Telehealth

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is establishing several "communities of practice" to help its Beacon program establish clinical decision support technologies, care transitions programs, and pharmacy solutions and tools in healthcare improvement projects.

The implementation of a telepharmacy model in a multi-hospital health system increased access to pharmacy services, allowing for round-the-clock medication order review by pharmacists, which is critical to reducing errors, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.

There are some expert events of the European eHealth community that have never really made it into the media spotlight. Despite this, many of them still deserve to be recognized for their contribution in helping advance the continent's eHealth infrastructure. The annual Symposium of the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL) is such an event. It kicked off today in Brussels at the headquarters of the Committee of the Regions.

Royal Philips Electronics has announced a new service that provides Web-based remote monitoring follow-up services for patients with pacemakers. The new service, which was made available to cardiology practices in beta in August, is the first large-scale service of its kind in the United States.

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Indian Health Service (IHS) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to improve the health status of American Indian and Alaska Native veterans, officials announced Tuesday. The MOU includes improving care though the development of health information technology.

At RSNA 2010, Siemens will showcase its two newest groundbreaking Imaging IT solutions, syngo.via and syngo.plaza, representing the next generation of advanced visualization and agile PACS technologies that deliver what Siemens calls “cutting-edge” functionalities to the clinical routine.

Early findings from a pilot study of telemedicine-based care indicate that the technology could be used to improve geriatric depression, according to a presentation at the National Association of Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) 29th Annual Meeting & Exposition.

The inaugural Global eHealth Forum, a successor to the Baltic eHealth Conference, opened today in Hamburg, Germany. More than 200 delegates have already registered for the event, making it one of the highlights on the annual eHealth events calendar from the outset.

The new California Telehealth Network, a statewide, medical-grade broadband system for improving healthcare access and emergency services, will receive a $9 million federal grant and additional $5 million in matching funds from some prominent California organizations.

Maine healthcare providers launched their first official telehealth summit on Aug. 17 with a message to the rest of the country: The first state to see the sun rise each day also aims to be one of the leaders in this rapidly growing healthcare delivery philosophy.