Caring Technologies / TalkAutism

Controlling Medicaid Expenses Can Help States Improve Bottom Lines

2009-02-18T12:51:00.001-08:00

State officials face shrinking budgets and hard choices. One of the largest line items on their balance sheets – Medicaid expenditures – represented nearly 21 percent of state budgets in fiscal year (FY) 2008 on average and is expected to grow in the coming years.1 However, new, no-risk approaches to boost Medicaid program efficiency and reduce costs can provide some level of budgetary relief.
“Health care costs are increasing at a higher rate than inflation, and our country faces a growing Medicaid population in a faltering economy. These trends are putting states in a very difficult position,” said Tom McGraw, senior vice president, Ingenix Government Solutions. “State budgets are in dire circumstances, and two-thirds of states are facing deficit positions, many in the billions of dollars, with bleak projections for the near future.”
“Current state budgets are at least as bad as we have seen since the severe recessionary period of the early 1980s,” according to Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO). “The expectation is that passage of the stimulus package will provide significant relief to states for Medicaid in the short term, but that long-term program models to reduce Medicaid costs must still be addressed by fiscal 2010 or 2011,” he added.

Health Technology Spending to Exceed $460 Million in the Disease Management Sector

2009-02-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

17 February 2009 Personal Health Technology Spending to Exceed $460 Million in the Disease Management Sector in 2013Competitive pressure and congressional stimulus funds drive adoption
Providers of personal health technologies such as health monitoring devices and personal health records (PHR) can generate over $460 million in revenue in 2013 by targeting the disease management (DM) industry, according to Parks Associates' recent report Disease Management Industry and High-Tech Adoption . The international research firm cites changes in the healthcare landscape, combined with the Obama administration's stimulus package and reform initiatives, as catalysts for accelerated technology spending over the next five years.

(CT comment) and this does not even include behavior imaging(tm)

‘Father claims teachers broke autistic child's nose’ - reason for Behavior Imaging

2008-04-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Fyi - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24141603/

This type of recurring story demonstrates (in part) why BI Capture (Behavior Imaging) has been invented ... to help autism professionals and families during such crises. BI Capture should help overt these misunderstandings, and as important, provide health data on video of what might be triggering our kids’ behavior better than conventional approaches.

VA, DOD push single medical exam, e-benefits site

2008-02-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

Military remains very interested in our proprietary image capture and sharing technology for returning soldiers potentially impacted by Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-traumatic stress disorder.

http://www.govhealthit.com/online/news/350113-1.html

Google in joint venture with Cleveland Clinic

2008-02-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

We remain very interested in leading internet service companies, and design CT's own services with this in mind...

Google in joint venture with Cleveland Clinic

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2008/02/18/daily58.html

PHR / EHR Analysis

2007-07-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

This link provides an excellent overview of the budding promise of PHR technology. Much of the supportive justification amplifies why Caring Technologies is in this important industry sector, and why some of our unique I.P. and focus on chronic conditions makes our product portfolio very attractive for individual users and institutional clients. http://www.chcf.org/documents/chronicdisease/PHRPerspectives.pdf

Microsoft to Buy Health Information Search Engine

2007-02-28T04:02:00.000-08:00

By STEVE LOHR
Published: February 27, 2007

Microsoft’s drive into the health care market is just getting under way, but the company signaled yesterday that one important ingredient in its plan will be a specialized search engine tailored to deliver useful medical information to consumers.

