eClinical OS Marketplace by Merge

The clinical research industry is becoming revolutionized by mobile devices. Merge announced their eClinical OS Marketplace today at DIA. Here's the press release:

Merge Unveils eClinical OS(TM) Marketplace and Mobile Applications at DIA
Customers Will Benefit From Electronic Document Translation, Study-Specific Training Videos, and Real Time Mobile Analytics and Visualization

CHICAGO, June 21, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Merge Healthcare Incorporated (Nasdaq:MRGE), a leading provider of clinical systems and innovations that seek to transform healthcare, today announced the eClinical OS™ Marketplace, extending its clinical trial platform to connect customers with premier industry service providers. In the latest release of eClinical OS, Marketplace allows customers to request and receive services directly from within study workflows, further enabling study sponsors and CROs to run studies more efficiently. The newest release also introduces Trial Connect, a new mobile alerts and reporting application for accessing study metrics on the go.

This connectivity further supports the company's focus on improving study efficiency with shorter deployment times and more cost effective trial design. Users will be able to electronically request and receive document language translation, embed interactive study-specific training and patient education videos, and access real-time clinical data visualization, analytics and reporting through any mobile device.

Mobile computing and BYOD is a hot topic here at #HIMSS13

Today, I had the pleasure of participating on a panel discussion about BYOD with Dr. Mark Blatt from Intel and Bruce Michelson from HP. It was a highly interactive discussion where a number of the attendees asked questions and shared their thoughts and observations on this topic. It's clear to me that BYOD is still a controversial, complicated topic and we need more guidance on this topic in the health care environment. Most physicians and nurses do not fully understand the technical implications associated with data encryption, mobile security management, and remote data persistence on mobile devices. They also do not have a technical understanding behind some of the fundamental security issues and features that distinguish business mobile devices from consumer devices.

I believe that BYOD is a phenomenon that is here to stay in health care. We may not like it, but it's almost impossible to eliminate. Physicians and nurses are going to bring their own devices, even if they can't access patient data on them. They will use their smartphones to take pictures of rashes on lesions on patients. They will use their mobile devices to communicate with other clinicians.

CIOs and other health IT executives need to know how they will handle these BYOD challenges. There are some good mobile device management or MDM solutions that can get installed. We're also seeing mobile operating systems evolving to offer features that are designed to address some of these BYOD headaches.

Mobile Devices in your Emergency Department

Join PEPID in this complimentary webinar titled, "Mobile Devices in your Emergency Department"

• How mobile technology is saving an estimated $3.2 million per shift
• How and why to integrate emergency-specific decision support into your department on mobile devices, online and through their EDIS
• BYOD! Pros and cons to the "bring your own device" trend
• What resources are being used most often by practicing EPs

Register here: http://www.pepid.com/webinars/970059889.asp

Learn how Penn Medicine leverages mobile devices for clinical communications

Clinician Mobility: Leveraging Mobile Devices For Clinical Communications at Penn Medicine

Tuesday, March 27, 2012
1:00 pm EST
Complimentary Webinar

Avaya and Penn Medicine invite you to a learning webinar event. Penn Medicine chose Avaya communications-enabled solutions providing mobility and network readiness to support clinical staff to enhance care coordination, mobile information delivery and improve workflow. As the delivery of healthcare changes, University of Pennsylvania Health System is leveraging mobile communications technology to improve clinical communications. Integrating mobile communications with traditional telephony capabilities allows for more agile and responsive communications across the Health System.

Distinguished speaker and leader in healthcare, John P. Donohue, Associate CIO of UPHS, speaks about the diverse needs met through the strategy being executed at UPHS, a large Philadelphia-based health provider. Avaya Solutions speaker will be Ed Koehler, Network Readiness and Mobility Solutions Expert.

Don't miss the Mobile Device Roundtable on March 16

From the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC):

The Mobile Device Roundtable is free and open to the public and will focus on safeguarding health information and provide participants with real world usages and real world privacy and security practices.

Friday, March 16, 2012
8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. EDT

The purpose of the roundtable is to gather leading individuals in health and technology to bring about awareness and understanding to those in the clinical sector regarding securing and protecting health information while using mobile devices. The roundtable will cover a wide variety of initiatives, including:

· The current privacy and security legal framework for mobile devices accessing, storing and/or transmitting health information.
· Everyday usage of mobile devices by providers and other health care delivery professionals to understand their expectations, attitudes, challenges and needs.
· Gathering input from providers and other health care delivery professionals regarding the information (and format) they want and need to help them safeguard health information on their mobile devices, as well as input on existing and emerging privacy and security good practices, strategies and technologies.

The Mobile Device Roundtable will take place in Washington, DC and will include three panels of federal agency representatives, practicing providers and representatives of research, provider and industry organizations. You and your readers are welcome to attend in person or via webcast.

