Telehealth
Several witnesses from the health IT and mobile health industries are set to testify March 19 before the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The hearing will focus on medical devices and mobile app markets.
After 15 years at the helm of Allscripts, the EHR vendor he helped steer through years of growth and change, Glen Tullman is poised to join the ranks of serial entrepreneurs. He and Allscripts colleague Lee Shapiro, who served as president, have set their sights on starting a new company -- or maybe multiple companies -- in the mobile healthcare arena.
The man once hailed by GQ Magazine as one of the 12 "rock stars of science" doesn't predict a rosy future for hospitals or medical clinics. But he does expect the individual consumer to be much more aware and proactive about healthcare.
A raft of technologies including broadband, cloud computing, cheaper storage and mobile devices, among others, is driving the transformation. At the same time, market expectations regarding standards of care are changing, as are younger providers' relationship with health-specific IT.
San Diego-based Humetrix has expanded the ways patients and physicians can exchange health records via its iBlueButton app using not only iPhones and iPads but also Android devices with secure Quick Response code to transfer the patient's Blue Button record between systems.
Joseph Kvedar, MD, founder and director of the Center for Connected Health, talks with Bernie Monegain about the Center's mobile health plans and describes the concept of "Wellocracy."
A recent market forecast on wearable devices and smart glasses, coupled with 2012 venture capital investments in mHealth at nearly $908 million, indicate the market is hot and likely to get hotter.
Insurers looking to compete in the ever-changing healthcare marketplace will continue to focus on technology in 2013 both as a means of improving payment models and partnerships with provider groups and also as the industry looks to make the transition to consumer-focused products it will offer on health insurance exchanges.
Since its launch in 2011, Rock Health has made its mark in the healthcare field by ushering a number of innovative ideas from the drawing board to the marketplace. The digital health startup incubator has been a fixture at the past two mHealth Summits, and is part of the reason that funding for digital health companies jumped some 45 percent in the past year.
The five most recent CIOs of the Year look into the future and imagine what healthcare IT will look like in 10 years. What they see ahead, they say, is both challenging and exciting.