Futuristic healthcare impacting care now

This week we brought you coverage of the Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit and the first Health IT Policy Committee meeting since former head Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, stepped down.

Eric Topol, MD, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and chief academic officer for Scripps Health in La Jolla, Calif., delivered the keynote address, covering the wide range of futuristic healthcare tools that could soon become commonplace.

He said he thinks population health medicine will eventually be just a footnote because we already can zoom in on the individual. “Social networking has led to extraordinary power of people.” Topol also said a consumer revolution is “just starting to percolate right now.”

Mobile health technologies have the potential to change every aspect of healthcare, Topol said. He is one of the authors of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “The problem is that we are not amalgamating enough real-world clinical trial evidence. Our biggest push is to get that evidence.”

Topol also said a smartphone attachment makes the stethoscope obsolete. He said he hasn’t used a stethoscope since 2009 because the high resolution ultrasound device gives images of the heart in seconds that are at least as good as the images you can get with a $350,000 echo machine.

Telemedicine through smartphones also have the ability to improve patient satisfaction and cut costs, Topol said. The average clinic visit is seven minutes long and the average wait for that visit is 60 minutes. Virtual visits saved an average of $88 per visit and patients loved it, he said.

“The way we use it today, the smartphone is going to be the hub of the future of medicine,” Topol said.  

Even as we plan for the future of healthcare, past actions have an impact as well. A Florida hospital chain incorrectly claimed $31 million in Meaningful Use incentive payments.

Eleven of Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates' (HMA) 70 hospitals said they met the program's requirements and received $31 million in payments since 2010. The company blamed the improper claims, which were discovered last month, on an error in the accounting treatment of the incentive payments due to “a control deficiency related to the administration and oversight of the company's EHR enrollment process," in a statement.

Are futuristic apps making an impact at your organization yet? Please share your experience.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor