Number of patients to be monitored by mobile networks to rise to 3m by 2016: Study
CBR
“Mobile healthcare and medical App downloads will reach 44m in 2012 and 142m in 2016, says Juniper Research.
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Disease Management
Telemedicine boosting dermatology care
Carolyne Krupa, amednews
“Linking dermatologists to patients in remote areas through telemedicine gives patients more accurate diagnoses and better disease management than they would receive without access to a specialist, says a study in the January Archives of Dermatology.
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Natural language processing in EMRs can improve disease tracking
Jaan Sidorov, KevinMD
“Years ago, if you were elderly, had diabetes, high blood pressure, low back pain, needed a yearly flu shot and came to see this electronic health record-enabled physician (now with the nom de plume “Disease Management Care Blog”), you would have had your diabetes, high blood pressure and low back pain reassessed, you would have been given a flu shot and, for good measure, the DMCB would have tossed in a discussion about the unpleasantness of getting screened for cancer.
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Two complementary personal medication management applications developed on a common platform: case report
Ross SE et al, J Med Internet Res, 13(3)
BACKGROUND
Adverse drug events are a major safety issue in ambulatory care. Improving medication self-management could reduce these adverse events. Researchers have developed medication applications for tethered personal health records (PHRs), but little has been reported about medication applications for interoperable PHRs.
OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to develop two complementary personal health applications on a common PHR platform: one to assist children with complex health needs (MyMediHealth), and one to assist older adults in care transitions (Colorado Care Tablet).
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Impact of Live Interactive Teledermatology on Diagnosis, Disease Management, and Clinical Outcomes
Lamel S et al, Archives of Dermatology, 148(1)
Objective
To assess the impact of live interactive teledermatology consultations on changes in diagnosis, disease management, and clinical outcomes.
Design
We conducted a retrospective analysis of 1500 patients evaluated via live interactive teledermatology between 2003 and 2005 at the University of California, Davis. We compared diagnoses and treatment plans between the referring physicians and the teledermatologists. Patients with 2 or more teledermatology visits within a 1-year period were assessed for changes in clinical outcomes.
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Home monitoring for heart failure management
Bui AL, Fonarow GC. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 59(2)
With a prevalence of 5.8 million in the United States alone, heart failure (HF) is a common syndrome associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, and healthcare expenditures. Close to 1 million HF hospitalizations occur annually in the United States, with the majority of these resulting from worsening congestion in patients previously diagnosed with HF. An estimated $37.2 billion is spent each year on HF in the United States. These statistics emphasize the need to develop and implement more effective strategies to assess, monitor, and treat HF. It has also become increasingly apparent that interventions geared toward identifying and monitoring subclinical congestion would be of value in the home management of chronic HF.
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Wireless Technology in Disease Management and Medicine
Clifford GD, Clifton D. Annual Review of Medicine, 2011
Healthcare information, and to some extent patient management, is progressing toward a wireless digital future. This change is driven partly by a desire to improve the current state of medicine using new technologies, partly by supply-and-demand economics, and partly by the utility of wireless devices. Wired technology can be cumbersome for patient monitoring and can restrict the behavior of the monitored patients, introducing bias or artifacts.
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Access to emerging technologies and telehealth intervention modality preferences in rural patients
Warren JC et al, Health and Technology, 2011
The importance of telehealth strategies in addressing the health needs of rural residents has been well documented. A core problem in enacting telehealth strategies for patient education in rural settings, however, is a lasting perception that rural residents do not have access to, comfort with, or willingness to use varying emerging technologies. The current study was undertaken to simultaneously investigate access to technologies, comfort with technologies, and willingness to participate in technology-based interventions among high-need rural clinical populations. A sample of 199 patients was recruited at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the rural South using convenience sampling. Participants completed a battery of assessments addressing technology access, use, and comfort as well as likelihood of participating in intervention modalities.
