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Check out the latest Health Wonk Review

The newest edition of the blog carnival Health Wonk Review is up, courtesy of David Williams and his Health Business Blog. My podcast with Peter Waegemann of the mHealth Initiative made this biweekly review of healthcare commentary from across the blogosphere. This Health Wonk Review seems to have more on health IT and healthcare quality than most editions, and that makes me happy. One post also rightly takes aim at some of the shortfalls in healthcare journalism.

April 14, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Podcast: mHealth Initiative’s Peter Waegemann

In 2009, after 25 years of moving “Toward an Electronic Patient Record” (TEPR), the Medical Records Institute disbanded and its founder, Peter Waegemann, shifted his focus to mobile healthcare by creating the mHealth Initiative.

TEPR had grown into a rather substantial event, peaking at 3,800 attendees in 2004, when newly appointed national health IT coordinator Dr. David Brailer was the featured speaker. But attendance and vendor square footage rapidly declined after that, as much of the action in the realm of EMRs either moved to medical specialty societies or the huge HIMSS conference.

Taking a more content-driven than vendor-driven approach, the mHealth Initiative has tried its hand at conferences since last year. (I spoke and served on a panel at the organization’s 2nd mHealth Networking Conference last fall.) A week ago, the group held its third such event in that paradise for lovers of jet noise, Rosemont, Ill., and I sat down with Waegemann to record this podcast.

Podcast details: Interview with Peter Waegemann, chairman and founder of the mHealth Initiative. Recorded March 30, 2011, at the mHealth Initiative’s 3rd Networking Conference in Rosemont, Ill. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 6.0 MB. Running time 26:02.

0:20     Transition from e-health to m-health after 25 years of running TEPR
1:50    “Total paradigm shift” for documenting and accessing information at the point of care
2:20     No country he’s seen has a complete, effective EMR yet
2:40    Movement from an industrial society to an “information society” of knowledge workers
4:40    Beyond voice communications
6:20    Behavior change in healthcare and adapting to technology
7:20    Lack of connectivity among mobile devices and shortcomings in current technology
8:55    The politics of standards for m-health devices and systems
10:40    Always “five years away”
11:20    Searching for the iPhone of home monitoring
12:00    iPad’s role in healthcare and its shortcomings
13:00    Apps
14:20    EMR vendors discovering mobile devices
15:25    Distinctions between wired health, wireless health and connected health
15:50    “Three pillars” of m-health
16:40     “Communication-enhanced healthcare”
17:35    Better care for less money
19:05    Cell phones in hospitals
20:30    Integration issues
21:00    Patients and younger physicians driving change
22:00    “Unified communications”
22:42    Payment for home monitoring
24:30    European approaches to m-health

April 8, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Podcast has been fixed

There was a problem with the podcast I posted a few days ago from September’s mHealth Initiative conference. The file has been fixed and everything should be working fine at this link.

Thanks for your patience.

November 5, 2010 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Podcast: Panel discussion on mobile healthcare

Nearly two months ago, I was honored to be a participant in the closing panel session at the mHealth Initiative’s 2nd mHealth Networking Conference in San Diego. I happened to record the audio of that session directly off the sound board. I present that recording here.

Other participants on the panel, which addressed hype vs. reality in mobile healthcare, were: C. Peter Waegemann, mHealth Initiative founder; John Mattison, M.D., CMIO of Kaiser Permanente; and Paulanne Balch, M.D., physician lead for KP Health Connect messaging.

You should know my gravelly, hesitating voice by now. The man with the German accent is Waegemann and the other male voice is Mattison’s. Obviously, the female voice belongs to Balch, though mHealth Initiative President Claudia Tessier makes a couple of appearances.

Podcast details: Panel discussion from mHealth Initiative 2nd Networking Conference on hype vs. reality, featuring Neil Versel, Peter Waegemann, Paulanne Balch, M.D., and John Mattison, M.D. Recorded Sept. 9, 2010. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 77.6 MB, running time 1:21:26.

