Eric Wicklund
Not everyone is eager to see the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issue its final guidance on mobile medical app regulation. In fact, some are wondering if the FDA is even the right agency to take charge of mHealth oversight.
A 16-year-old boy in Bulgaria is helping some of MIT's smartest minds to map the human brain -- by playing an online game. And someday, that work might be used to solve the mysteries of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. He's the top "scorer" in the game, in which participants map connections between retinal neurons to develop a 3-D portrait of a single cell.
Wendy Deibert, RN, BSN, executive director of telemedicine services for the St. Louis-based network, has been an advocate for the advancement of telemedicine and the development of new initiatives that help bring healthcare outside of the hospital's walls.
Attendees of the American Telemedicine Association's 2013 conference and trade show aren't expected to spend all their waking hours inside the convention center. Aside from serving as Texas' state capital, Austin offers a variety of indoor and outdoor attractions on which to while away your spare time.
Hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in almost 100 counties across the United States and its territories will be losing coverage for telehealth services because they no longer live in federally designated rural areas. As a result of the 2010 Census, 97 counties in 36 states and territories are being redefined as metropolitan, rather than rural.
The man once hailed by GQ Magazine as one of the 12 "rock stars of science" doesn't predict a rosy future for hospitals or medical clinics. But he does expect the individual consumer to be much more aware and proactive about healthcare.
Since its launch in 2011, Rock Health has made its mark in the healthcare field by ushering a number of innovative ideas from the drawing board to the marketplace. The digital health startup incubator has been a fixture at the past two mHealth Summits, and is part of the reason that funding for digital health companies jumped some 45 percent in the past year.
Consumers aren't the only ones using mobile apps to improve their health. Their doctors are using them, too. A recent study conducted by Epocrates indicates physicians are accessing drug information at the point of care, often through a mobile medical app, to make sure the drugs they're prescribing aren't harming their patients. That, says the San Mateo, Calif.-based developer of online reference tools, amounts to more than 27 million potentially dangerous drug interactions avoided each year.
While their colleagues in Washington are starting to take interest in the promises of digital health, lawmakers in several states are forging ahead with their own legislative ideas. According to the American Telemedicine Association, seven states and the District of Columbia have seen bills introduced in the past four weeks that address coverage and reimbursement for telemedicine services.
UnitedHealth Group is pushing a theme of behavior change and incentives to improve America's troubled healthcare system -- and, more importantly, the American patient. It's a battle that Reed Tuckson, MD, UnitedHealth's executive vice president and chief of medical affairs, says won't be easy.