Subnavigation

• Global Observatory for eHealth
• Global survey
• Publications
• eHealth Intelligence Report

20 April 2010

eHealth Worldwide

• Africa: New broadband network for Africa approved (13 April 2010 - SciDev)
  Funding for the first phase of an initiative to connect African research centres and link them to an existing European network has been approved by the European Commission. The approval follows a report that identified sufficient IT infrastructure in Africa to support the AfricaConnect Initiative, which aims to improve research collaborations and access to information.
• Botswana: Paperless hospital in Africa offers prototype for new model of care (14 April 2010 - Healthcare IT News)
  A new hospital recently opened in Botswana is being touted as a paperless hospital "without borders." Bokamoso Private Hospital, a 200-bed, state-of-the-art specialty hospital that opened in January, is allowing patients to stay in the country for the medical care they need, said officials. The hospital is located in Botswana's capital Gaborone, which has a population of just over 300,000.
• Nepal: Yorkshire company offers Telehealth solution to Nepal (19 March, 2010 - Medilink)
  A revolutionary online health service, developed in Hull, has been used to deliver pioneering ‘telehealth solutions’ to residents living in the remote village of Gerkhutar in Nepal – one of the world’s most rural areas. Developed by UK based Meddserve, the system called Medsystem and Medrecord Online offers local resident the opportunity to have in-depth consultations with healthcare specialists who are based 65km away - a journey which would normally take a villager and their family 2 days journey across mountainous terrain.
• Peru: Peru to Create e-Government (5 April 2010 - SciDev)
  South Korea has offered to help Peru set up an e-government to help design software specific to local needs.
• UK: Think-tank calls for self-service NHS (9 April 2010 - eHealth Europe)
  A think tank has called for people to be given the option to register with the NHS nationally rather than with a GP in order to speed up the adoption of online services. In a “manifesto” supported by Dr Foster Intelligence and Microsoft, the 2020 Public Services Trust says an organisation like NHS Direct should take responsibility for patients who would “prefer to have their primary relationship with the NHS through telephone and digital channels.”
• US: AHA targets health IT as priority for 2010 (16 April 2010 - Healthcare IT News)
  The American Hospital Association is rallying for rapid uptake of healthcare information technology in one of 12 issue papers it released on Friday in advance of its annual meeting April 25-28 in Washington. The papers outline the association's advocacy priorities for 2010. They were written to help members explain the hospital field's concerns to their legislators, association officials said, and they will be highlighted at the annual meeting.
• US: DOL Announces Grant Funding (18 April 2010 - Federal Telemedicine News)
  The Department of Labor (DOL) is going to award $13.2 million to prepare workers for careers in the healthcare sector. The goal is to create an online platform using standardized data and programming interfaces with the infrastructure in place to support new applications. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA at DOL is particularly interested in supporting the development of a platform that will emphasize opportunities within health technology and healthcare support occupations. There are two grant categories in this funding program. Category 1 provides funding for one grant up to $6.6 million to create and manage the Healthcare Virtual Career Platform (HVCP). Eligible applicants for this category include private nonprofit organizations with a nationally focused mission.

Scientific Articles

• An International Comparison of Web-based Reporting About Health Care Quality: Content Analysis (J Med Internet Res 2010;12(2):e8)
  Background: On more and more websites, consumers are provided with public reports about health care. This move toward provision of more comparative information has resulted in different information types being published that often contain contradictory information. Objective: The objective was to assess the current state of the art in the presentation of online comparative health care information and to compare how the integration of different information types is dealt with on websites. The content analysis was performed in order to provide website managers and Internet researchers with a resource of knowledge about presentation formats being applied internationally.
• Text Messaging as a Tool for Behavior Change in Disease Prevention and Management (30 March 2010 - Epidemiologic Reviews)
  Mobile phone text messaging is a potentially powerful tool for behavior change because it is widely available, inexpensive, and instant. This systematic review provides an overview of behavior change interventions for disease management and prevention delivered through text messaging. Evidence on behavior change and clinical outcomes