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Mobile technologies changing models for diabetes management
“In the past, health care providers have often been puzzled by how best to optimize treatment for diabetes and improve diabetes self-management for patients. Now, with the exploding popularity of smartphones and increased Internet access, some might say: “There’s an app for that.”
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Patient web portals to improve diabetes outcomes: a systematic review
Osborn CY et al, Current Diabetes Reports, 10(6)
Patient web portals (PWPs), defined as the integration of electronic medical records and patient health records, have been related to enhanced patient outcomes. A literature review was conducted to characterize the design and evaluation of PWPs to improve health care processes and outcomes in diabetes.
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AIM: Are social media sites good for diabetes managment?
CMIO
“Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital explored the characteristics of social media sites for diabetics and the potential of them to promote patient health.
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Chronic disease management through mobile health
Barbara Ficarra, KevinMD
“The conundrum continued behind conference doors at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) conference in Tampa about the efficacy of mobile phone usage to improve patient health.
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Can Texting Improve Diabetes Care?
Keith Brannon, New Wave
“For most of us, it’s the gadget that’s never far away. But, for diabetics, could the cell phone be the key to keeping their blood glucose in check? That’s the question Dr. Vivian Fonseca asks in new study that uses computer software and text messages to help diabetics manage their blood sugar.
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Beyond individual patient care: enhanced use of EMR data in a primary care setting
Tolar M, Balka E. International Perspectives in Health Informatics, 2011
With the introduction of electronic medical record (EMR) systems into the primary care sector the collected data become available for purposes beyond individual patient care, i.e. chronic disease management, prevention and clinical performance evaluation. However EMR systems are primarily designed to support clinical tasks, and physicians focus on the treatment of individual patients.
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Wireless Technology Now Allows Diabetes Patients to Manage Their Disease Real-Time and On-the-Go
PRNewswire
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 26 million adults and children in the United States — or 8.3 percent of the population — have diabetes. Imagine if this sizeable group was able to more easily manage their diabetes while at work, at home, or on-the-go by using an easy-to-use self-management tool on their mobile device.
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Report: Older adults can benefit from mobile health
Neil Versel, mobihealthnews
“Mobile healthcare technologies are particularly well suited for disease management, medication adherence, safety monitoring, health education and behavior modification for wellness, especially among older populations, according to an organization that supports technology to encourage independent and community-based living for seniors.
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New Mobile App Will Use Texting for Diabetes Management
Aaron McKethan, Pierce Graham-Jones, and Paras Fatemi, Health IT Buzz
“Health care improvement often refers to the process of making changes to the way health care is delivered by providers. But actions to improve and reform the health care delivery system can only go so far. As Dr. Don Berwick, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services often reminds us, the delivery system Exit Disclaimer doesn’t have much control over the biggest factors that influence a person’s overall health.
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A preliminary study of a cloud-computing model for chronic illness self-care support in an underdeveloped country
Piette JD et al, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 40(6)
BACKGROUND
Although interactive voice response (IVR) calls can be an effective tool for chronic disease management, many regions of the world lack the infrastructure to provide these services. PURPOSE This study evaluated the feasibility and potential impact of an IVR program using a cloud-computing model to improve diabetes management in Honduras.
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Telemonitoring in patients with heart failure, the TEHAF study: Study protocol of an ongoing prospective randomised trial
Boyne JJJ et al, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 48(1)
BACKGROUND
As the prevalence of heart failure (HF) rises sharply, the costs related to the care of these patients increases in parallel. Considering the already limited resources and manpower, in the future the demand for care may exceed the supply. Therefore, health care systems are encouraged to develop innovative strategies to deal with the burden of HF to improve the quality of care in order to medical outcomes and patients’ quality of life. For that reason new management systems – such as telemonitoring – have to be explored.
OBJECTIVES
This paper outlines the study protocol of a tailor-made telemonitoring program in ambulant patients with HF.
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Patient Care in the Cloud
Vijay Govindarajan and Justin Chakma, The Health Care Blog
“When we envision an emerging market, we think of a rapidly growing country with small purchasing power, little infrastructure, and diminishing natural resources.
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