Health-Related Issues Currently In The News

Innovation is key to healthcare reform. The Council on Technology and Innovation (CTI) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is "developing the capacity to better prepare for new kinds of medical innovations.  Sharing knowledge with industry and other agencies already engaged in identifying and tracking innovative healthcare solutions will enable CMS to better anticipate and accommodate new technology to assure a more orderly, timely, and appropriate coverage process.  ..........The goal is to promote the adoption of more targeted approaches to care that can increase quality and avoid unnecessary health care costs."  New software applications are being developed to encourage Patient Self-Monitoring.  This means patients will take an active role in managing their healthcare.  In order to implement patient self-monitoring, technology is needed that will allow the patient to remain at home.  Ideally this will result in fewer office visits with healthcare professionals and could also mean that patients needing skilled nursing care will be able to remain at home instead of going to a facility.  This is both a cost and time-saving means of delivering innovative healthcare without sacrificing quality.  The Wall Street Journal provided an excellent overview in The Journal Report March 28, 2011 entitled Innovations: Health Care.  The WSJ gave several examples of innovative care using Mobile-Health Technology to monitor from afar.  There are mobile tools that "allow physicians to monitor vital signs, note changes in activity levels and verify that medications have been taken, without ever seeing a patient face to face".  This is an exciting time for biotechnology firms to research and develop mobile clinical technology.  My personal experience with mobile monitoring is with my mom who has a cardiac pacemaker.  In lieu of traveling to see her cardiologist and/or his staff for interrogation of her pacemaker, she has a portable device at home that allows this to be done and send results electronically to her cardiologist.  If there are concerns, the cardiologist will notify her with treatment recommendations.  My mom is a layperson and this form of monitoring requires she "hook up" to the device for the monitoring to occur.  Although this particular process is simple (as it should be), this is an example of patients taking an active role in their healthcare.  Another example is when patients take the initiative to e-mail their healthcare providers regarding health concerns.  Getting patients involved in their care and helping them to understand their treatment plan will hopefully, along with mobile technology, result in better outcomes.  What does innovation, mobile-health technology, and patient self-monitoring have in common? HEALTH CARE REFORM.  These are the new keys to delivering low-cost, high quality health care mandated by the federal government.