mHealth, also known as mobile health, is a form of telemedicine using wireless devices and cell phone technologies
Apple HealthKit champion Ricky Bloomfield, MD, said that Apple is adding support for the Health Level 7 Continuity of Care Document to iOS 10.
Bloomfield, who made the remarks here at the MobiHealthNews 2016 event, also attended Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference earlier in the day, where Apple revealed that iOS 10 will be available this fall and showcased a range of new features from improved messaging to a new Home app and HomeKit and updates to maps, photos and Siri.
While health and medical apps may be helpful in making diagnoses, it seems they still haven’t caught up to doctors. In a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a head-to-head competition between doctors and algorithmic symptom-checking apps, the real human doctors came out on top by a margin of more than two to one.
Sotera Wireless last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protectection, saying it owes its creditors, Silicon Valley Bank and Oxford Finance, roughly $13.1 million and doesn’t have the scratch to make good.
Not all blood pressure monitors are created equal, it seems. New research from Italy suggests that at-home, wrist blood pressure cuffs can be inaccurate if not done exactly right, leading to false reports of elevated blood pressure at home when compared to measurements taken in a doctor’s office.
Apple just released updated App Store Review Guidelines, and there are tremendous implications for the medical and health apps in the iOS App Store.
The changes they are announcing contain the most stringent language I have ever seen Apple use for the health and medical categories of apps. Frankly — these are a long time coming. The FDA recently updated guidelines on health apps, but this is definitely a bigger deal as Apple is the gateway for these apps.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a point-counterpoint set of opinion pieces yesterday on whether ACOs, as an experiment, should be declared a failure. Massachusetts General physician Dr. Zirui Song and Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy Director Elliot Fisher argued for ACOs by pointing to the shades of grey between different types of ACOs and suggesting ways to focus future ACO efforts. But the anti-ACO contingent, Drs. Kevin Schulman and Barak Richman of Duke University Schools of Medicine and Law respectively, argued that the concept was fundamentally flawed, and that mobile and telehealth tools were central to their reason why.
The only way that telemedicine services can truly expand and improve healthcare quality across the nation is by developing new state and federal policies that move toward digital and video-based physician-patient relationships. In efforts to support the expansion of telemedicine services, the state of Delaware passed a telemedicine commercial reimbursement statute, according to The National Law Review.
A behavioral telehealth management program delivered over a two-month period helped to cut the number of hospital admissions for cardiac patients by nearly a third, reports a study published in theAmerican Journal of Managed Care. The program improved patient engagement and produced cost savings by targeting patients with heart conditions who needed additional psychological support to cope with their illnesses.
Telehealth and mHealth initiatives are playing a significant role in the proposed 2016 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs, with officials laying out more than $1 billion for specific telehealth programs and devoting more than half of the proposed IT budget for so-called “customized” programs.
“While traditional communication channels remain popular among patients, the next generation of patients want innovations for how they connect with providers and share information,” the report said.