News From Around the Web
> The American Diabetes Association is collaborating with Voxiva, provider of interactive mobile health services, to help people living diabetes improve their health using their cell phones. Voxiva's Care4life diabetes self-management program is now available as part of the Association's Living With Type 2 Diabetes Program, which uses text messages, a personal online portal and a mobile website to engage and support users as they learn about diabetes and form healthy habits. Care4life delivers education, medication and appointment reminders, blood glucose tracking, weight and exercise goal setting and tracking, healthy recipes and nutrition tips, and a virtual coach to provide motivation. Article
> Qualcomm has introduced 2net Mobile, a new version of its mHealth platform designed to aggregate disparate medical data and health sensor information into one concentrated stream for access on mobile devices. The white-label Android software module will mimic the gateway functionality of the 2net Hub allowing secure access and transmission of health information. The SDK is now available to developers and will allow 2net Mobile to be integrated into existing Android apps. The 2net Mobile software module consists of the 2net mobile core that communicates with biometric sensors and, in turn, interfaces with the 2net mobile application user interface. Developers will be able to bypass the application and build their own application around the mobile core. Article
EMR News
> To meet the goal of Meaningful Use's Stage 3 to improve outcomes, the functional objectives need to be linked to the outcomes, according to the Health IT Policy Committee's Meaningful Use Workgroup. The question is how best to "connect the dots." The workgroup, presenting at the committee's Sept. 4 meeting, reported that it is revising the objectives from Stages 1 and 2 to include functionality and outcomes goals in Stage 3, prioritized to improve outcomes. For instance, patients not only would have online access to their health information--a functionality goal--but they also would understand their disease and treatment, and participate in shared decision making--an outcome goal. Article
Healthcare IT News
> Healthcare organizations will spend 32.8 million hours complying with the modified HIPAA omnibus rule, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights. The bulk of that time--30.655 million hours--involves the dissemination and acknowledgement of privacy practices at provider offices, a notice published in the Federal Register reveals. It attributes 619,000 hours to "new burdens" associated with the HIPAA omnibus rule. Much of this work will have to be repeated annually. Article
And Finally… Holes in that theory. Article