Articles

• Breaking Down the Barriers (13 April 2010 - The Wall Street Journal)
  When health-care providers exchange electronic medical records, costs go down and patient care goes up. For starters, only about 10% of the nation's hospitals and less than 7% of doctors' offices have full-fledged electronic medical records. And those that have electronic records typically don't share them with others unless they're part of the same health system.
• EMR Data Theft Booming (26 March 2010 - InformationWeek)
  Fraud resulting from exposure of electronic medical records has risen from 3% in 2008 to 7% in 2009, a 112% increase, researcher says.
• My Data, Your Data, Our Data: A bold project hopes that getting scientists to share information can deepen their understanding of diseases (13 April 2010 - The Wall Street Journal)
  In the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia, it is hard to believe there is still one group that prefers to be more circumspect about sharing: scientists.Scientists worry that if they share data before publishing their findings, someone else might claim credit for a discovery they made. And even after they mine information for themselves, they frequently cling to the notion that more may be discovered, and so continue to hoard the data.
• PwC predicts IT will be 'key factor' for healthcare transformation (9 April 2010 - HealthcareITnews)
  Ninety percent of U.S. healthcare leaders and 84 percent of global healthcare leaders recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) believe information technology will be a "key factor" for changes in healthcare in the near future and over the coming decade.
• Savings From Computerizing Medical Records Are Hard To Measure (7 April 2010 - KaiserHealthNews)
  When it comes to health policy, few ideas find as much bipartisan support as the notion that widespread adoption of health information technology could improve medical care and save money. But putting a realistic number on those savings remains an elusive goal for health IT advocates.
• Twitter study highlights need for monitoring health info dissemination (31 March 2010 - HealthcareIT)
  Twitter has the potential to spread misinformation about health and medicine, according to a new study that examines Twitter updates about antibiotics.
• When your carpet calls your doctor: The coming convergence of wireless communications, social networking and medicine will transform health care (8 Apr 2010 - The Economist)
  Wireless health is “becoming omnipresent” in hospitals, according to Kalorama Information, a market-research firm; it estimates that the market for such devices and services in America alone will grow from $2.7 billion in 2007 to $9.6 billion in 2012.
• WHO pandemic probe focuses on media, Internet role (13 April 2010 - AFP)
  The Internet had a disruptive impact on the handling of the flu pandemic by fanning speculation and rumours, officials said as a world health probe on Tuesday examined communications on swine flu.
• With the iPad, Apple may just revolutionize medicine (11 April 2010 - The Washington Post)
  Medical-technology trade publications are getting positively Tiger Beat in their enthusiasm. Kaiser Permanente is testing uses for the device, a honcho at one of Harvard's main teaching hospitals has weighed in on his facility's iPad pilot program, and executives at Cedars-Sinai were rumored to have gotten prototypes last year.

Studies

• Canada: Evaluating the Value and Impact of an Electronic Health Record in a Complex Health System ( April 2010 - ElectronicHealthcare)
  NetCARE is Canada's first region-wide electronic health record (EHR)... It is a clinical, web-based, view-only record of an individual's key health information drawn from multiple sources. NetCARE is available in both hospital and community settings and is accessed by a variety of clinical users. ...The purpose of this study was to evaluate the value and impact of netCARE, using a systematic approach for quantifying tangible and intangible outcomes from both a clinical-user and system-level (organizational) perspective.
• Latin America: Tarifas y brecha de asequibilidad de los servicios de telefonía móvil en América Latina y el Caribe

Opinion

• Interview: Secretary of Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, Dr. T Ramasami
  The Department of Science and Technology has constituted a committee to develop a biomedical devices and technology vision for this country through a national consultation mechanism. Our first meet has already taken place and we are likely to have a few more meetings in the near future. We hope to mount a technology led vision for biomedical devices for the promotion of this industry.