IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Telehealth systems link patients to their health-care providers through the Internet using devices capable of transmitting data digitally. Patients can also access their medical record providing greater participation in their own health care.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas today toured the Rutland Regional Medical Center’s emergency department to see the new service in action, and to highlight the role of information technology in improving health care quality and controlling costs.

In the keynote address at a technology conference sponsored by Governing Magazine today, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas is highlighting the role of technology in reducing health care costs and promoting Vermont’s initiative to become the first state to offer residents universal access to quality data and cellular voice coverage and high-speed broadband technology—a goal Douglas says can be achieved by 2010.

VITL, a nonprofit public-private partnership sponsored by the state government, issued a request for information inviting EHR vendors to describe their products for possible inclusion in a list of approved EHR systems for use by the state’s small, independent medical practices.

By entering a few of the man's personal details into the computer, hospital personnel were able to pull up his prescription history and treat him more efficiently, she continued.

Vermont wants to get the majority of its health care providers using electronic medical records in the next five years and has unveiled a road map to help that happen.

The plan, developed by the Vermont Information Technology Leaders, or VITL, a nonprofit private-public organization, was submitted to the state's legislative body and several state agencies this week.

The Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis will share veterans’ health records (EHRs) electronically with private clinics who are members of the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), the large Indiana e-health hub, according to an Aug. 24 VA announcement.

Current users of My HealtheVet will need to re-register to access their personal records. Through the re-registration process, VA will create a new user database, requiring more information to improve account reporting and data security.

In a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership, health-care network giant Kaiser Permanente and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs today unveiled a pilot program they've been using to share patient electronic health records over the past several months.

The program connects the VA's VistA (Veterans Affairs Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) and Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect electronic health records systems. VA beneficiaries and Kaiser Permanente members in the San Diego area were the first to be offered the opportunity to sign up for the pilot. The VA is the nation's largest integrated health care system, serving 5.4 million veterans out of 7 million eligible current and former service members.

U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS), representative from the First District in Kansas, announced an earmark of $300,000 for the medical center’s telemedicine program. The measure has passed the House and approval remains for the Senate.

The bill, which was passed unanimously by both the Virginian House and Senate defines telemedicine as the “use of interactive audio, video or other electronic media for the purpose of diagnosis, consultation or treatment.”

The region is the second of three potential VLER Health Communities, areas with a heavy mix of active duty military and veterans that will serve as test bed locales for the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record project.

"We think it will make a big difference in access, especially in certain specialties that are in short supply, and really can't be supported in some of the smaller rural communities."

Many children in Virginia have been diagnosed with ADHD, depression, anxiety, and severe anger control; but almost 90 of the 135 localities in Virginia do not have a public child psychiatrist in their city, town or county.

Now the University of Virginia Health System is stepping in with the power of television.

There are many reasons why a visit to the doctor’s surgery could actually worsen your health. A combination of germ-infested offices, outdated magazines, bad elevator ‘muzak’, no parking spaces and long waits can leave the stressed patient feeling worse than when they came in.

Wal-Mart has begun rolling out personal electronic health records to a handful of employees as part of a plan to eventually provide more than a million of the retailer's workers and their dependents with digitized health records.

The rollout by Wal-Mart is part of a larger project announced more than a year ago by Dossia, a coalition that includes Wal-Mart and several other large employers, including Intel, British Petroleum, Pitney Bowes, Cardinal Health, Applied Materials, AT&T, and Sanofi-Aventis.

In 2004, President Bush laid out the goal for most Americans to have electronic health records by 2014, and Wal-Mart seems intent on doing its part. Not only is the retailer rolling out e-health records to tens of thousands of its employees and their dependents in connection with Dossia, a consortium of eight large employers that includes AT&T (NYSE: T) and Intel (NSDQ: INTC), but it's also requiring the use of e-health record software for patients treated at the in-store clinics it's about to launch.

The company confirmed a New York Times article published yesterday indicating that the massive retailer Wal-Mart Stores was looking to enter the electronic records market. Wal-Mart’s intent is to offer an electronic records capability to small physicians’ practices at a low price.

The retail giant plans to shake-up the US healthcare sector by offering dramatically cheaper electronic health records than have previously been available.