“The couch is where it’s at:” 78.5 million to use home health technologies by 2020

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According to a recent report from Tractica, a Colorado-based marketing intelligence firm, the number of people using home health-specific technologies is expected to increase from 14.3 million worldwide in 2014 to 78.5 million by the year 2020. This more than five-fold increase will be driven by a number of important factors—and if you’re curious (like we were) to find out what they are, read on!

Traditionally, home health technologies include offerings that enable providers to remotely monitor and treat patients with chronic conditions, improve care for elderly populations and conduct virtual visits with patients. Growing interests in these services, as Tractica mentions, are very much correlated with rising healthcare costs, a continuously aging population and a rise in the number of people living with one—or multiple—chronic conditions.

When getting down to the “nitty gritty” of research, Tractica added: within the home health technology space, “medical monitoring, diagnosis and treatment” will be the crucial segments to watch between 2014 and 2020–other key segments to keep in mind include remote consultations, elderly care and health & wellness. Tractia’s report states that these specific sectors will “drive the deployment of a wide variety of connected health devices and software applications.”

Although the home health tech industry faces a number of regulatory and security barriers to solve over the next few years, the future is looking bright. At the beginning of this year, a Harris Poll survey commissioned by American Well found 64% of patients to be on board with physician video visits and these numbers are only expected to climb.

For more information, read mobihealthnews’ full coverage article here.

SOURCE: mobihealthnews 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

“Getting the Bedside View:” UK Virtual Reality Project Puts Clinicians in Patients’ Shoes

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From the hospital to the pediatrician’s office, providing compassion and patient support is a top priority for most providers in the modern healthcare era. New initiatives to improve these metrics are constantly in the works, as evidenced by South Devon Healthcare Foundation Trust’s (England) teaming up with innovative software developers to create a firsthand virtual reality simulation of the patient experience.

Meet PatientVR, the brainchild of South Devon’s innovation team and spearheaded by PhD student Nick Peres. Initially, Peres and team were building out a “patient-esque” mannequin that could blink, breathe, bleed and speak—with the goal to develop a more accurate and realistic training tool for medical personnel. When considering the importance of what a patient feels and sees, however, ideas soon migrated to the topic of virtual reality.

PatientVR runs on a headset and chronicles a patient being transported to the ER with chest pain. Originating in the ambulance, said patient is stabilized, examined, informed that he is having a heart attack and then rolled into the operating room where pre-surgical risks are voiced via a team of surgeons. The video is seven minutes long and comprehensively captures the patient perspective along every point of the care delivery process. Oh, and did we mention that Peres filmed the video himself with the help of seven GoPro cameras?

A recent article in HIStalk Connect gathered feedback from a number of clinicians currently piloting PatientVR, including anesthesiologist Tod Guest. When asked about PatientVR’s efficacy, Dr. Guest praised the tool for “[reinforcing] the need to be sensitive to [patients’] needs and their ability to understand the information you’re [giving] them. Their vulnerability and emotional state is important, especially if they are suddenly taken ill with something serious.” If funding is secured in time, PatientVR will be rolled out across a number of UK-based health systems this year. Fingers crossed that Peres makes it over to the states as well!

SOURCE: HIStalk Connect 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

Looking for Treatment Feedback? Read the Rx Recs!

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For hungry restaurant-goers, we have Yelp. For vacation planners, there’s TripAdvisor. And now, for those seeking medication reviews, behold a new and enticing creation: RateRx. According to a recent article published in TechCrunch, on-demand digital health app HealthTap has gathered drug recommendations from over 500,000 medical doctors and is consolidating them into an innovative initiative for patients across the country. Have we piqued your interest yet? Read on.

Although HealthTap’s primary focus is offering on-demand treatment services, its California-based management team recently recognized the need to offer doctor-recommended drug reviews. In its first iteration, RateRx will be geared towards those “on-the-go”—patients can access firsthand, U.S. doctor-generated evaluations of medications and treatments from a free smartphone app. Commonly rated treatments for conditions such as acne, arthritis, anxiety, diabetes, headaches and hypertension are anticipated.

In terms of workflow, HealthTap has mapped out the following: RateRx will ask a doctor to rate the efficacy of a certain medication (doctors can only rate medications they have physically used to treat an illness/condition). Doctors are free to add any ancillary comments and all ratings are then polled into an overall “summary” score. Patients are able to see the results of these ratings, along with individual comments. Each provider using RateRx will have a profile complete with his/her credentials and areas of specialty that patients can also view at will.

