Take Tunstall’s RTX3371 Wireless Telehealth Monitor, for example. The device just cleared the U.S. FDA and uses a slower GPRS cellular radio to receive and send data.

Vital signs are wirelessly collected from other compatible devices like weight scales and blood pressure units; the stats can then be forwarded on to doctors or hospitals by using the integrated cellular radio. As if that weren’t enough, the RTX3371 offers voice functionality for questionnaires on how a patient is feeling.

I still want to see this done by just one device… my smartphone.

But it struck me.

Which of the two phrases in the title should be the one we focus on as we move forward into pushing the healthcare conversation forward?

Clinically Relevant (Clinical Relevance)

or

Patient Centered

Does it make a difference?  Would it change our behaviours?  Will it affect our focus?

If we use one more than the other, will this affect our outcomes in transforming healthcare?  (Oops, you are right, the goal is not to transform healthcare but to improve patient outcomes.   In the process of improving outcomes it just happens that the delivery of health care services will also be transformed.)

I do believe it makes a difference… but need to think through it some more.   Please let us know what you think.

Physicians increasingly are discovering smartphones serve a purpose beyond being a convenient communication gadget.

It is good to hear.  As you know we are big proponents of the use of mobile technology for everything  … so it is always good to read research that supports our crazy ideas.   Some of the highlights:

Physicians are adopting mobile technology at a faster rate than the general public (54% of U.S. physicians now and by 2011 70%).

Drug references are the top function accessed by physicians… Other applications are also available (i.e. medical calculators, decision-support tools and electronic health records).

Use of mobile technology among physicians will increase EHR adoption.

Palm started the trend a while back (no idea of dates) when they offered their devices to medical students with select drug reference guides already loaded.  Initially and for quite some time, physicians in general, and for no better reason than pure familiarity were heavy Palm users.  At first, BlackBerry had a tough time breaking in with this group but began to trickle into their ranks after having won the hearts and minds of hospital management and administration.  The main reason for this can be summarized into two words: enterprise grade! Administrators, security folks and management all recognized the BlackBerry platform as being more secure, stable, easy to manage and reliable.

Unfortunately I don’t have access to the reports referenced in the above article by Manhattan Research or the Diffusion Group to see if adoption is broken down by device, however if the data is there I would assume a continuing decline on the Palm side and an upwards trend for BlackBerry usage.  If we look at physicians specifically I would have to say that this group would lean more towards the iPhone.  But again this is pure speculation from my view (from the ground up).

My conclusion: mobile devices are still being used by physicians as a personal productivity tool and are not  integrated into care giving processes to the extent that real and transformational value have been achieved.  There are pockets of success around but it is definitely not widespread.

Read the rest of the post at the American Medical News.

1. Need to become smarter.
2. Need more time.

Because neither of the above seems a possibility in the near future maybe we can just get some contributors…

Having said all that, it still quite surprising and shocking how hospitals have not opened their doors more widely to mobile phone use inside their facilities. However we see some progress being made:

Hospitals in England have been told to consider allowing “more liberal use of mobile phones”, following new guidance issued today by the Department of Health.

Under the new guidelines areas of hospitals where mobile phone use is banned could become the exception rather than the norm. Bans will remain in place in areas where critical care equipment is susceptible to electro magnetic interference.

The latest guidance says NHS trusts “should consider giving patients, staff and visitors the widest possible use of mobile phones, where it doesn’t interfere with equipment, the privacy of others or cause a nuisance”.

Although the main reason for these changes in England are not for the same reasons we stated above:

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: “Close support and comfort from loved ones when you are poorly in hospital is essential. Mobiles phones are commonplace in everyday life these days and people have told us that they’d like to be able to use their phones more in hospital to keep in touch.”

Bradshaw added: “That’s why we’re keen to encourage sensible use in NHS hospitals where it is safe to do so, in addition to other services offered in hospitals such bedside payphones, TV and internet access.”

