Telehealth

Can the current regulatory structure in place within the federal government keep pace with health IT without inhibiting innovation? A difficult question to answer, indeed, particularly in light of what National Coordinator Farzad Mostashari, MD, calls a "seismic shift" under way in three aspects of healthcare: how it's paid for, how it's delivered and how patients engage in their own care.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the American Telemedicine Association. Over the last two decades, ATA has evolved, embracing the ongoing changes in medical technology, telecommunications modalities and the delivery of healthcare.

Although the telehealth concept has been around for decades, the changing healthcare business model combined with the proliferation of wireless communications may finally give it the spark it needs to really catch fire, market observers say.

CIOs from three of Boston's elite hospitals discuss the role health information technology has played in responding to the two-part bombing that stopped the Boston Marathon in its tracks on April 15. The horrific tragedy sent hundreds of gravely wounded runners and bystanders to hospitals, where communication and coordination proved critical to ensuring top patient care.

With nearly half a billion dollars raised in venture capital funding for health information technology, the first three months of 2013 represented a "record quarter," according to Mercom Capital Group.

As mobile health gains ground as a way to improve population health and curb healthcare costs, models for making mHealth financially sustainable are topmost in the minds of stakeholders in the U.S. and across the globe.

Robert Jarrin, senior director of government affairs at Qualcomm Incorporated -- like most people involved in the mHealth world -- is waiting with bated breath for the Food and Drug Administration to finalize its mobile medical apps guidance.

In the new world of healthcare -- one that is focused on collaboration, accountability, providing better care and cutting costs -- Aetna executives view the insurer's newly minted Healthagen division, unveiled last month at HIMSS13, as an indispensible piece of getting things right.

Hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in almost 100 counties across the United States and its territories will be losing coverage for telehealth services because they no longer live in federally designated rural areas. As a result of the 2010 Census, 97 counties in 36 states and territories are being redefined as metropolitan, rather than rural.

Three subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee just concluded three hearings on mobile health March 18-21, looking for "the sweet spot and that fine line," between patient safety regulations and freedom of innovation, as it was described by Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) at the opening of the hearings.