Weekly roundup: Focus on mobile health

Mobile health was the big topic in this week's news with a survey indicating greater acceptance of mobile health monitoring among the American public and a new call for a federal office devoted to wireless health.

A survey conducted by Harris Interactive and HealthDay shows that one-third of Internet-using adults expressed interest in using smartphones or tablets to make doctor appointments, receive medical test results or communicate with their doctor.    

"This poll shows us that the public is interested in using these apps," said Titus Schleyer, head of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Regenstrief Institute in Indianappolis, Ind., in a statement. "But the healthcare system has to make it easier for them to do it. Right now, many of these phone and tablet apps for these type of diagnostic tests are either just gaining traction or not yet available to consumers," researchers said.

The Healthcare Innovation and Marketplace Technologies Act, reintroduced by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), calls for the establishment of an Office of Wireless Health in the FDA. The bill was first introduced last December but did not progress beyond the committee level.

The new FDA office would develop a regulatory framework on wireless health issues and would establish an mHealth support program to help mobile health app developers comply with current privacy standards and launch a grant program for health IT innovators. A low-interest small business loan program for healthcare providers purchasing new services and a health IT employee training two-year grant program also are part of the bill.

Meanwhile, expect a report on the failure to use medicines responsibility to have fallout over the next several months if not years. About $213 billion, or 8 percent of the U.S. healthcare industry’s total annual healthcare expenditures, are incurred due to failure to use medicines responsibly, according to a study published by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

Medication nonadherence, delayed evidence-based treatment practice, misuse of antibiotics, medication errors and suboptimal use of generics and mismanaged polypharmacy in older adults all contribute to these avoidable costs. These areas lead to unnecessary utilization of healthcare resources involving an estimated 10 million hospital admissions, 78 million outpatient treatments, 246 million prescriptions and four million emergency room visits each year, the study found.

Those numbers are likely to kickstart some new efforts to prevent avoidable costs. Is your organization taking steps to prevent this kind of waste? Please share your experience.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor