Brentwood, TN-based Woolsthorpe Technologies has developed a portable device designed to take the needles and blood out of testing for heart problems. The FloWave 1000 monitor saves money and is easy to use compared to other devices on the market nationally, said Woolsthorpe representatives. Potential users of its product include anesthesiologists, cardiologists and internists.
A collaboration among four Nashville hospitals or hospital systems calls for the exchange of health information. The agreement between Saint Thomas and Baptist hospitals, Metro General, Vanderbilt and HCA Inc.'s TriStar Health System has the potential to eliminate redundant tests. But before information can be shared, representatives of the hospitals have to decide the types of data to exchange and issues such as regulatory compliance, connectivity and privacy.
During his keynote speech last week at HIMSS conference, Steven Case made one very pointed observation. When it comes to managing their own healthcare, the AOL founder said, "consumers have shirked their responsibilities. It is their responsibility to take more responsibility for their own health." That's a concept you don't hear much at healthcare conferences, particularly those with an IT focus like HIMSS. But Case has a good point. For many consumers, healthcare is something that is done to them, not something they participate in actively.
It's a model that Case would like to turn on its head with his new company, the ambitiously named Revolution Health. During his brief commentary (Case graciously left plenty of time for audience questions), he described the problems besetting the industry of rising cost and pernicious clinical problems, such as the obesity epidemic. In Case's view, consumerism is an inevitable force in healthcare, especially given the assumption that we patients will be asked to foot an increasingly bigger chunk of the cost in the days ahead. His new venture hopes to seize on this momentum, offering online content and connectivity services that are consumer-centric. Among the services is a personal health record, a technology space that is rapidly becoming crowded.
His thinking is that, if consumers take charge of their own health record, and that record is buttressed by various healthcare alerts, then they surely will become healthier, and sidestep many of the chronic lifestyle conditions that confront physicians and nurses every waking moment. In that sense, Case does have a "revolutionary" view of the medical record. Medical records should not be passive, but rather should stimulate activity on the part of the consumer, he said. "We want to build a health reminder system, as opposed to being in the file cabinet business."
In my mind, there's no doubt that unless consumers start accepting responsibility for managing their own health, we will continue to be hampered by burgeoning waistlines, rising cholesterol counts, and vexing health issues. I do question whether the mere presence of an electronic alert would be enough to prod people into healthier behavior. However, as electronic devices work their way into the homes, and as consumers start dispatching clinical data from those devices to their caregivers, I can easily imagine a type of "Hawthorne effect" setting in. If patients know they are being watched, they might very well change their behavior, and keep their weight at the right level.
Case has his share of critics, and he freely conceded that to many in the industry, he is a naïve outsider. There is some truth to that. He is wandering into a thicket of third-party payers, disconnected IT systems and convoluted organizational structures. But as Case recalled, he faced similar skepticism during the early days of AOL. Back then, the idea that the Internet would become a ubiquitous component of modern life was not held by many. Nobody dreamed our nation would become so rotund either.
P.S. Thanks to the scores of providers and vendors who e-mailed before (and during) HIMSS, inviting me to hear their presentations, see demonstrations at their booths, or simply meet in person. There were simply too many invitations to oblige everyone, but I had many productive encounters. On the HealthLeaders Media Technology pillar page, you will find links to a few of the stories I filed during HIMSS. Under "Top Stories" you will find links to other non-HIMSS stories (yes, they do exist!) that appeared last week. Next week, I will provide some additional wrap-up and commentary on the goliath HIMSS show.
After heart patients leave intensive care, about 25 percent of those patients will become unstable again in the step-down unit--putting pressure on the nurses there to keep them from deteriorating. But new technology may tell nurses which patients are vulnerable to reversals much earlier than in the past. The system, made by Indiana-based OBS Medical, automatically monitors vital signs and issues an alert when a patient's heart rate or breathing starts to get out of control.
A Massachusetts General Hospital neurologist wants to learn whether therapy administered in Second Life, the virtual world created by Linden Lab, can have benefits in the real world. An instructor from Mass. General will soon lead 20 to 40 Second Life recruits through guided meditations designed to reduce their stress levels. The study could help draw doctors, patients, and money to Second Life, if they prove that therapies offered virtually can be effective in the real world.
Google officially unveiled its foray into medical records when Chief Executive Eric Schmidt introduced Google Health at a healthcare conference in Florida. Google representatives said the company has signed deals with hospitals and companies including medical tester Quest Diagnostics Inc, health insurer Aetna Inc, Walgreens and Walmart Stores Inc pharmacies. The Web service is password protected, stores health records on Google computers, and includes a medical services directory that lets users import doctors' records, drug history and test results.