett Medical Center (NY) receives Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval to test GE’s Smart Patient Room, which is designed to improve care by monitoring staff and patient activity.
Home health technology vendor CellTrack releases a new version certified on Blackberry, Flip Phone, Windows Mobile, and Android devices
A Montreal Economic Institute report finds that “telemedicine can significantly reduce costs to taxpayers, increase health care service efficiency and boost patients’ well-being because they spend less time travelling to and from clinics and hospitals and waiting around to see a nurse or a doctor”.
A $1.5 million NIH grant explores the efficacy of robots in restoring fine motor skills in stroke victims.
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Navinet partners with Prematics to bring Navinet’s messaging and communication to mobile devices at the point of care.
Google Health revamps its look and feel with more of a wellness focus. The partnerships with fitness tracking companies is a nice addition that automates the loading of lifestyle data. Google reiterated that it still does not feel it is subject to HIPAA as it contends it is not a covered entity or a business associate.
A plan for a telemedicine network in Peru calls for providers to stop at Internet cafes before and after work to download and upload data. The is necessitated by healthcare facilities not having Internet access. I wonder what the rate of adoption of something like this would be with US providers.
The African version of a telehealth network, courtesy of the Indian Government. The project includes improved connectivity to 47 African countries.
The first Southern African Telemedicine Conference will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, later this week.
More African news – telemedicine and e-health is outed as “antidote” for the continent’s resource challenges in healthcare.
The iPad 2.0 is rumored to be coming in 7-inch version with two cameras, all of which may make it interesting in the healthcare space.
The “iBaby”, born at home after mother monitored her labor with iPad but failed to get to the hospital in time.
Another bizarre labor story – a woman has her iPhone stolen during labor.
Pew Institute’s Susannah Fox declares that access to information is now ubiquitous and goes on to say, “Mobile is changing us, changing our frame of reference so that we see information as portable, personalized, and participatory … Build on the new frontier. Build on the power of mobile”. The very well written article (lengthy for those with short attention spans) outlines how far we’ve come in terms of access to information and where we go from here.
Motorola unveils (also reported on here and here) its new Enterprise Digital Assistant (EDA) specifically for healthcare. The article claims the new rugged EDA is “disinfectant-ready”, is HIPAA compliant, scans barcodes, and “streamlines clinical workflows by enabling mobile workers to access patient information, accurately administer medication, monitor patient vital signs, place pharmacy and lab orders, collect and track specimens, administer blood transfusions, access test results and more”.
More new hardware for mHealth, Dell will market the Dell Streak 5-inch Android mobile device to healthcare providers.
Emory (GA) selects Amcom Mobile Connect to consolidate messaging and replace its over 4,000 pagers.
HCA Houston partners with Healthagen for iTriage mobile application.
Merck gets into the mobile diabetes app game with the release of Vree for Diabetes for the iPhone ($1.99). The app is geared towards type 2 diabetics and tracks blood sugar, meals, activity, and meds. With a profit margin of 28% and net income of almost $11 billion, I’m a little surprised Merck is charging $1.99.
Sprint and Calgary Scientific partner to offer ResolutionMD Mobile on HTC EVO 4G. The goal is to quickly deliver medical images directly on the EVO, with telestroke as the example given.
Mobile apps to can assist with addiction. My favorite is the app that alerts users when they are in an area that might present temptations, such as when an alcoholic gets near a bar.
Dean Clinic (WI) becomes the first healthcare facility to offer patients access to medical records on iPhone using Epic’s MyChart app.
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare launches web-based Targeted Solutions Tool to improve hand hygiene in hospitals. The eight hospitals that helped develop the tool saw hand hygiene compliance go from 48% to 82% in just over one year. I’m sort of partial to the wireless monitoring systems for hand washing that we’ve reported about here and here.
Ekahau RTLS is used at large psychiatric facility in Austria to improve patient and staff safety.
