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Topol’s talk at TEDMED 2009

If you saw my presentation to Meharry Medical College earlier this month either live or on video, you know I referenced Dr. Eric Topol’s talk at TEDMED 2009, in which the Scripps Health cardiologist predicted the demise of the stethoscope by the 2016, the 200th anniversary of that old standby. If you were curious, there is video available of Topol’s session. In fact, it’s right here.

You don’t actually get to see Topol throwing his stethoscope in the trash. I understand that happened right when he took the stage. This video starts a little after then.

April 25, 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.

EMRs for mental health?

I’ve been wondering, has anyone in mental health truly had success with an EMR? I can’t imagine any psychotherapist sitting at a computer typing notes while there’s a patient on the couch. That would be particularly bad for a patient with self-esteem issues.

I imagine that tablets like the iPad may make this a little easier, but what psychotherapists really need is something like a pen tablet (with a stylus rather than touch-screen) or digital ink to mimic taking notes on a pad of paper.

The other issue related to EMRs in mental health is the exchange of notes with other physicians. Will an electronic note from therapist back to the primary care physician wind up in the electronic chart that might get sent, say, to an orthopedist or gastroenterologist? The only thing other specialists really would need to know is the patient’s medication list, not a psychiatric diagnosis or treatment history, right? Segmenting out sensitive parts of an EMR like treatment for mental health and sexually transmitted diseases is something vendors and CIOs have struggled with for years, and I believe continue to struggle with.

In both cases, I’d love to hear your anecdotes here.

April 22, 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.

My week in review

Since I’m starting to write a lot of daily/breaking news, I’m going to try something new today that might become a regular Friday feature: posting my week in review. It will consist of a quick rundown of stories I’ve written this week. Here goes:

Monday

“Patient Safety Initiative To Leverage Health IT: The $1 billion federal Partnership for Patients initiative aims to cut $35 billion in healthcare costs, save 60,000 lives, and decrease hospital-acquired conditions by 40% by 2013.” (InformationWeek)

Tuesday

“Medicare Opens EHR ‘Meaningful Use’ Attestation” (InformationWeek)

“How mobile health can abide by HIPAA” (MobiHealthNews)

“State of mobile and wireless healthcare” (video/slides of my recent presentation to Meharry Medical College)

Wednesday

“CMIOs to begin testing BlackBerry PlayBook” (MobiHealthNews)

Thursday

“More Unrealistic Expectations From the Public, This Time Involving CDS” (EMR and HIPAA)

 

I’ve got another InformationWeek story to crank out this afternoon that may or may not get posted until Monday, and a podcast in the works, too. Bring on the weekend!

 

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State of mobile and wireless healthcare

As I previously mentioned, I was invited to speak last week at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., on the subject of mobile and wireless healthcare. Unlike past presentations I’ve given, this time I have video. But it’s not easy posting 65 minutes of HD video (a 4.5-GB file). YouTube limits uploads to 15 minutes. Vimeo has no time limit, but restricts file size. Finally I got some software to downsize my video to an acceptable size, so here it is via Vimeo.

I actually gave the same presentation twice, first to about 50 people in an auditorium for Meharry’s grand rounds (plus a few more by videoconference from the local VA hospital), and later in the day to an audience of about 20 people in the Department of Family & Community Medicine. This is the latter, taken with my own video camera set up on a tripod with no camera operator and no external microphone, so the sound level might be a little low. Meharry’s A/V staff recorded the morning session, and I’ll post that professionally shot video if and when I get a copy.

Healthcare and Healthcare IT: Here, There and Everywhere from Neil Versel on Vimeo.

Since some of the slides are hard to read after I lowered the video quality, here’s a PDF of my slides so you can follow along.

I’d like to thank Paul Talley, M.D., director of Medical Grand Rounds at the school, for having me, and Fatima Mncube-Barnes, Ed.D., Meharry’s library director, for inviting me to speak and setting everything up.

April 19, 2011 I Written By

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More on mobile

I haven’t blogged in a couple of days because I’ve been preparing for a speaking engagement at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., on the subject of mobile healthcare. It’s about the fifth time I’ve spoken on this subject, but this presentation was longer than any of the previous ones, a little more than an hour.

I gave my first talk earlier this morning and will repeat it after lunch for a different audience. I’ll post my slides after I’m done and I expect to have video at some point. I’ll put that up, too, once I get it.

April 13, 2011 I Written By

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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

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Podcast: Don Jones of Qualcomm

At the Mobile Health Summit in Washington, D.C., in November, I had a chance to meet Don Jones, vice president of health and life sciences at Qualcomm, for the first time since July 2008, when were both at the m-health week of the Making the eHealth Connection series in Bellagio, Italy. As a founding board member of the West Wireless Health Institute and chairman of the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance, Jones is a key player in wireless and mobile health both in the U.S. and abroad. In this podcast, we chatted about Qualcomm’s interest in this industry, the progress and potential of m-health and what to look for in the future.