0:00 Intro (Waegemann)
0:45 Hype around untethered PHRs (Versel)
2:40 PHRs and projections for future (Mattison)
5:50 Why there’s hype (Versel)
7:15 Consumer perspective on connectivity (Balch)
8:15 “Mind-blowing” applications in m-health (Waegemann)
8:50 iPhone replacing the stethoscope (Versel)
9:45 M-health as the “horseless carriage” (Balch)
10:25 What problem m-health addresses and what’s missing (Mattison)
12:10 Power of text messaging (Versel)
12:55 Patients texting during exams (Balch)
13:35 Audience question: What’s next after m-health
13:55 M-health is an enabler (Waegemann)
15:15 Too much unfiltered information (Mattison)
16:55 Movement to a knowledge-based society (Waegemann)
18:00 Machine-data interactions, escalated to experts as needed (Mattison)
19:00 Vision of personalized shopping experiences to choose healthy food (Balch)
19:45 Evolution of information sharing in healthcare (Waegemann)
21:40 How computers have changed teaching to focus on heuristics (Mattison)
23:15 Understanding context (Versel)
24:10 How m-health will change health information management (Waegemann)
24:35 The evolution of transcription and HIM (Claudia Tessier)
26:30 Changes in how information is collected (Balch, Mattison)
27:30 What you can’t find on the Internet (Mattison)
28:15 Audience comment: The future will favor those who can integrate information
28:55 Different types of information processing (Mattison)
29:30 Audience question: Where does consumer trust come from in healthcare?
31:25 Loss of collegiality due to EHRs and text messaging (Mattison)
33:45 Trusted entities (Mattison)
35:40 Generational differences in trust of doctors (Versel)
37:40 Lessons from early adopters (Balch)
39:25 Migration away from direct social contact (Mattison)
41:00 Systems for patients to describe their conditions (Waegemann)
41:50 Clinical Document Architecture to handle structured and unstructured data (Mattison)
44:35 Gaming for better health (Balch/Mattison)
45:50 Audience question: How much leadership does Kaiser show in this area?
46:30 Aneesh Chopra’s visit to KP’s Garfield Center (Mattison)
48:20 Can other organizations close the digital divide? (Waegemann/Mattison)
49:45 Kaiser looking at open-source technology (Mattison)
50:25 Power of text messaging and social networking (Balch)
50:50 Encouraging healthy behavior through information (Waegemann)
51:40 Embracing basic mobile technologies (Versel)
53:25 Mobile is changing economics of healthcare (Mattison)
54:30 Consumers equating more care with better care (Versel)
55:30 Technology vs. cultural attitudes (Mattison)
56:15 Audience comment: Fee-for-service model needs to change
56:40 Kaiser vs. fee-for-service model (Mattison)
58:20 Audience question: What is boundary between health/fitness and clinical/therapeutic apps?
59:25 Standards for evidence-based medicine (Mattison)
1:02:15 Audience question: How do you accelerate cycle time for discovery?
1:02:35 EHR as an observational, enrollment and tracking tool (Mattison)
1:04:00 Consumers will drive app acceptance (Balch)
1:04:20 User interfaces (Waegemann)
1:04:55 No comment (Mattison)
1:05:10 Audience question: Will mobile widen digital divide between healthcare and “enemies” of population health?
1:07:05 Who is custodian of individual data? (Mattison)
1:08:20 Knowing consumer preferences (Balch)
1:08:40 Wish list for m-health (all panelists and some audience members)
1:20:10 “Journey” of mobile health (Waegemann)

October 29, 2010 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

My slides from today’s presentation

SAN DIEGO—I was a featured speaker this morning at the mHealth Initiative’s 2nd International mHealth Networking Conference, with a presentation entitled, “Evolution of the Revolution.” Here are the slides from my presentation.

I’m hoping to have audio to post later.

September 8, 2010 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Fall speaking engagements

My fledgling speaking career—one that seems to be finding me rather than me pursuing it—is getting a big boost this fall.

Next week, I’m part of the opening keynote session at the mHealth Initiative‘s 2nd International mHealth Networking Conference in San Diego.

On Thursday, Sept. 16, it looks like I will be moderating a roundtable on mobile patient management at the half-day Mobile Healthcare and Medicine Symposia in Toronto, as part of Mobile Innovation Week in that fantastic Canadian city.

I’ll be headed to Las Vegas in mid-October to moderate three sessions at the Mobile Health Expo 2010:

  • “The Real Time Healthcare Enterprise,” Oct. 19, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. PDT
  • “Carrier or Wired Connectivity as the Backhaul From a Central Aggregator? Wireless Architectures and Industry Alignments for Approaches to Establishing Successful, Interactive Healthcare Monitoring,” Oct. 21, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
  • “Mobile Payments and Health Information Exchange at the Point of Care Using Multi-Modal Mobile Apps to Engage Patients for Healthcare Providers,” Oct. 21, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m.

Also, FierceMobileHealthcare is planning some kind of event around the mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C., Nov. 8-10. As editor of that publication, I expect to play a role in the event, which will be separate from the actual conference that the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health is putting on. Stay tuned for details.

I hope to see you at one or more of these events.

I’ve also, finally, updated the list of upcoming health IT-related conferences that you see in the right-hand column of this page. This should take you all the way through HIMSS next February.

Oh, if you were wondering what I think of the term “mHealth” (with a forced capital H), read my column in this week’s FierceMobileHealthcare.

September 2, 2010 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

The Medical Records Institute is no more

Following a disappointing turnout at the 25th annual TEPR conference earlier this month, C. Peter Waegemann and Claudia Tessier are moving from the Medical Records Institute to the recently created mHealth Initiative, effectively ending the organization Waegemann founded in the mid-1980s.

“It is time to put our energy into the new and exciting field of cell phones in healthcare. This is where the action is. This is where the future is,” Waegemann says in a press release.

There was much speculation at the lightly attended TEPR that this might be the last year of the conference. Today’s announcement likely seals that fate. The mHealth Initiative will have meetings of its own, starting with a seminar and workshop March 31 in Boston.

Waegemann will serve as executive director of mHI and Tessier as president. Each has a new e-mail address: p.waegemann@mhealthinitiative.org for Waegemann and c.tessier@mhealthinitiative.org for Tessier.

February 20, 2009 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.