Nashville-area hospitals are developing mobile Web sites to attract and retain patients. I went to the Saint Thomas Health Services websites, as they were quoted in the article, and the front page, pictured above, advertises mobile websites, has a symptom checker, and a Facebook widget.
A new Virgin Media Business poll finds that 29% of people in the UK expect webcam access to physicians in 10 years, while 11% expect to interact with their providers through the TV. The strongest finding of the study was that 77% want to be able to use multiple channels to book appointments.
According to this article, virtual ICUs offer large ROI in terms of quality and access, despite published findings to the contrary.
Capsule Technologie releases its Mobile Vital Signs all-in-one solution for capturing and transmitting vital signs from the point of care.
Here’s an early story on the role of the iPad in medical education at Stanford.
Rural Missouri counties will get increased access to broadband with federal grant and matching funds totally $38 million. The article highlights how broadband will enable HIE development and telemedicine.
Mobile application developer Artificial Life releases GluCoMo app for the iPhone and iPad. GluCoMo can track “blood sugar level, insulin intake, weight, pulse, physical activity, dietary intake, blood pressure, and medication intake”.
More from last week’s PwC survey: 63% of physicians polled use their own mobile devices, but nearly a third of those said it was not supported in their practices.
Hygieia Diabetes Insulin Guidance System acts as intelligent blood sugar monitor for diabetics, providing insulin instructions based on readings. The device is in clinical trials and does not have FDA approval yet.
Google and Spectrum Bridge work with Hocking Valley Community Hospital (OH) to showcase how TV White Spaces, the unused TV broadcast channels, can be used to provide wireless services in healthcare. Applications enabled through the use of this spectrum included data transmission from first responders, indoor broadband, and outdoor video surveillance for security at the hospital.
Prematics Care Communication Service is offered on the iPhone, allowing “physicians to e-prescribe, access clinical information from health plans and pharmacies, and manage their personal and clinical workflow”.
Palmetto Health Richland Hospital (SC) installs Masimo Patient SafetyNet to allow clinicians to remotely monitor patients, enabling early interventions and reducing ICU transfers.
UK mobile provider Orange launches the Web-based Orange Health Gateway to assist healthcare organizations communicate with patients. The platform has modules, such as Appointment Reminder, that organizations can use to improve two-way communication. This comes on the heels of Orange’s release of the Smartnumbers service in July that is designed to intelligently route calls from patients to available providers.
Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Med, and UNC Chapel Hill jointly launch MedWatcher iPhone app. The app provides users, both clinicians and consumers, with the latest alerts from the FDA and allows them to report adverse events that are then reviewed, submitted to the FDA, and added to HealthMap, which has previously been used for surveillance of infectious disease.
This radiologist’s review of the iPad calls it the “very beginning of something revolutionary”. Though not seen as a replacement for larger, more robust PACS viewers, the portability of the iPad opens doors to extend radiology beyond the basement.
McGill University anesthesiologists in Canada manage surgery patient in Italy using video cameras and dosing computers in a project termed teleanesthesia.
USAID gives $750K to establish the National Telemedicine Centre in Albania. The project includes one main facility in Tirana and five Regional Telemedicine Centers.
A survey of healthcare facilities in the Pacific Northwest finds that 88% lack access to a stroke neurologist.
The Ontario Telemedicine Network, which conducts over 100,000 patient visits a year, signs a deal with Zargis Medical Corp. to integrate Zargis TeleSteth, enabling real-time and store-and-forward sharing of heart and lung sounds.
Aurora Visiting Nurse Association of Wisconsin uses remote monitoring to improve home care. Data collected and transmitted includes “heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and body weight and temperature”.
Fauquier Health System (VA) begins its rollout of iPads to access Meditech via Citrix. This is a Meditech Web site news story.
More stories on the success of the iPad with children diagnosed with autism, including its use at schools for children with autism. We reported a similar story last month.