Microsoft is buying Medstory Inc., a small start-up in Foster City, Calif. Its search software applies artificial intelligence techniques to medical and health information in medical journals, government documents and on the Internet.
The terms of the Medstory acquisition were not disclosed.
The Medstory purchase, said Peter Neupert, vice president for health strategy at Microsoft, was a first step in a broader company strategy to assemble technologies that would “improve the consumer experience in health care.”
“Clearly,” Mr. Neupert said, “search is a critical part of that better end-to-end experience for consumers.”
The acquisition follows Microsoft’s purchase last year of Azyxxi, a clinical health care software system that retrieves and quickly displays patient information from many sources, including scanned documents, X-rays, M.R.I. scans and ultrasound images.
The Microsoft move comes at a time of increased investment in online health ventures, rising traffic at consumer health sites on the Web and profits at the most popular sites. Last month, a venture firm headed by Stephen M. Case, the former chief executive of America Online, introduced an ambitious new consumer health site, RevolutionHealth.com.
WebMD, the leading health-related site, last week reported strong quarterly profit of $8.9 million on revenue of $80.6 million, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations. The stock price of WebMD — an Internet pioneer in health information that struggled for years — has surged in the last year.
In health-related search, Healthline Networks, a start-up in San Francisco, reports rising traffic on its Web site and a growing string of deals to provide the search engine for sites of other companies, including Merck and PacifiCare. At Google, Adam Bosworth, a vice president for engineering, is leading the effort to develop a health-information offering.
These companies and others are seeking ways to build businesses on the Internet that profit from what is called consumer-driven health care. The notion is that shifts in demographics, economics, technology and policy will inevitably mean that individuals will want to, and be forced to, make more health care decisions themselves.
Aging baby boomers, accustomed to personal choice and to technology, tend to want a say in their treatment decisions. And the Internet is already an important source of health information. Eight million people in the United States go online for health information every day, according to a study last year by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit group.
Financially, the pressure by Medicare and private health insurers to hold down costs and shift more of the burden to individuals, analysts say, will force people to make more health care spending choices.
In Medstory, Microsoft is acquiring “some of the best deep technology” in the emerging field of medical search, said Esther Dyson, an industry analyst who is also an investor in Medstory. That technology, Ms. Dyson said, is “not so much a search engine, but an ontology engine,” with a capability to find and identify concepts in health and not just sort through words and Web links.
The longer-range goal, Mr. Neupert said, is to link personal information like age, sex, drug regimens, family history and even genetic markers to search. The ideal is that search results are tailored individually, identifying treatments, drug interactions and medical journal articles of interest.
“Health search could be way more relevant,” he said. “You don’t need to see thousands of results. What you want to know is, what does this mean to me personally?”
Dr. Alain T. Rappaport, the founder and chief executive of Medstory, said he was impressed by the importance Microsoft placed on “intelligent search” in health care and by the promise that Microsoft’s global reach and resources could accelerate the spread of the technology his team developed.
Microsoft had talked to Healthline recently about using its health search service, said West Shell III, the chief executive of Healthline. “This means Microsoft has decided to go it alone,” Mr. Shell said.

at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/technology/27soft.html?_r=2&ref=technology&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

BI Capture testimony

2006-11-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

The technology is awesome, way better than any functional behavior assessment that is usually conducted under unusual circumstances and not in the child's natural environment, not to mention, it's biased due to the person's views collecting the data. I have a friend here who is in the middle of proving that her son's outburts are seizure based. This technology of yours will help her immensely (former ASA Chapter President, NY).

Connecting for Health - A Public-Private Collaborative

2006-10-29T22:14:00.000-08:00

The Markle Foundation presents Connecting for Health: A Public-Private Collaborative.
The Personal Health Working Group.

Final Report - July 1, 2003.

To read, please click here [PDF].

Personal Health Record Systems

2006-10-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

Personal Health Record Systems
A Report and Recommendations from
the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics

Click Here for PDF

(from February 2006) President Bush and Secretary Leavitt have put forward a vision that, in the Secretary’s words, “would create a personal health record that patients, doctors and other health care providers could securely access through the Internet no matter where a patient is seeking medical care.” The National Health Information Infrastructure Workgroup of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) held six hearings on personal health
records (PHRs) and PHR systems in 2002-2005. On the basis of those hearings, the Workgroup developed a letter report with twenty recommendations that it sent to the Secretary in September 2005. Citing the role PHR systems could play in improving health and healthcare and furthering the broad health information technology agenda, the letter report urges the Secretary to exercise leadership and give priority to developing PHRs and PHR systems, consistent with the Committee’s recommendations. The present report is a slightly expanded version of the letter report sent to the Secretary. Although substantively unchanged, it adds clarifying information for a broader audience.

NCVHS is the statutory public advisory Committee on health information policy to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Persona Health Records and Systems

Executive Summary

Currently, PHRs and their associated health management tools are heterogeneous and evolving.
There is no uniform definition of “personal health record” in industry or government. The following
attributes can vary:
- the scope or nature of the information/ contents
- the source of the information
- the features and functions offered
- the custodian of the record
- the storage location of the contents
- the technical approach
- the party who authorizes access to the information

The Committee concluded that while this variety reflects the current stage of innovation, it makes collaboration and policy-making difficult. The Committee recommended development of a descriptive framework to facilitate nuanced discussion and policy-making in this area, and proposed the attributes listed above as a starting point (see page 11 ). Although the consumer/patient is the primary beneficiary and user of PHRs, other stakeholders stand to benefit from their use, as well. The table below summarizes potential benefits from the perspective of various roles. (These perceived benefits may not align with any specific PHR or PHR system, and the same users may play different roles at different times.)

Mental health treatment by video growing

2006-10-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

By JAMIE STENGLE
October 9, 2006

DALLAS - Psychiatrists, often in need and hard to find in rural areas, are increasingly turning to video to treat their far-flung patients, illustrating one of the latest growth areas of telemedicine.

Anthony Presciano said he probably wouldn't get treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder if he had to drive the 60 miles through heavy traffic to see his therapist in Dallas.

Instead, the 60-year-old Vietnam War veteran travels less than 15 miles from his north Texas home of Argyle to a suburban clinic in Denton where he "sees" his doctor on a video screen.

"Once the telemedicine session starts, it's no different than a face-to-face," said Dr. Umar Latif of the Dallas VA Medical Center, which has been offering psychiatric sessions over video for more than a year.

