Merck partner pays doctors to validate PHR data

From MobiHealthNews:

Merck Canada announced this month a deal with Mihealth to promote its PHR offering to Canadian doctors. According to Mihealth, which has an exclusive license to Diversinet’s MobiSecure platform in Canada, its PHR data is validated by a physician once a year to ensure accuracy of the health information.

Mihealth’s PHR is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows smartphones. The software helps patients track medications, allergies, and chronic disorders information, but it has plans to add lab tests information soon. The Mihealth service is free for physicians while patients pay from $59 a year per person and up to $224 for a family of four. Mihealth pays physicians a small fee for their yearly validation.

In January, miHealth inked a $5 million deal with Diversinet to act as the secure mobile health services provider’s exclusive distributor in Canada. miHealth’s PHR (Personal Health Records) is built upon Diversinet’s MobiSecure platform.

“Strengthening patient-doctor communications will improve the quality and quantity of information available,” stated Dr Wendy Graham, president of Mihealth, in a press release. ”The adoption of physician-validated PHRs is a particularly vital new tool to facilitate the care of the one in three Canadians living with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and lung disease.”

Physician validation was stressed by Merck as a distinguishing feature for Mihealth compared to other PHRs. Dr Graham stated that “When patients use existing services to independently keep a PHR, the non-validated data may be seen as unreliable by health professionals, a major drawback. With Mihealth, physicians validate the information once a year, ensuring accuracy and credibility and making it useful to all health professionals.”

It is not entirely clear what Merck gets out of the deal other than a new product it can offer to physicians for free, which could end up helping them make a little extra pocket change each year: “This is a new type of implication for Merck to be bringing to our health system, but no less important than a new medicine. It is another way for Merck to help Canadian healthcare providers give the best care to their patients as well as providing important efficiencies for our healthcare system,” Merck’s Canada’s Vice President of Customer Innovation Christian Sauvageau stated in a press release. “We were motivated to get involved with Mihealth because it will assist health care practitioners in improving patient health outcomes.”

DICOM Grid Releases AccessMyImages.com to Enable Easy Sharing of Diagnostic Imaging Studies

From PRNewsWire:

DICOM Grid, today announced the release of AccessMyImages.com, a Personal Health Record (PHR) for medical imaging. This allows the patient to have control of their diagnostic images and reports through a secure web application and eliminates the time and costs associated with generating imaging CDs or film.

Patients who have to access resources at multiple healthcare facilities can easily participate in their care, without concerns over transporting CDs or film.  This enables better continuity of care at a lower cost for hospitals and healthcare chains.

"AccessMyImages.com provides patients with direct access to their imaging studies and reports and utilizes the IHE open standards architecture. Patients can share their study information with physicians or healthcare providers as easily as sending an email," said Morris Panner, CEO, DICOM Grid. 

DICOM Grid will be demonstrating image sharing and additional image management capabilities at the RSNA 2011 conference in booth 1838 Lakeside Building, November 27th through December 1st and also at the IHE Image Sharing Demonstration, Hall A Booth 2851.

PHRs: GRH to implement electronic health record system by 2014

For the past few years, the Grande Ronde Hospital and its six hospital-owned clinics have been going “paper thin” as they train their physicians to generate electronic medical records for each patient encounter. However, by October 2014, all hospitals and clinics in the U.S. will be required to implement meaningful use of the electronic personal health record system in compliance with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.

The act was signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009, and is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements and incentives for hospitals and professionals to adopt an Electronic Health Record system amount to about $17 billion of the $19.2 billion act.

With these incentive mechanisms, it is estimated that the adoption rates of the system will rise to 90 percent by 2019 and will result in more than $60 billion in net savings over the next five years for the U.S. healthcare system.

Parhez Sattar, GRH manager of the Information Technology department and the hospital’s information security officer, along with Sarah Hall, GRH manager of the Health Information Management department and the hospital’s privacy officer, have collaborated in recent years to convert the hospital’s paper-based system into electronic medical records. Only 10 percent of all U.S. hospitals have currently advanced to this level of information technology.

