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21st Century Cures Act’s Authors to Focus on mHealth in Cures 2.0

A second iteration of the landmark 21st Century Cures Act, which was passed in 2016, will set its sights on support for mHealth technology, like digital therapeutics, to improve care management.

By Eric Wicklund

• A new iteration of the 21st Century Cures Act pledges to pay more attention to mHealth technologies

• Reps. Fred Upton and Diana DeGette, who helped usher the original bill to passage in 2016, have issued a “Call to Action” for what they’re calling Cures 2.0. And they’re focusing much of their efforts on connected health platforms that will “modernize coverage and access to life-saving cures in the United States and across the globe.”

“We believe that digital health technologies hold the promise of modernizing U.S. health care in ways that transform how Americans access medical services,” Upton, a Republican from Michigan, and Degette, a Democrat from Colorado, said in a recent bulletin. “Digital technologies have helped to transform other sectors of the U.S. economy in ways that improve access to products and services and decrease their costs without harming quality. It is time for that same transformation to occur in health care.”

“Recognition of digital platforms as sources of medical services combined with reforms to how digital products may be covered and reimbursed for by payers such as Medicare will be critical to realizing this potential,” they added.

Other aspects of Cures 2.0, the lawmakers said, would target improved Medicare coding, coverage and payment for digital health, better methods for collecting and using real world evidence, and improvements in how families and caregivers can aid in care management.

Signed into law by President Barack Obama at the end of 2016, 21st Century Cures, targeted, for a large part, various healthcare industry initiatives aimed at improving treatment for conditions like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. It also called for more effective use of electronic health records and health information technology.

Specifically, the bill called for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “establish a goal with respect to the reduction of regulatory or administrative burdens (such as documentation requirements) relating to the use of electronic health records,” and subsequently create a strategy to achieve such a goal.

Additionally, it asked the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information technology to work on progressing certified EHR technology and health IT, specifically in the realm of information blocking. By making clear distinctions about what constitutes information blocking as well as consequences for the practice, ONC will play its role to improve healthcare technology use.

The bill included funding to use health data to drive cures, allocating $4.8 billion to the National Institutes of Health to be split among different goals: $1.8 billion will go toward the Cancer Moonshot, $1.4 billion will fund the Precision Medicine Initiative, and $1.6 billion will go toward the BRAIN Initiative which contributes Alzheimer’s research.

And it allocated $500 million to the US Food and Drug Administration to streamline the regulation of certain drugs and $1 billion in grants to help fight the opioid crisis.

With Cures 2.0, Upton and DeGette want o pay more attention to how technology can be used to improve care management. They’ve set a December 16 deadline for comments on those topics, as well as suggestions for other reforms.

Source: https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/21st-century-cures-acts-authors-to-focus-on-mhealth-in-cures-2.0

SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V) – The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage patient information in a secure and reliable environment.

Mhealth Tools Help Providers Access Data When They Most Need It

Healthcare providers are using mHealth platforms to access and transmit vital health data from the field – including accident sites, homes and ambulances – back to the ED, and vice versa.

• Moving forward (literally), telehealth advocates see ambulances and other rescue vehicles as more than transportation, but rather, extensions of the hospital. Armed with mHealth and telemedicine technology, they can replicate the ED and begin treatment long before the patient transfers into the hospital
• With mobile devices like smartphone, tablets, laptops and even wearable devices that can gather and transmit information at a moment’s notice, health systems are finding new ways to improve care in the field, whether it be an accident site, someone’s home or the ambulance.

By Eric Wicklund

November 27, 2019 – Healthcare providers are finding that mHealth can help them better prepare for and treat critical care patients coming into their Emergency Department

At King’s Daughters Medical Center in Brookhaven, MS, first responders are using an mHealth platform from DrFirst called Backline, which enables them to scan the barcode on a patient’s driver’s license to access six months’ worth of medication history. The tool gives EMS providers a better understanding of the healthcare needs of a patient, especially one who’s unconscious or unable to remember his or her medication history.

“You can’t get a history from a patient who isn’t responsive,” says Lee Robbins, director of emergency medical services at the 99-bed community hospital. “In the past, we could only get information from (patients) who are awake or are willing to give us that information. Knowing this information gives us a much better chance at a good outcome.”

In addition, EMS providers can use the connected health platform to send that data back to the hospital, giving ED and trauma staff a better idea of what that patient will need. That’s valuable time they can use to update the patient’s chart or order tests, such as CT scans or electrocardiograms.

“Time is very important – minutes or even seconds can have an impact” on a patient’s life, says Robbins, who would like to see tools like this integrate with the hospital’s EMR platform and include real-time communication between first responders and the hospital.

At Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh, NY, meanwhile, care providers are using an mHealth app called PreDX to get alerts on opioid abuse outbreaks in their community. When a number of overdoses or other data points is detected in a cluster by the platform, they’ll know to alert and prepare first responders as well as the ED.

“If we get that information on the front line, then we can mobilize,” says Kathleen Sheehan, the hospital’s director of emergency and trauma services. “It gives us a better chance to respond to an emergency and treat these people more quickly.”

With mobile devices like smartphone, tablets, laptops and even wearable devices that can gather and transmit information at a moment’s notice, health systems are finding new ways to improve care in the field, whether it be an accident site, someone’s home or the ambulance.

But as with all other telehealth programs, the key lies in making sure the right information is gathered and sent to the right recipient. Information on opioid abuse or disease outbreaks will only help providers if they know what outbreak to address, and medication data sent from the ambulance to the ED will help providers if that medication history has a chance of interfering with care.

For example, a male patient being transported to a hospital might not readily admit that he’s taking Viagra or Cialis, yet those medications contain sildenafil and tadalafil, which could cause one’s blood pressure to drop excessively if a paramedic uses nitroglycerin to treat chest pain. A quick scan of the patient’s medication history would prevent that from happening.

Moving forward (literally), telehealth advocates see ambulances and other rescue vehicles as more than transportation, but rather, extensions of the hospital. Armed with mHealth and telemedicine technology, they can replicate the ED and begin treatment long before the patient transfers into the hospital.

“Any tool that we can use that improves patient safety, care quality and patient experience is a positive,” says Robbins.

Source: https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/mhealth-tools-help-providers-access-data-when-they-most-need-it