At the top of three regulatory stories this week is one that appeared on the news wires just before this issue went to press. The Federal H.E.A.T. strike force, a joint effort of HHS, the FBI, the federal Department of Justice and the DEA, arrested 94 people so far in Miami, Baton Rouge, Detroit and Brooklyn. The number is expected to grow as more arrests are announced throughout the weekend.
In a related announcement, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that health care fraud fighters in the state of Florida will now have additional funding to help find potential fraud and abuse in the state’s Medicaid program through use of Medicaid claims data.
Proper therapy utilization in home care has been in the news lately. Moving quickly, software vendor Delta Health Technologies has signed up to sponsor another Fazzi Associates research project designed to develop guidance for home health agencies on excellence in therapy services.
Combining high-tech monitoring systems with human interactions yielded psychological as well as physical benefits to cancer patients prone to experiencing pain and depression, according to a new study reported in the July 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
— CellTrak Mobile Technology improves client care in Vancouver
— Medline Industries, Inc. and Strategic Healthcare Programs partner to support improved home health outcomes with new reporting and benchmarking system to help providers select optimum wound care treatment.
— Braff Group expands into behavioral health and social services
There are three standard objections to adding a home telehealth program: does it really work? will patients put up with medical devices making their kitchen or bedroom look like a hospital room? and how in the world do we pay for it? We spoke with a company at this year’s American Telemedicine Association meeting who may have addressed all three.
NMTA was formed to bring together New Mexico healthcare providers interested in home telehealth issues to discuss opportunities, regulations and funding opportunities and to share resources and promote the use of telehealth systems throughout the state. In this video interview, we spoke with alliance president Dr. Arturo Gonzales and vice president Joie Glenn.
Viterion president Sunil Hazaray and vice president Dr. Lisa Roberts introduced a number of new products at this year’s ATA annual meeting, signifying the Bayer subsidiary’s conscious shift from disease management to wellness support.
The government’s certification program for health information technology will continue to evolve over time, according to a review of the recently released final rule for the temporary certification program, released last week. The temporary program to certify electronic health record technology went into effect on June 24 and will be replaced by a permanent certification program as soon as Dec. 31, 2011. However, the analysis by the College of Health Information Management Executives indicates that certification criteria will change, necessitating the ongoing need to certify HIT products for the foreseeable future.
Moving rapidly into the home health care market after its successful start in CHF disease management, Cardiocom made three significant announcements in recent weeks. This article provides brief summaries of the Minneapolis company’s new interfaces with Thornberry’s NDoc and ContinuLink’s home health application and its internally developed and manufactured, fully integrated pulse oximeter. As per our VW custom, we also provide links to each company’s web site.
As a telehealth clinician I can certify there were many new products to jump up and down about at the American Telemedicine Association’s annual meeting and exhibition. One such technology, spotlighted by a multi-year exhibitor, quietly stole the show for me.