Now, however, the Grande Ronde Hospital will take information technology to the next level by integrating individual patient health records into a nationwide web-based system.

“The Grande Ronde Hospital is going toward an Electronic Health Record (system) in about two years,” said Sattar. “We’re going to start working on a personal health record website, and we’ll be starting the foundation for that in about two months.”

The purpose of the health information technology act is multi-faceted, but its stated intent is to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient healthcare while lowering costs.

“The Electronic Personal Health Record (E - PHR) system doesn’t necessarily save time,” said Sattar, “because physicians will have a lot more data to type into the system, but it’s more efficient and the government is requiring more information on costs and quality.”

Not surprising when one considers that 60 percent of the patients treated at the Grande Ronde Hospital are Medicare and Medicaid patients. “So we have to comply,” he said.

To comply with the act and qualify for incentives, hospitals have to purchase “certified” Electronic Health Record software and show meaningful use adoption of this system in gradual increments of time. There are several graduated stages for implementing “meaningful use” and meeting prescribed objectives. The Grande Ronde Hospital will start its compliance reporting Jan. 1.

The system is an expansive, interoperable healthcare web structure that is secure. It will connect physicians and clinicians with their patients, referring doctors, medical assistants, pharmacies, labs, other healthcare organizations and     insurers.

PHR Newa: Grant Will Help Bridge Digital Divide for People with Disabilities

Personal health records have been going electronic, and patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers are learning to navigate the new digital world of health information. Now three institutions are teaming up to discover how a large population—people with disabilities—can best access this information.

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Inglis Foundation, also based in Philadelphia, are partnering with Boston public broadcaster WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) on a joint project to explore how adaptive technology can make personal health records (PHR) accessible to people with disabilities. NCAM is the project leader and principal recipient of the three-year, $600,000 grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The grant, titled "Accessible Designs for Personal Health Records," is funded by the Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The project began operations last month.

"Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population has some type of disability, and three percent has a severe disability, but there has been little research on how people with disabilities access their own electronic health records," said Dean Karavite, lead human-computer interaction specialist at the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "As with any patient, accessing such information gives someone more control over their own health care."

Project staff members will systematically observe consumers served by Inglis Foundation as they perform tasks and seek information in their own electronic health records (EHRs). Inglis serves over 900 adults with physical disabilities in the Philadelphia area through its skilled nursing facility, Inglis House, and for those living independently in the community, through its accessible apartments, care management, and employment and adult day services.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/07/4036902/grant-will-help-bridge-digital.html#ixzz1dG7xwri3

Personal Health Record Service Provider ZweenaHealth.com at Health 2.0 San Francisco 2011 Conference

From DigitalJournal.com:

Personal Health Record service provider Zweena LLC (ZweenaHealth.com) attended the recent Health 2.0 San Francisco 2011 Conference. The conference was a time for professionals and providers in the healthcare and health information technology sectors to gather, brainstorm, showcase innovations and announce interesting developments. The occasion featured several events including a developer challenge, pre-conference workshops, keynote addresses, innovation showcases, sponsored presentations and networking sessions, and Zweena was on hand as a member of the consumer advocacy session and helped give voice to the consumer digital health movement. Zweena LLC is a provider of online PHR services that assembles patient medical records and organizes and digitizes them to create an electronic health record that provides updated medical information that is actionable, easy to understand and also easy and safe to manage and share.

The Zweena online PHR service works because Zweena collects information directly from doctor's offices (saving patients the time and hassle, as well as providing records that are trusted by providers) and Zweena creates an electronic record by converting patient health information into a Zweena PHR which is always available online and can be accessed from the ZweenaHealth.com website.

Zweena also collaborates with Microsoft HealthVault by updating patients' personal HealthVault accounts. Zweena also guarantees security of patients' health information by restricting access to patient records.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/475161#ixzz1caqgSehu