1. There is no single, best way to implement patient centric mHealth solutions. Customization is key.

Are restrictions needed to protect the patient-physician relationship? Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is developing a pilot program to determine what sorts of parameters will make an open clinical notes initiative successful.

Source: Mobihealthnews

There are times when a patient may not want a loved one to have access to their medical record. Maryland recently passed an emergency bill improving their HIPAA guidelines so that patients can now send medical information to addresses that they don’t reside in. Patient engagement mHealth apps can similarly address this problem by enabling patients to restrict their loved ones’ access to clinical information.

Source: Health IT Security

One in every nine births is premature. The University of Nebraska Medical Center are testing whether secure texting can be used to lower these odds. By delivering hypertargeted content to pregnant women, they’ll test the outcomes of personalized patient engagement platforms.

Source: mHealth news

Across the world recent reports are reflecting a similar trend: healthcare providers are struggling to keep pace with their mobile savvy patients. In the UK, less than half of healthcare providers have a mobile-friendly website or patient apps. At the same time, patients visiting NHS sites via smartphones grew 118% in the past year.

Source: Integrated Change

This patient engagement app allows providers to build customizable, secure, mobile communications apps that connect patients to clinicians and clinical data in any care setting.

Source: Practice Unite

2. Legislators continue to face new challenges in addressing the need for interoperability as the health tech ecosystem becomes more complex

As HIT innovation becomes even more critical, legislators are finding themselves in uncharted territory: “Healthcare has always been a tightly-regulated industry, while technology has not.” The implications of this dichotomy have manifested in interoperability, which is now arguably the biggest challenge to securing the health of our nation.

Source: mHealth news

What are your thoughts on The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Interoperability roadmap? The main objective of the three year plan is, “to enable a majority of individuals and providers across the care continuum to send, receive, find and use a common set of electronic clinical information at the nationwide level”. To accomplish this, healthcare providers will need technologies that enable them to access and act on clinical data using a single, integrated platform.

Source: Healthcare Informatics

3. The benefits of secure text messaging apps extend beyond maintaining HIPAA compliance to addressing care coordination, interoperability and patient engagement challenges

A recent survey of nearly 5,000 primary care physicians and specialists has found that career satisfaction falters as it becomes more difficult for physicians to make referrals. Interestingly, “Hospital-based physicians or physicians in larger group practices also reported lower referral barriers than those in small or solo practices.” Their findings suggest large care networks deploying technologies that support in-network referrals can potentially improve physician satisfaction along with costs for hospitals and patients.

Source: Becker’s Hospital Review

Mobile enabled technologies are key to healthcare providers like Sutter Health’s Advanced Illness Management, who use these technologies to deliver coordinated care to patients with advanced illnesses. Interoperability and lack of patient engagement are two stumbling blocks that mHealth apps like Practice Unite enable healthcare providers to overcome by connecting patients with health information, clinical data, and care navigators.

Source: HFMA