Podcast details: Interview with Don Jones, VP of health and life sciences at Qualcomm. Recorded Nov. 10, 2010, at Mobile Health Summit in Washington, D.C. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 32 MB, running time: 34:58.

0:30 Qualcomm’s history in wireless healthcare
1:00 Founding of West Wireless Health Institute and Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance
3:30 Global focus of mHealth Summit and needs in different parts of the world
4:40 Progress in developing countries
5:35 Qualcomm’s partnerships, including master’s program at Scripps Research Institute
6:40 Role of mobile/wireless in EHRs and “meaningful use”
7:50 Quest Diagnostics empowering consumers with app for reporting test results
9:00 Auto-population of patient records and medication reminders
10:25 Consumers embarrassing doctors by adopting technology first
11:15 Physician adoption of PDAs, smartphones and now iPads because they save time
13:05 What the iPad is missing, and the future of touch-screen tablets
14:30 Infection control with mobile devices
15:15 Low-cost imaging technologies replacing the stethoscope
16:40 Possible regulation of smartphones and apps as medical devices
18:30 Safety risks in healthcare without technology
19:45 Thought leadership at mHealth Summit
20:25 Orange and GE Healthcare’s city-wide, cloud-based PACS in Paris
23:00 Mobile/wireless in the context of health reform
25:10 Health delivery reform vs. health insurance reform
27:30 EMRs and incentive payments
28:50 Reimbursement/payment for wireless technologies
31:00 Building a competitive environment in healthcare
32:05 Progress to expect in the next year
33:20 Likely product launches in early 2011
34:05 Operator-driven medical devices

December 26, 2010 I Written By

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New article on wireless healthcare

I’ve had a second article published on Medscape’s Business of Medicine site. This time, it’s an overview of a topic I’ve become quite familiar with in the past year and a half: wireless healthcare. Check it out here. (Free registration required.)

June 1, 2010 I Written By

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New West Wireless CMO has interesting family ties

I just interviewed Dr. Joe Smith, the new chief medical and science officer of the West Wireless Health Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Although his background is in engineering and pharma, he’s got good genes for someone moving into health IT. His sister is Stephanie Reel, CIO of Johns Hopkins University.

April 7, 2010 I Written By

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‘Fierce’ events at HIMSS


I’m not exactly the type of person to be hawking “public appearances” and such, but I will be involved, in my capacity as senior editor of three FierceMarkets publications, in a couple of events at the upcoming HIMSS conference in Atlanta.

The main event, so to speak, is the free networking bash that FierceHealthIT is hosting on Tuesday, March 2, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. It takes place at the World of Coca-Cola, a tourist attraction in its own right. If you’ve never been to Coke’s slick headquarters, it’s definitely worth seeing. It may be hard to to imagine getting excited about something as simple as a soda brand, but the World of Coke is actually a lot of fun and offers tastings of the secret Coke recipe as it exists in countries around the world. And of course, plenty of mixers will be on hand in case you want something a little stronger in your soda cup.

I’ll be at the party, along with the entire Fierce team. Stop by and say hi. It will be great to put face to a name.

For you early risers—and I admit, I normally am not among you—FierceMobileHealthcare and, from another part of the company, FierceWireless, are joining to co-host An Executive Breakfast on Creating a Successful mHealth Initiative.

This exclusive industry event will be held Tuesday, March 2 from 7 to 8:15 a.m. at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel. Our special guests will be Ram Appalaraju, senior VP for marketing at Meru Networks; Geoffrey Brown, senior VP & CIO at Inova Healthcare System in Northern Virginia; Deborah Gash, VP & CIO at Saint Luke’s Health System, Kansas City, Mo.; and Chris Gray, industry solutions manager for heathcare at Sprint Nextel.

FierceWireless Editor-in-Chief Sue Marek will host an intimate roundtable discussion as these executives answer tough questions about the pros and cons of incorporating mobile into the healthcare industry; progress being made to overcome some of the challenges; and lessons learned from early adopters of m-health. Of course, we’ll leave plenty of time for your questions.

The breakfast costs is $65. You can register and pay via a secure server at: http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/himssbreakfast.

I hope to see you at either or both events.

There’s going to be a blogger meet-up, too. I’ll have details in another post.

Oh, I am uploading this from 33,000 feet above Kansas, on a flight from Tucson to Chicago, thanks to the Wi-Fi service available on this plane. (Or is it considered downloading when the server is miles below you?) Talk about mobile!

February 11, 2010 I Written By

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