Bits and pieces picked up at last week's World Congress on mHealth and Telehealth in Boston …
The three-day summit was titled "mHealth + Telehealth World 2013," but was actually two conferences in one – the 5th Annual mHealth World Congress and the 2nd Annual Telehealth World Congress. Last year, the two were held concurrently, in the same location but in different conference rooms on different floors, forcing people to run up and down a staircase or jump on an elevator if they wanted to take in parts of each conference. This year, the two became one, with most of Thursday broken up into two separate tracks, though on the same floor. The rest of the conference covered topics that appeals to both camps – and worked to bridge the divide between telehealth and mHealth that some find annoying.
Conflicting goals? The concept of allowing people to gain access to care wherever they are has one downfall – it cuts down on the exercise one might get in traveling to the hospital or clinic. Think about it: If you can do everything from the comfort of your own home, why move from the couch at all? As Micky Tripathi, president and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (jokingly) put it, "A lot of people are trying to get their 10,000 steps every day. With one fell swoop you've wiped out 1,500."
mHealth distilled. The quote of the conference (and there were many) came from Robert Havasy, team lead and technical architect at Partners Healthcare's Center for Connected Health: "mHealth helps us know things about our patients when they're not with us. And in an accountable care world, this is critical."
A going concern. eHealth Futurist Douglas Goldstein, as lively as ever and with one of the coolest titles in healthcare, displayed a satirical (we think) slide on a new urinal that instantly analyzes one's urine for certain chemicals and can quickly determine if you're feeling depressed. He then pointed out that there are "intelligent" toilets in Japan (he called them "smart potties") that keep track of one's trips to the bathroom during a given day. That one was real. We think. Not to be outdone, Madhu Nutakki, vice president of digital health applications and technologies for Kaiser Permanente, pointed out that 360 million diapers are changed every day – a ripe opportunity, so to speak, for the development of "smart" diapers that can help in newborn healthcare.
Too much information. One of the ongoing debates in mHealth is whether we're giving the physician too much information. Neal Sofian, director of member engagement for Premera Blue Cross, pointed out that clinicians are being overwhelmed with data, which they have neither the time nor the inclination to sift through. "We're collecting data that we don't meaningfully use," he said.
Say that again? Pramod Gaur, vice president of telehealth for the UnitedHealth Group and one of the conference's two chairpersons, noted one issue that physicians have with home-monitoring: They don't always trust self-reported data. Doctors want to either gather the data themselves or have it sent directly from devices, Gaur said. If patients report their own data, he added, doctors often want them to repeat the process to make sure the data is accurate.
Ahead of the pack. Naomi Fried, Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children's Hospital, offered a glimpse at one of the nation's most mHealth-savvy hospitals, where at least seven different apps or mHealth platforms are being used or in development and a mobile apps working group is constantly reviewing new ideas. She pointed out that some of the hospital's past mHealth failures have actually given them good information to use on future projects, and lamented the fact that even though tens of thousands of new apps are being developed every week, "relatively speaking, there are very few truly innovative mobile apps being created."
Getting personal. Another organization leading the way is Aetna, which went live with CarePass roughly one month ago. Dan Conroy, Aetna's head of business development for the CarePass platform, said the mHealth solution isn't a clinical tool, but is strictly consumer-facing, addressing what he and many others feel is one of the root causes of the move to patient-centered healthcare. "It's really about discovery," he said. "Discovery of apps that can get you to a healthier version of you and discovery of your self."
Progressive in mHealth, maybe, but elsewhere? Aunia Grogran, chief executive officer of New Zealand-based Atlantis Healthcare, has watched the development of mHealth and telehealth in several different parts of the world. So who's doing it right? Some of the world's more restrictive nations. According to Grogran, right-leaning countries with strong leaders like Singapore and those in the Middle East are making "astounding" improvements in public health through the use of mHealth and telehealth. They're implementing programs, she says, and getting things done.
Perfect for hospitals and battleships. Paul Frisch, PhD, president and chief technology officer for the RFID in Healthcare Consortium and chief of biomedical physics and engineering at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Boston, gave the conference's closing keynote, in which he walked attendees through the "intelligent hospital" of the future (a popular location at recent HIMSS conferences). As hospitals deploy more and more mobile healthcare tools, he said, they'd do well to consider creating a centrally located room in which all wireless information is routed, sorted, analyzed and distributed to the right devices and people, much like the command center of a modern warship or the president's bunker. "The evolution of the War Room could be coming back," he said.
