Findings by the National Institute on Aging (a part of the National Institutes of Health), indicate that 30% of Americans ages 65-74 and 47% ages 75 and older have some degree of hearing impairment. An estimated 30 million elders are completely deaf. A new product solves the problem these people often have with telephone communications.
Northwood Homecare began using the CellTrak cellular point-of-care documentation system in the fall of 2009. Over the course of that year, the Halifax, Nova Scotia home care provider has been able to eliminate paper reports, inaccuracies and forgotten tasks at the point of care.
There are about 1,000 hip fractures every day in the United States, over 90% of which are caused by falls. Fatal fall injuries add $179 million to U.S. healthcare costs. Nonfatal fall injuries — most of which are preventable through risk analysis and treatment — cost $19 billion. One technology company founded by experts in Mechanical Engineering and Biomechanics believes it can slash those costs but it needs home care physical therapists to play a role.
National Research Corporation (NASDAQ:NRCI) announced Tuesday it has acquired, via a stock purchase agreement, Outcome Concept Systems, Inc. (OCS), a home care benchmarking and informatics firm founded in 1992, in an all-cash transaction. OCS will continue to be headquartered in Seattle and Amanda Twiss will remain as president.
Santa Clara, CA and Fairfield, CT — August 2, 2010 — GE (NYSE: GE) and Intel Corporation have entered into a definitive agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture to create a new healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living. The new company will be formed by combining assets of GE Healthcare’s Home Health […]
The significance of Monday’s GE/Intel announcement (detailed elsewhere in this week’s issue) is that they plan to market their telehealth systems to people with chronic conditions and their families, not to home health care professionals. This is entirely different from what the other mega-corporations that have acquired their way into this market — Honeywell, Bayer, […]
CMS keeps changing the PECOS deadline. Will your July claims be denied or not? Uncertainty is frustrating. Home care agencies and their referring physicians just want CMS to get the online application system working and make up their mind about when they will enforce it. One by one, we are hearing about software vendors coming to the rescue. This story about one of them, ContinuLink, includes a comprehensive history of PECOS’s fluid deadlines.
— Allscripts to help Central Virginia system share patient data with hospital, physicians and home care
— ATA calls for presentation proposals for 2011 meeting
Though the deadline has been pushed back a few months, RHHIs will soon deny payment for home health care claims if the physician authorizing Medicare services was not registered in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System ( PECOS) or opted out of Medicare by the date services began. Wouldn’t it be handy if your referral intake software included a direct link to the PECOS database? We have found two such services so far.
— CellTrak Mobile Technology improves client care in Vancouver
— Medline Industries, Inc. and Strategic Healthcare Programs partner to support improved home health outcomes with new reporting and benchmarking system to help providers select optimum wound care treatment.
— Braff Group expands into behavioral health and social services
