The introduction of a medical check list for the iPhone could be a benefit to providers as mobile technology is quickly being integrated into the care process.

Peter Waegemann, vice president of development for the mHealth Initiative, Inc. says so many health professionals have started using smartphones to help administer better care that some say they “don’t know how colleagues manage without them.”

Official statistics aren’t published, “but anecdotal reports confirm that many doctors are using the iPhone at the point of care,” says Waegemann. “There are several hospitals where all doctors are using the iPhone.”

The iPhone currently has more than 1,000 medical apps aimed at both patients and physicians to better manage health and care. Applications like Safe OR, designed by QxMD, is a mobile checklist designed to increase survival rates during surgery. The application provides a series of checklists to be completed before beginning a surgical procedure. The checklists have involve administering anaesthesia and making surgical incisions into a patient. When a checklist isn’t complete, the app provides an alert to the user indicating which steps were skipped.

“iPhone-based decision support with checklists are a great benefit,” says Waegemann. “My vision for mHealth is that a large part of the scientific body of medicine that a doctor learns and memorizes in medical school will be transferred into decision-supporting apps a doctor holds on a mobile device when seeing the patient and that can be easily and routinely updated as advances are made.”

Waegemann says this process of using mobile apps to improve care is in its early stages, and has some growing to do. Once the use of this technology is more widespread, Waegemann expects the quality of care will improve.

“Current iPhone apps of this kind are the very beginning of a long process – perhaps 10 to 15 years – during which the mDevice will become the main tool a doctor uses in attending to patients,” says Waegemann. “The benefits are better quality of care, greater efficiency, and lower healthcare costs.”

There are other contenders in mhealth as well. Apple’s new iPad, as well as the Motorola Droid and the Blackberry, have the potential to provide the same application offerings as the iPhone.

“The iPhone is just one of a number of new smart phones,” says Waegemann. “The iPad will open up a new dimension for doctors as it will become the working tool at the point of care. But other phones could catch up or become even more successful in healthcare. One must see mobile applications as part of mHealth which is focusing on new communication in healthcare and healthcare restructuring (including the financial system) and is enabled by mobile systems. I am convinced that our healthcare system will have major communication changes that will affect everyone. These changes will evolve over time; they are disruptive and will change so much.”

Original article by Kyle Hardy at Healthcare IT News

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama submitted on Monday a $3.8 trillion federal budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2011. The president said he plans to make healthcare reform – and healthcare IT in particular – a major part of his long-term plans to put America back on track financially.

In keeping with the president’s past support of healthcare IT advancement, this year’s fiscal budget request includes $110 million to strengthen healthcare IT policy coordination and research activities.

Last February, the Administration backed more than $20.6 billion over 10 years to advance healthcare IT adoption in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

Rob Nabors, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a Monday press conference that the president plans to reduce the federal deficit through healthcare reform.

“Getting health reform passed is critical,” Nabors said, adding the administration is confident Congress will pass a reform bill soon.

During his presidential campaign, Obama touted healthcare IT as a platform for reforming American healthcare and bending the healthcare cost curve. Both Republicans and Democrats have supported healthcare IT as a way of saving lives, preventing duplicative testing, coordinating care and promoting evidence-based care.

This year, the president is requesting $81.3 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1.7 billion increase over what Congress approved for HHS in fiscal year 2010.

Obama is requesting $286 million for research that compares the effectiveness of different medical options, building on the expansion of this research begun under ARRA.

The president’s fiscal year 2011 budget includes $78 million, an increase of $17 million, for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to advance the adoption of electronic health records. According to HHS, the increase will enable ONC to lead and coordinate federal health IT efforts, while implementing and evaluating Recovery Act health IT programs.

Obama is also calling for $1.7 billion to fight fraud at HHS, including $561 million in Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) discretionary funding, an increase of $250 million over the FY 2010 enacted level.

According to HHS, estimates indicate the funding investments proposed for fraud and abuse control will generate $9.9 billion in savings from increased recoveries and prevention efforts. In addition, the president proposes legislative and administrative changes that would save $14.7 billion in Medicare and Medicaid over ten years.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Obama’s HHS budget requests would protect the health and safety of America’s families.

“Under this budget, we will provide the health and human services that Americans depend on more effectively, slashing waste and focusing programs on results,” she said. “And we’ll make many of the necessary investments our country has been putting off for years, including investments in fighting health care fraud, strengthening our public health infrastructure, and getting serious about health and wellness.”

Original article by Diana Manos at Healthcare IT News

WASHINGTON – Doctors who have shopped for healthcare software have sometimes come to regret their purchases, according to a new story reported by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

In her feature, Emma Schwartz finds that physicians are often frustrated with their switch from paper to electronic medical records – spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on software programs, only to find that the new systems are faulty or ineffective. Sometimes, the software vendors go out of business, leaving the doctors with no choice but to file suit in order to recoup their investment. One Florida surgeon called his experience with new IT “a disaster.”

While Schwartz concedes that the doctor’s dealing with a bankrupt software company is “an extreme example,” she does highlight many of the pitfalls experienced by providers so far, as health policymakers push for a changeover to electronic records in the next five years.

Beyond faulty software, Schwartz finds that fast-evolving technologies often complicate things, especially for doctors who are unfamiliar with new and complex systems and who aren’t well-versed in the proper questions to ask in order to ensure quality purchases.

“I’ve seen physicians buy EHRs where they’ve spent less time buying them than their house and car,” she quotes one IT consultant.

That’s a problem, the consultant continued, because in an emerging market with many vendors making big promises but having limited past performance to judge by, “there’s a lot of risk.”

Meanwhile, with so many new players in the industry, it’s expected that there will be considerable contraction in the coming years – and it’s possible that providers might purchase expensive systems from a company that may go out of business.

In that case, as one lawyer for a provider who won a judgment against a bankrupt software vendor put it, “the doctors are left holding the bag.”

Original article by Mike Miliard at Healthcare IT News

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WASHINGTON - A bill that provides loans of up to $350,000 for physicians and $2 million for medical groups to buy electronic health record systems or other healthcare information technology is likely to benefit solo and small group practices the most, according to investment bank Piper Jaffrey.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved HR 3014, sponsored by Rep. Kathleen A. Dahlkemper (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Small Business Regulations and Healthcare Subcommittee. The Small Business Health IT Financing Act would authorize the Small Business Administration to oversee a $10 billion loan program for healthcare providers.

The bill now faces Senate action.

“The smaller provider market is the greatest beneficiary of this, given the limits on the loan size,” said Sean Wieland, Piper Jaffrey’s senior research analyst, in a brief. “A five-doc group can get a max loan for $2 million. A 100-doc group can also get a max loan for $2 million. Therefore, we think it will accelerate adoption levels in the five-doc-and-under market.”

“It’s apparent that the government is making the ambulatory sector the center of their efforts,” Wieland said.

The brief, written by Wieland and research analyst Nohan A. Naidu, also notes that athenahealth is well positioned to benefit from the program. The Watertown, Mass.-based provider of Web-based electronic health record and practice management services for physicians “is best positioned to take share in this segment because of their in-the-cloud approach to both practice management and clinicals,” Wieland said.

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions and Quality Systems, Inc,. are also well positioned to gain market share in this sector, Wieland noted.