Video medical treatment increasingly is filling the gap in regions of the country where specialists are in short supply. And mental health appointments work especially well over video, enabling therapists to reach many patients who otherwise might not get help, experts say.

There are no figures on the number of doctors using telemedicine or telemental services, which can include appointments by video screen or telephone. But American Telemedicine Association spokesman Jonathan Linkous said the practice has been growing each year.

Read Full Article (AP)

BI Capture(TM) Demonstrates Behavior Imaging Promise in Pilot Study for Students With Autism

2006-09-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

BOISE, ID -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 09/07/06 -- Caring Technologies today announced highly encouraging Phase 1 results of a groundbreaking pilot study of a novel video capture technology designed to better assess and treat children with autism, said CEO Ron Oberleitner.

These first findings of the controlled study, funded in Spring 2006 by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, showed that the technology, BI Capture(TM), was able to successfully record, annotate and (electronically) facilitate review of children with autism's behaviors. "This is a first step but it is a major accomplishment," said Dr. Gregory Abowd, PhD, professor of computing at Georgia Tech and the co-inventor of BI Capture's technology. "When we began this study at an Atlanta-area special school for children with behavioral disabilities we wanted to ensure that our initial findings reflected a real-world school setting. We were able to assess 245 incidents, far more than we expected from this study.

"Being able to successfully deploy this technology shows genuine promise to help educators not only record behavioral events but pinpoint what preceded the event and the aftermath. It's difficult to underestimate what this potentially means for educators currently under pressure to produce pen and paper reports based on their own visual observations over the course of a school day," adds Dr. Abowd.

read rest of article ... http://news.morningstar.com/news/MWR/M09/D07/0160969.html

Relevant article - Doctors Join to Promote Electronic Record Keeping

2006-09-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

By MILT FREUDENHEIM
Published: September 19, 2005

He is a self-described techie, but that did not help Dr. Eugene P. Heslin harness the wonders of electronic medical records. The technology seemed too complicated and expensive for a small medical group like his six-doctor family practice in rural upstate New York.

"The large groups can afford the software," said Dr. Heslin, a family physician in Saugerties. "For the onesies and twosies, small groups like ours, there is no profit margin."
Now, though, in a collaboration with 500 like-minded doctors, as well as hospitals, insurers and employers in two Hudson Valley counties, Dr. Heslin and his partners are clearing barriers that have made modern information technology inaccessible to the hundreds of thousands of small doctors' offices around the nation.
The Hudson Valley effort is being watched as a potential model by federal and state government and industry officials, who say that up to 60 percent of Americans receive their primary care at small-scale physicians' offices. Unless those small medical practices can adopt the most modern and efficient information technology, millions of Americans may never know the benefits of the most advanced and safest care.
Electronic records, particularly ones that can be shared online by different doctors and hospitals, can improve the quality and safety of patient care by reducing errors that kill tens of thousands of patients each year. That is why, with considerable cheerleading but only modest financial help from Congress and the Bush administration, big organizations like Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic and many medical centers across the country are spending billions to convert to electronic records.
And last week, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, government and private health care officials were rushing to build an electronic database of prescription drug records for hundreds of thousands of people who lost their records in the storm. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the chaos wreaked by Katrina "powerfully demonstrated the need for electronic health records."
Also helping propel the electronic revolution are private insurers, Medicare and some employers, which are paying incentives to medical providers that can achieve better efficiency and patient care through improved information management.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/technology/19ehealth.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=c14300b6190078f5&ex=1158897600

Caring Technologies' CEO recognized as one of the Autism Community's Top Ten Faces

2006-04-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

As part of Spectrum’s two year anniversary celebration, they have given special attention to a few of the autism’s top crusaders. See why Ron Oberleitner is known in the autism community as the "The Network Guy" Spectrum's Top Ten Faces

Caring Technologies' strategic partner Emerge Medical Technologies is awarded SBIR funding for tele-behavioral study in the classroom.

2006-04-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

Caring Technologies' strategic partner e-Merge Medical Technologies is awarded SBIR funding for tele-behavioral study in the classroom. See Press Release and also NBC Article and Video featuring details about the project.

Wall Street Journal Looks at New Ways to Monitor Patients at Home

2006-04-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

Facing growing cases of chronic illnesses amid continuing nursing shortages, the health-care industry is increasingly turning to home-based medical devices to keep tabs on patients.

See Wall Street Journal Article

Dell Takes HealthCare Online

2006-04-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

This interesting article (Dell takes Healthcare Online) validates the services that Caring Technologies is pioneering, and confirms the substantial need we’re addressing:

Businessweek Link

BTW - Our Personal Health Record (PHR) service can also be adoptable by employers, and allow their workers extra benefits to access healthcare remotely using our growing number of telehealth and billing services.

If you have any questions about our products or services applicability, give either Greg Chotkowski(917-751-6622) or Ron Oberleitner (609-306-9181) a call.