News From Around the Web
> Arogya World and Nokia India today announced that they have enrolled one million people into mDiabetes, a diabetes prevention mHealth initiative in India. mDiabetes runs on the Nokia Life platform, which delivers life-enhancing information and advice co-developed with more than 90 knowledge partners, and works on a wide range of Nokia mobile phones. To-date, Nokia Life services covering topics such as health, education and agriculture have been experienced by more than 95 million people across India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria. Announcement
> Del Mar, Calif.-based American Diversified Holdings Corporation is developing a smartphone app designed to identify harmful drug interactions. Preliminarily named "Drug Check," ADHC is working with software developers and other professionals in the pharmacology industry to design the mHealth app to be downloadable onto most common handheld devices. Initial development prototypes would allow a patient to type in the medication they have been prescribed and a list of potentially harmful secondary drugs, foods or OTC medications will be listed with instructions to contact their physicians to before taking the drug. Announcement
> Military healthcare providers now have a mobile application to help keep them productive and emotionally healthy as they cope with burnout and compassion fatigue. The Provider Resilience app, from the Defense Department's National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2), is the first mobile app for healthcare professionals to build stress resilience. The app opens with a dashboard that shows a "rest and relaxation" clock, a resilience rating and update buttons that provide easy access to the four main areas affecting the resilience rating: R&R clock, Burnout assessment, Professional Quality of Life Assessment and resiliency "builders and killers." Announcement
EMR News
> Providing patients with access to the information in their electronic health records "overwhelmingly" yielded positive benefits, according to a new study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The researchers, from the Veteran's Administration and elsewhere, sought to determine patients' actual experiences with such open access by studying the My HealtheVet EHR access pilot program. They used focus group interviews conducted at the Portland Ore.-based VA Medical Center, which had the highest percentage (72 percent) of enrollees in the pilot. The researchers found that patients' access improved communication, coordination of care, and appointment follow-through. It also improved patients' knowledge of their own health, created a greater desire for self care, and increased their participation in their care. Article
Healthcare IT News
> A new biological computer developed by Stanford University researchers could potentially detect disease and kill off rogue cells, according to a new study published in Science magazine. The advancements, according to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, are described as "microscopic natural computers inside [human's] cells that could guard against disease and warn of toxic threats." The achievement is a portent to computers inside the human body that could screen for cancer or toxic chemicals. Lead researcher Drew Endy told the Mercury News, "We're going to be able to put computers inside any living cell you want," which he said could answer any biological question within a cell, and count cells, too. Article
And Finally… An IRS "like" button for Facebook's founder. Article