US Veterans Affairs sees sharp rise in telemedicine visits

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has seen a sharp increase in the number of telemedicine visits, hitting 750,000 in 2015 - five times the amount in 2009. Neil Evans, head of the VA's Office of Connected Care has suggested the good performance could create savings and help bring about telemedicine legislation. Meanwhile, the Defense Health Agency is adding to its remote services, including a program in which diabetic patients' data is fed wirelessly to caregivers. It is thought the system could also be used for patients with heart conditions.

VA and DOD give favorable marks to telemedicine

With help from David Pittman (@David_Pittman) and Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202).

VA AND DOD LIKE TELEMEDICINE: If you ask the military and veterans, telemedicine is getting high marks.

— At the VA: The agency delivered 750,000 visits from a distance in fiscal year 2015, the VA’s Neil Evans said at an American Telemedicine Association event Tuesday. The agency has conducted more than five times as many visits since 2009, with similar growth in patients seen. Evans, who heads the agency’s Office of Connected Care, is so confident in his group’s performance that he thinks its service — and potential savings — would apply to Medicare and could be used to score legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office has traditionally been skeptical about potential economic gains from telemedicine; the scorekeeper believes reimbursing it will make more beneficiaries seek care than avoid high-cost care.

— At the DOD: The Defense Health Agency is developing its remote patient monitoring portfolio, Colleen Rye, chief of the Army Virtual Health office, said Tuesday at the same event. The Army is piloting a program at Fort Bragg where diabetic patients’ data are fed wirelessly to nurses, who flag issues when the data indicates a patient having problems. The technology could also be applied to patients with heart disease or COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

CONGRESSIONAL ROUNDUP: Some other doings on the Hill to keep abreast of:

— Price transparency: Reps. Gene Green and Michael Burgess — both high-ranking members of the Energy and Commerce Committee — introduced The Health Care Price Transparency Promotion Act, a bill instructing states to develop price transparency data for patients. A similar bill was introduced in the previous Congress, though it didn’t get traction. The American Hospital Association supports the bill.

For what it’s worth, however, skepticism — or hard-earned experience — appears to be dampening enthusiasm for price transparency. Note, for instance, this recent well-done New York Times article spotlighting the struggles of Castlight Health, the price pioneers.

— Also: Health IT Now wrote leaders of Congress’s Armed Services committees asking them to include Sec. 705 of the Senate-passed 2017 National Defense Authorization Act in the conferenced version of the bill. The section would force the military to offer telehealth and reduce cost-sharing for the services. The change “will allow the use of technology in the TRICARE program to grow to its fullest potential,” Health IT Now says. Their letter: http://bit.ly/28L47bv

eHealth tweet of the day: Mike McCann @mikemccann3 I loathe like gov’t intrusion, too. But if they hadn’t, how many org’s would still be using paper? https://twitter.com/mikemccann3/status/745329296865112065

WEDNESDAY: Your correspondent recently noticed a hole in his life, and the cause is obvious: His Tuesdays are less Super. There are fewer stentorian anchors proclaiming critical contests in his life, still fewer epic orations detailing the progress of the people, and so on and so forth. What will fill your correspondent’s needs to pore over the electoral returns of obscure counties? Suggest summer election-watching habits, or better yet, more productive uses of his life, at [email protected]. Election-tweet at @David_Pittman, @arthurallen202, @DariusTahir @ POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.

DID YOU KNOW?: The AMA’s new president, Andy Gurman — a hand surgeon — does not have an EHR. “I just take the penalties,” he said, as it’s cheaper than booting up a new system. Combine that with AMA CEO James Madara’s recent takedown of digital health “snake oil,” and it seems as if the AMA, for one, does not welcome our new tech overlords.

12,000: That’s how many of you went to the much-hyped FTC/OCR/FDA tool helping developers figure out what regulations apply to them, according to a new blog post from ONC. (Well, or one of you visited 12,000 times.)

MOVEMENT ON TELEMED IN THE BAYOU: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signed into law a bill that eliminates a requirement that telemedicine physicians maintain an in-state office or arrangement with a physician with an in-state office. It also softens the state’s definition of telemedicine to a more technology friendly “interactive audio” without video if the same standard of care is kept with an in-person visit.

NEW LEADERSHIP AT EHRA: The Electronic Health Record Association has new leadership, the group announced Tuesday: Epic’s Sasha TerMaat will serve as the new chair for the group, replacing Allscripts’s Leigh Burchell in that role. Richard Loomis of Practice Fusion will serve as vice chair of the group, taking over for NextGen Healthcare’s Sarah Corley.

Cerner’s Hans Buitendijk and McKesson’s Mike Marchlik were elected as new members of the board.

HARRIS COUNTY AND MICROSOFT PARTNER FOR ZIKA: Harris County Public Health and Microsoft are partnering to catch mosquitoes down in Texas, the groups announced Tuesday. Microsoft is installing high-tech mosquito traps, which can focus on specific mosquito species — and ignore flies and moths — while capturing data regarding the weather while in operation. That will allow the agency to track the spread of specific species of mosquitoes. (They’re careful to emphasize they haven’t detected the presence of Zika in Houston.)

HIE POLICY MATTERS (A LOT): The policies governing health information exchange affect participants’ behavior a lot, a study published the Journal of the Medical Informatics Association argues. The researchers, who are primarily from Stanford, examined an HIE collaborative composed of Epic-using, Northern Californian members.

The collaborative was composed of 11 health systems, including heavy hitters UCSF, Stanford, and Kaiser Permanente, and examined how each organization’s policies affected the amount of clinical summaries exchanged between 2013 and 2015.

While all the systems included in the study are members of Epic’s Care Everywhere network, there’s still flexibility given to each member institution — particularly, the researchers emphasize, with respect to whether they allow automatic querying and downloading of a patient’s records before a scheduled appointment, and whether an organization required explicit patient consent before sending off its records.

Each policy, once enabled, encouraged substantially more information exchange. By February 2015, the group saw a 1,349 percent gain in monthly clinical summaries received relative to the January 2013 level.

The authors conclude that attention to policy is critical; without codifying good policy, they argue, gains in technology may not be terribly fruitful. In particular, they praise “efforts to promote simple, standardized terms” as a method of promoting health information exchange.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

23andMe’s use and selling of data to fuel drug discovery: http://bit.ly/28M5F8I

Is It Fair To Call Digital Health Apps Today’s “Snake Oil”?: http://bit.ly/28M1Guh

Using kiosks for telemedicine: http://bit.ly/28LyCDD

CIOs tell ONC: It’s time to let the EHR market innovate to drive interoperability: http://bit.ly/28LPGJG

Follow us on Twitter Mohana Ravindranath @ravindranize



Darius Tahir @dariustahir