Through the creation of RateRx, HealthTap hopes to provide consumers with reliable medication ratings, prevent medication mishaps and improve patient care by encouraging physicians to factor online ratings into future patient-oriented treatment strategies. A deeper look into RateRx can be found here on HealthTap’s website.

SOURCES: TechCrunch and HealthTechZone

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

From Startups to “Scaling Up:” U.S. Health Systems Find Value in Telemedicine

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As predicted for early 2015, telehealth developments are gaining a strong foothold in a number of healthcare arenas here in the U.S. One area of particular interest are major health systems, as recent initiatives to adopt and deploy innovative and large-scale telehealth plans have made it into the healthtech spotlight:

1. University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC)

As the only academic medical center in the state of Mississippi, UMMC looks forward to connecting with more than 165 hospitals, clinics, workplaces and schools via the creation of its new Center for Telehealth. Additionally, UMMC hopes that its new Center will help alleviate and address some of the major barriers to rural healthcare access within Mississippi State.

2. Avera Health

Based in South Dakota, Avera Health—clocking in with 31 hospitals total—is revamping and expanding its telemedicine program of already epic proportions. eCare is purported to be the biggest and most encompassing telemedicine operation in the world, covering an area the size of France and Germany combined. With 8 states involved (South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana) and telemedicine services for ICU, Emergency, Pharmacy, internal medicine, specialty care and long-term care, Avera Health remains a force to be reckoned with in the telehealth space.

3. Geisinger Health System

An early adopter of telehealth, this Pennsylvania-based entity has been pushing for solidified and widespread virtual health resources since 2012. This same year, Geisinger found that its own telehealth technology cut readmission rates by a shocking 44 percent. Focusing strongly on teleICU, Geisinger has seen strongly positive healthcare and financial outcomes in recent years and continues to refine telehealth initiatives as we speak.

4. Mercy Health

Got big telehealth plans? Then you might want to consult Mercy Health for advice…They have an entire facility devoted to virtual care. Operating out of St. Louis, Mercy Health constructed a telehealth facility in May of 2014, investing $50 million towards completion. The center hosts 300 physicians, nurses, specialists, researchers and support staff who are on call 24/7 for both video and audio services. Within the first 5 years that the center is up and running Mercy Health estimates that it will manage more than 3 million telehealth visits.

5. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)

Much like Geisinger, UPMC has moved quickly to meet telemedicine demands and efficiently reduce readmission rates. Over a 23-month period in 2013, UPMC increased patient visits by 49 percent, totaling 10,000 telemedicine visits. Among these visits, UPMC saw marked progress with heart failure patients in particular. When paired with a visiting nurse and subsequent telemonitoring, readmission rates hovered around 5 percent—versus the 28 percent readmission rate with no monitoring whatsoever. A massive difference indeed!

SOURCES: Medcitynews and Avera Health

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

Empowering Health in the Home: Meet CliniCloud

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For consumers looking to track and record personal health metrics away from the doctor’s office, life may have just gotten easier with the help of an Australia-based digital health company. CliniCloud, now making waves on the San Francisco healthtech scene, is showcasing its savvy and uber-compact connected medical kit that may help take patient-to-provider video visits to the next level here in the United States.

Now taking orders for its first product iteration, CliniCloud’s medical kit comprises two main items: a wireless non-contact thermometer and a digital stethoscope that conveniently plugs into a smartphone headphone jack. Patients can use these devices to track and record both stethoscope and temperature recordings or simply transmit them to a doctor during a video visit.

During an interview with mobihealthnews this week, CliniCloud Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Andrew Lin highlighted the importance of the stethoscope and thermometer within today’s realm of medicine, stating: “with the CliniCloud medical kit, we are putting these powerful tools into the hands of everyday users, allowing them to accurately record vital signs that can be shared with…a network of on-demand physicians to determine if a cough is just a cold—or something more serious, like pneumonia or asthma.”

The CliniCloud app is available for both Android and Apple devices and the medical kit is set to ship this coming July. Check out CliniCloud’s sleek and eye-catching website here for more information—maybe you’ll end up pre-ordering your own!

SOURCE: mobihealthnews

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

Healthtech Happy Hospitals: Miami Children’s and its Mobile App Endeavors

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Over the past few years, mobile technologies of various sorts have proven vital in hospitals and healthcare centers across America with usage rates increasing rapidly for both providers and patients alike. As profiled in mobihealthnews just this week, Miami Children’s Hospital is continuing this trend with two newly released health-specific mobile offerings.

According to Miami Children’s Hospital CIO Edward Martinez, the hospital has developed a care transition app that aids clinicians in the hand-off of patients between shifts. This app includes a patient-facing option as well, allowing patients to keep track of such staff transitions. There is also a parent-facing component to this app, complete with a video consultation feature to enable Q&A between parent and provider after a child is discharged from the hospital.

Another app Miami Children’s has created is a care coordination product for clinician use. At the end of a shift, this app allows providers across all specialties to quickly enter information about a patient’s condition on a handy mobile device and pass it on to the next clinician. This way, the next attending physician does not miss any critical patient information related to symptoms or condition.

In his interview with mobihealthnews, Martinez highlighted one key observation pertaining to the patients and families that enter Miami Children’s Hospital on a daily basis: the parental generation is more mobile-savvy than ever before. The hospital is capitalizing on this occurrence by engaging parents early on with activities such as texting and video chatting. With 2015 expected to produce yet another boom in the mobile health and telemedicine arena, it is very likely that large hospitals from California to Maine will follow soon follow in the footsteps of Miami Children’s.

SOURCE: mobihealthnews

To see some neat screenshots of Miami Children’s newly released mobile health apps, check out the full article here!

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

Retail and Refills: Patient Engagement Technologies on Horizon for Walmart and Target

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Recent digital health initiatives suggest that Walmart, Target and other retail giants are steadfastly marching into the healthcare setting with a focus on customer and employee health. With representatives attending Health 2.0’s WinterTech conference in San Francisco, both Walmart and Target have confirmed plans to provide more in-depth healthcare services including chronic disease management and guidance towards healthier lifestyles.

Last week, MedCity News connected with Walmart and Target spokespersons to learn more. Complete with clinics that serve both customers as well as employees, Target and Walmart will look to enhance healthcare efforts with technologies like mobile coaching apps and telemedicine platforms. For both Target and Walmart, much of this expansion will take place in the form of strategic partnerships with powerhouses like UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser Permanente. In developing its new pharmacy prescription app focused on medication adherence for employees and customers alike, Target partnered with Mscripts, a leader in mobile pharmacy solutions. Michael Laquere, a senior buyer for pharmacy at Target, pointed out that through this app Target hopes to “connect with pharmacies in a more virtual way.”

When taking information access into consideration, retailers could be sitting on a data gold mine. With customer buying patterns and health information at their disposal, retailers could potentially make suggestions to improve health or aid in chronic disease management. With the current privacy barriers and regulations in place, this possibility is far from a reality—however, the opportunity to improve consumer health is salient and two major retail players have taken the reigns. Who will be the next to join?

SOURCE: MedCityNews

To learn more about increasing retail presence in the healthcare industry, check out MedCity News’ full article here!

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

2015: Is the “Year of the Telemedicine” Upon Us?

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Have you texted, web chatted or Skyped with your doctor lately? You may want to, as health professionals and digital health entrepreneurs alike are predicting great things for telemedicine in the coming year. There’s no disputing that telemedicine “went big” in 2014—with provider communication, patient engagement and care coordination products dominating the digital health space, remote care and patient-to-provider telemedicine services proliferated virtually every area of the market. This “boom,” however, is expected to intensify in 2015 with ambitious predictions already circling within the wide and wonderful world of healthcare.

According to a recent article published by VentureBeat, there are several key indicators that 2015 will be the year that telemedicine has a takeoff of epic proportions. Check out the numbers:

• As of 2016, the global telemedicine market is predicted to be $27 billion with Virtual health Services accounting for $16 billion.
• By 2018, 65% of interactions with healthcare organizations will be done via mobile devices.
• Rock Health, a San Francisco-based digital health accelerator and seed fund, estimates that $4.1 billion of new capital in 2014 was invested in digital health—up from less than $1 million in 2011 (Forbes Magazine).

With the aforementioned financial gains on the near horizon, major players in the healthcare space—such as providers and insurance companies—can expect worthwhile benefits:

• Remote patient-to-provider virtual consults have the potential to reduce the need for all in-person doctor visits by up to 93%. This translates into savings of about $103 per primary care visit and $1,067 per emergency room visit. Your wallets will be thanking you!
• 50% of all doctor visits can be conducted virtually and 70% of all electronic health record (EHR) visits can be conducted remotely.

Finally, the patient—posited at the center of care—wins in the grand scheme of telehealth, as on-demand and high quality care becomes a reality. With a vast and continuously growing population of aging Americans, proponents of virtual visits point to the advantages conferred to those lacking easy access to a doctor’s offices, namely the elderly, the frail and those in rural areas. Telehealth is certainly headed in a strongly positive direction. Will predictions prevail? Only time will tell!

SOURCES: VentureBeat and Forbes Magazine 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

“Stuck in the 70’s:” Modern Medicine, the FDA and Medical Device Legislation

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Will Congressional bills slated for 2015 review finally bring medical device regulation into the 21st Century?

The year was 1976. Apple was founded, bell bottoms were in, Jimmy Carter was elected President and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began its first regulatory measures on medical devices.  The notion of “tech-savvy” Americans had not yet come to fruition, nor had the ubiquity of iPhones and tablets—in fact, no consumer would have known what to do with such a device during this era. Today, increasing numbers of hand-held devices allow us to connect with providers, manage and track medications and organization medical records. In 2013 alone, the Apple Store reported 97,000 mobile health apps in use and over 60% of physicians were using tablets. With these solid numbers marked in the medical sphere, why is the FDA still stuck in 1976?

In a recent article released by Forbes Magazine, John Graham illuminates the FDA’s continued regulation of novel, cutting-edge medical devices under outdated amendments and what this antiquated authority means for new health tools. According to the FDA’s original amendments, a medical device is an “instrument, apparatus, implement, machine…or related article, including any component, part or accessory…” Technologies of the 21^st century, namely smartphones, smartwatches and tablets, don’t seem to fit within this definition in any regard.

Despite the amendments’ verbose restrictions, the FDA has informed patients and providers alike on how it intends to regulate new technologies. With the final guidance for medical mobile apps passed in 2013, the FDA intends to focus its regulatory oversight on only a subset of mobile medical apps that present a risk to patients if they do not work as intended. In the final guidance, the FDA defined the term “mobile medical app” and Congress defined the technologies subject to FDA regulation.

While it appears the FDA is making strides in the right direction, many find its law-related verbiage unsettling. Early-stage startups remain weary over the FDA’s “enforcement discretion,” which includes the self-perceived ability to withhold smartphones, tablets and more. After much discussion at last week’s mHealth Summit in Washington, DC, the consensus is this: the FDA cannot be expected to generate consistent regulatory standards without appropriate legislation. Fortunately for the medical sphere, this may be resolved in the next Congress with the following propositions:

MEDTECH Act: would legislate that electronic health records (EHRs) and other technologies that only store and communicate information are exempt from FDA regulation.

SOFTWARE Act: would define the term “medical software” as software distributed directly to consumers and not integrated with a drug or device but includes the use of a drug or device. Such software would be subject to FDA regulation. The bill also includes the terms “clinical software” (used by medical professionals) and “health software” (used by consumers to store and communicate data but doesn’t include the use of a device). Both clinical and health software would not be subject to regulation.

SOURCE: Forbes Magazine

For more information on the FDA, legislation and the future of U.S. health innovation, click here!

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

From Option to Necessity: The Paradigm Shift in Digital Health is Coming

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Digital health is no longer a futuristic idea, it’s happening in the here and now. As the healthcare industry quickly moves toward full digitization, previously tech-averse clinicians are slowly—but gradually—getting on board with new and innovative technologies. A report recently published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) highlights a telling shift in clinicians’ attitudes toward digital technology, especially when connecting with patients is concerned. And it appears this shift is for the better.

In an extensive survey of over 1,000 clinicians—physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants included—PwC aimed to gain a sense of how these health professionals perceive digital health as it stands today. The takeaways? In most health spheres, clinicians are supportive. Check out some key findings below:

• When it comes to patient engagement tools, clinicians and patients seem to agree that putting diagnostic tools into the hands of the patient is both powerful and reliable. Roughly 42% of physicians are comfortable relying on at-home test results to prescribe medication.

• A large body of physicians also said they believe digital health tools can boost the patient-doctor interaction, with 50% saying telehealth visits could eventually replace more than 10% of in-office patient visits.

• Clinicians view consumer health apps to manage chronic disease and wellness as a good thing, with about 65% saying they would prescribe an app to help patients manage specific conditions. Furthermore, the percent of consumers who say they have a healthcare or wellness app downloaded onto a mobile device has increased significantly from last year and is up to 28% (versus last year’s 16%).

• An overwhelming 79% of clinicians support mobile health applications, stating that mobile devices can better help clinicians coordinate care with their patients.

With these findings in place, what do clinicians have to look forward to in the digital health space? According to PwC’s health information technology practice leader, Daniel Garrett, “digitally-enabled care is no longer nice-to-have; it’s fundamental for delivering high quality care.” The adoption and integration of digital technology within existing healthcare practices has not reached its full potential to transform patient care. Many health experts hypothesize that the next five years will be absolutely crucial.

SOURCES: Healthcare IT News and PricewaterhouseCoopers

To view PwC’s full digital health report, check out the link to their website here!

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.