The MetLife Mature Market Institute has released a new report Aging in Place 2.0, Rethinking Solutions to the Home Care Challenge. This report includes a discussion of where care management models and other technologies to monitor health fit, into the larger vision for creating home and community environments that can support successful Aging in Place. [...]
CMS has released the Stage 1 meaningful use criteria for public comment. The criteria are established to qualify providers for incentives for implementation of EHRs. The criteria are focused on improving quality and coordination of care and on streamlining administration of claims processing. There are 25 Stage 1 measures. The Adheretx Profiler, View and Manager [...]
A recent article from Heath Care IT News (http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/two-providers-drive-patient-compliance-hit) describes how physicians are using messaging to patients to improve compliance. The application is designed to get patients back in the office for follow-up or additional services. While messaging may improve compliance it may also add unnecessary additional provider office visit costs. A better solution for [...]
In December 2008, JAMA published a study on the Use of Prescriptions and Over-the-Counter Medication and Dietary Supplements Among Older Adults in the US. They concluded that concurrent use of prescription medications and OTC medications and supplements represent a significant health risk in the US and may be significantly increasing health care costs. The study [...]
Rates of chronic disease and polypharmacy are increasing dramatically leading to significant but avoidable increases in health care costs. Some data suggests that 40% of hospital admissions are due to drug induced illnesses and half of these admissions are due to adverse interactions from OTCs. Annually, about 175,000 ER admissions are due to adverse reactions [...]