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remote patient monitoring

Testing Technology vs. Enabling a System of Chronic Care – Results of the NIH Tele-HF Trial

by Randy Williams, MD FACC, CEO of Pharos Innovations

The results from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored Tele-HF trial are in, and the findings are worth considering . The results are counter to most of the findings of other studies examining telemonitoring for heart failure and at face value are disappointing to us, and the industry. Upon closer examination, however, this study offers us an excellent opportunity for further innovation, refinement of solutions and continuous improvement. It also provides a snapshot […]

Appliance or Application? The Choice Finally is Coming to Health Care.

My wife Jill loves her  iPhone…she raves about it. Last night she showed me an application she had recently acquired for her iPhone. She was able to explain and demonstrate the app and its functionality to me (yes, to ME!) in about 30 seconds. 

I’d describe the app as Garmin-like but running on the iPhone. You type in the address at which you’re going to start your drive and then you type in the address of the location where you want to drive […]

The Medical Home: Pull the RUC Out

This third and final post in the series addresses questions about the future of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCHM):

What’s problematic about using the RUC methodology with the PCMH?
What’s the optimal level for a PCMH care management fee?
Should primary care leaders pull the RUC out? How?

What’s Problematic About Using the RUC Methodology with the PCMH?

There are at least two reasons for not having the RUC methodology seen anywhere in the same county country as the PCMH. First, the RUC methodology doesn’t […]

The Medical Home: Confusion Over Care Management Fees

The honeymoon is over.

Prior to April 29, 2008, reviews of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model  had been uniformly enthusiastic and positive.

Today the PCMH model is hitting reality — someone’s going to have to bring home money to pay the bills. On April 29 the American Medical Association/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee (RUC) released a  report making recommendations relating to payment levels of care management fees for the PCMH.

This report has stirred cries of confusion and outrage. I’ll elaborate on these cries in the second posting of […]

Data Incompatibility Remains A Barrier to Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Devices Reaching the Mainstream

The Continua Health Alliance is doing a good job in getting remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices to become plug-n-play — where devices and peripherals from different manufacturers complying with Continua Guidelines will be able to talk to one another.

Continua’s work-to-date is a necessary, but not yet sufficient effort to make RPM devices mainstream.

Knocking down the barrier of device-incompatibilty exposes the bigger barrier of lack of data interoperability among RPM technologies and between RPM devices and health care IT systems.  Jonathan Edwards, […]

What Will Microsoft’s HealthVault Mean to the Telehealth Community?

My colleague Tim Gee and I are guest bloggers on the Get-Connected Forum at the Center for Connected Health.  We speculate on:

What Will Microsoft’s HealthVault Mean to the Telehealth Community?

Our bottom line:  HealthVault overall is a positive for telehealth industry growth and scale, even though it will speed the inevitable commoditization of remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices.

Microsoft’s HealthVault: User Manual = C-, Strategy to Create a New Ecosystem = A

Would you like to have the experience of being parachuted into a deep forest with no map of where you are or clues about how to get out?  If so, I suggest that you go directly to Microsoft’s new PHR at www.healthvault.com and just TRY to figure out where you are or where you’re headed.

Initial confusion put aside, I think HealthVault is strategically brilliant.  While I’d give Microsoft a C- for explaining HealthVault (HV), I’ll give them an A for […]

Disease Management Going Mobile & Retail: QUALCOMM’s Health Care MVNO

An article in Wireless Week announces the creation of a new species: a health care MVNO named LifeComm. LifeComm promises to move disease management, wellness, and fitness into new territories.

What is a MVNO?

More acronyms!  What is a MVNO? A Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) is a mobile operator that does not own its own spectrum and usually does not have its own network infrastructure. Instead, MVNOs have business arrangements with traditional mobile operators to buy minutes of use (MOU) for sale to their […]

Evidence for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM): The Glass is More than Half Full

Over the years, there have been a number of meta-analyses examining hundreds of studies relating to effectiveness of RPM.  The latest one of these is Systematic Review of Home Telemonitoring for Chronic Diseases: The Evidence Base, published in the May/June 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).

My colleague Tim Gee, respected fellow blogger and world renowned connectologist, summarizes this latest study under the headline “Impact of Remote Monitoring Still Inconclusive”.

Tim, I’m concerned that folks might draw […]

Five Lingering Questions Holding Back Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Adoption

Technology adoption often takes longer than expected, and remote patient monitoring (RPM) is no exception. More specifically, I’m referring to multiparameter RPM of patient vital signs. There are currently over 25 companies with multiparameter RPM offerings, including Philips, Honeywell HomMed, Health Hero, ViTel Net, and many others.

I am a big believer in RPM technology — it WILL revolutionize delivery of health care.

However, I’m also a realist. Consider the following questions a collective “voice-of-the-customer” from my six years working in this […]