It appears to be more about the patient experience than on the improvement of care… but both are really one and the same so it is good all around.

One question still remains… when will see hospitals adopt mobile technologies more widely?  Will the iPhone do it?   With Palm sinking rapidly and physicians no longer able to defend the ailing platform, BlackBerry may have a chance to win hospitals over especially if they go with the enterprise pitch.  However, on an individual basis I am sure that the iPhone stands a better chance of winning the hearts and minds of caregivers.  We shall see.

**An extremely similar version of this entry has also been posted on our other site.

We wanted to provide an update for those that want to see some content now so you are not disappointed and you keep coming back… It will get better and we will have some valuable and insightful content in these pages.  We haven’t sent the official invitation to our planned contributors but that will take place this week.  In the meantime you can head over to any of these other places mentioned below to get a dose of healthcare and technology news and information.

HITSphere – The brainchild of The Healthcareguy Shahid Shah this site is a Healthcare-IT blog aggregator you may find useful to discover and uncover other interesting sites.

eHealth – John Sharp’s eHealth blog comes up a lot throughout the net (at least it did for me) and I subscribe to it through Google Reader.  A good place to get news and brief commentary.  It has served as a gateway to other places for me.  (His posts don’t seem to accept trackbacks so I will probably drop by, leave a comment and introduce Virtuate to him).

Life As a Healthcare CIO – Everybody knows John Halamka… this is his blog and latest post.  I also found out about John’s post on the iPod (not the iPhone) in Healthcare through David Rothman’s blog – another good place to visit.  (BTW – The iPhone and other mobile devices in the enterprise will be one of the many topics discussed at the Mobile Strategy Blog over the next few weeks).

eHealthNews.EU Portal – The First European eHealth News Portal … This site is part of my daily read.

The Health Care Blog – David Kibbe is running a series: “Confessions of a Physician EMR Champion,” subtitled “A Conversation with American Physicians About How to Save Medicine in the Age of Information.”

The New Life of e-Patient Dave – Truly require reading for anyone in healthcare and technology.  One of our goals here at Virtuate would be to have e-Patient Dave do a few contributions.  We shall muster up our strength later.  Dave’s latest post here.

Through Dave above I found Dr. Ted Eytan‘s blog (where I went because this post interested me) and noticed we are using the same theme.  Since he was there first we will be looking for another themes soon (note at bottom of this post)… at least we know Dr. Eytan has good taste . More importantly you should read his definition of Health 2.0 which I am sure will be mentioned in one of our articles soon.

Quickly Now:

• Neil Versel – Healthcare IT Journalist with a blog.  Since he announced one of his gigs going away I wonder if he would consider writing for us?  Especially since he leans towards the productivity topic which is near and dear to where this blog wants to go.
• Health 2.0 Blog – A blog is for the whole Health2.0 Community as a space to write and to comment.
• The Doctor Weighs In – Written by five physicians.  Sample article: The Future of Health 2.0 Tools.
• The Future of Health IT – Could be summarized by saying its ‘like’ an aggregator that gives us a glimpse into the Long Tail of Healthcare IT (latest post).
• Health Populi – From a health economist and management consultant (sample post).
• Trusted MD – Hippocrates writes more on Health 2.0 which I am sure we will follow a lot of his links to get better acquainted with some of the players.  Some of his other posts show that not everything is hugs and kisses in the health 2.0 debate.  Nice. (BTW – there is a lot more on Trusted MD worth reading).
• HISTALK – Just imagine how much reading and work goes into a post like this one full of links and information.  Saves all of us time.

This is it for now.  Hope you find some of these links interesting.  Will work on the ABOUT page next and will send that email out to our coveted contributors.

A note on the design – You may have noticed the switch from the very elegant Carrington Theme to this  design.  We may go back to Carrington but there was dead link to the author pages that was creating some problems for Google so until we can figure it out we will stay with the current theme.  However don’t be surprised if the theme changes a few more times until we freeze it for a while.