by Audrey KinsellaThe recently concluded “2011 Connected Health Symposium,” presented by Partners Healthcare’s “Center for Connected Health,” showcased new healthcare service delivery technologies that will certainly affect all healthcare segments, including home healthcare providers and consumers.The two-day conference, titled “Driving Quality Up and Costs Down: New Technologies for an Era of Accountability,” took place last […]
ContinuLink Introduces Patient Portal for Physicians and Families Unlike the two patient portals profiled elsewhere in this issue [HCTR, 2/28/2012], Boca Raton-based ContinuLink makes its online product and related services available to its home care provider customers so that they can, in turn, use it to assist patient families. Available since 2006, it is a […]
by Audrey Kinsella Saturing (Merrillville, IN) is a family portal for adult children and their elderly parents to assist with and track elderly individuals’ daily routines and participate in their health needs. It began operations in 2008, and joins the ranks of other family-oriented online portals profiled in our March 28 issue (1504, 1505). Like […]
Product review by Audrey Kinsella This week, we profile another entry in our series on the rise of online tools for adult children to track daily activities of elderly parents living independently in their own homes. Using a combination of Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS), wireless motion detectors and other sensors, SimplyHome (Asheville, NC) […]
As an advocate of technology in home care for the last 13 years, HCTR believes we should adopt an editorial position on the events of last week. The crime ring allegedly created by a Dallas-area physician could not have been successful had the state mandated the use of Electronic Visit Verification by home care agencies. Other states would be well-advised to take the six-year, $375 million fraud operation as a warning, not to merely step up investigation efforts but to put prevention measures in place. We have some measures to suggest.
Among the concerns facing home care agencies and hospices today is the issue of billing accuracy. Owners and administrators must be confident that they are submitting claims for visits that actually happened at the time and location recorded on timesheets. As guest writer Scott Herrmann explains, that confidence can never come from paper-based, manual systems, but there is another way.
by Audrey Kinsella Personal Health Informatics Mull over that one. Not sure quite was it is? It is the field that targets ongoing personal healthcare needs and develops “wellness” technologies for individuals, not to be confused with patients. It is focused not on people with diseases but on health management information and tools that people […]
Dr. Jacques Roy certified more patients for Medicare home health eligibility than any other physician’s clinic in the country. Most of them received no services though millions of dollars in claims were generated, and paid, in their names. By the time Roy’s fraudulent operation was exposed and he was indicted this week, 78 home health care companies had their Medicare billing privileges suspended and 500 others were named as participants in the scheme.
Hidden among the hundreds of radiology software, computer cart and Meaningful Use solution displays, we discovered quite a collection of important news relevant to home health and hospice. In future issues, we will expand on this week’s brief summaries about Honeywell HomMed, Philips, Independa, LG Electronics, Jardogs, HealthWyse, Intermec, Reflection Solutions, Arcadian Telehealth Monitoring, OtterBox and Sprint.
In one of the week’s best-attended lectures, the CIO and Technical Services Manager from Sutter VNA and Hospice shared real-world insights they gained after rolling out a point-of-care software application on mobile devices.