For more information, please visit the Mobile Device Roundtable webpage.

iPhones, iPads and HIPAA Compliance: A How To Guide

iPhones, iPads and HIPAA Compliance: A How To Guide

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
2:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
Complimentary Webinar

Devices like the iPhone and iPad are becoming incredibly popular with doctors and other healthcare professionals.

But whether they are hospital issued -- or owned by the worker -- IT must ensure that Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) that is stored, accessed, transmitted or received by a mobile device is secured and protected in accordance with HIPAA guidelines.

This Webinar will focus on today's best practices for:

1. Choosing a HIPAA compliant mobile device platform
2. Instituting an IT mobility management framework
3. Empowering healthcare IT to proactively identify and resolve HIPAA violations & provide proof of compliance

Presenters: Dan Dearing; Group Director, Mobile Strategies; BoxTone
Pricing: Complimentary! There is no cost to attend this webinar.

MobileAccess Announces Partnership with Philips Healthcare #HIMSS11

MobileAccess Announces New Integrated In-Building Wireless for Philips WMTS Solution

Leading Technology Vendors Team to Deliver Seamless and Reliable Wireless System to Healthcare Facilities

VIENNA, VA--(Marketwire - February 22, 2011) - MobileAccess, a global provider of enterprise wireless solutions, today announced a teaming agreement with Philips Healthcare and introduced the EC560 Solution for Philips. The EC560 Solution will enable interoperability between the MobileAccess2000 distributed antenna system (DAS) and the Philips Smart-hopping WMTS 1.4 GHz network. The open MobileAccess wireless platform is a robust and complete wireless infrastructure solution for integrated wireless medical telemetry systems (WMTS), making it a good partner for Philips' patient monitoring solution.

Google's Blogger - new mobile template feature

Google's Blogger is now offering a new feature (still in beta) called "Mobile Template." In short, this feature allows you to automatically format your blog for mobile web browsers.

This feature was enabled a week or so ago, but then the feature somehow disappeared. Now, I see it again (and I hope it's here to stay). I've enabled this on all these sites:

http://www.NonClinicalJobs.com
http://www.MedicineandTechnology.com
http://www.MedicalSmartphones.com
http://www.MobileHealthComputing.com

The mobile template feature doesn't appear to work on every mobile web browser, but it works fine on most major mobile browsers. 

Interesting stats about the "mobile device explosion"

I'm borrowing this from a presentation developed by Sesh Kumar, CEO or Emantras Inc.

• “By the end of 2013 more users will access the internet on mobile devices than on desktops.” - Morgan Stanley
• “14.7 million smartphones were purchased in the U.S. last quarter.” - Canalys
• “120 million devices running iOS have been sold so far.” - Apple Keynote 2010
• “New smartphone subscribers choosing Google phones accounted for 27 percent of U.S. smartphone sales” - Nielsen Company
• “Sale of the iPad and other tablets will hit 19.4 million units in 2010” - Gartner
•  6.5 billion downloads have been recorded on the App Store - 200 per second.

These are exciting times, aren't they? We're certainly living in the mobile technology revolution!

U.S. Government making mobile apps for smartphones

When's the last time you visited: http://apps.usa.gov/ to look at the latest mobile apps from the U.S. government?

If you visit that site, you'll find several pages of mobile apps like:

• Product Recalls
• My TSA
• The White House
• BMI Calculator
• MedlinePlus Mobile
• FBI's Most Wanted
• My Food-a-Pedia
• UV Index

Also, if you're rotating through a VA hospital, make sure to tell your patients that they should download and install the Veterans Affairs Mobile app. Actually, the VA Mobile app is not really an app. It's a mobile website that you can access by visiting: http://m.va.gov/

If you're a medical student and you're about to rotate through the VA, make sure you get familiar with the VA resources so that you'll impress your senior residents and attendings.

I'm speaking at the mHealth Initiative Conference

I'll be in San Diego speaking at the 2nd International mHealth Networking Conference this September. If you're attending the mHealth Networking Conference, then I look forward to seeing you there. I'll be speaking about physicians using smartphones and other mobile devices as they interact with patients. Are these mobile gadgets actually improving patient care?

Speaking of mHealth, make sure you don't confuse the mHealth Initiative Conference with the 2010 mHealth Conference and Expo in Dubai. The Dubai meeting is Sept 14-15.

There's another mHealth conference called the mHealth Summit in Washington D.C. November 8-10.

So, there are at least three different mHealth meetings this fall. Two are in the United States and one is in Dubai. Here's a snippet about the mHealth Initiative:

mHealth Initiative Inc (mHI), a not-for-profit organization incorporated in Massachusetts, USA, envisions the emerging mHealth Revolution. Cell phones and other mobile Devices (mDevices) are becoming prized tools of clinicians after initially being viewed as forbidden gadgets.

2nd International mHealth Networking Conference
Sponsored by mHealth Initiative
September 8-9, 2010
Town & Country Resort Hotel
San Diego CA
http://www.mobih.org/ 

Iris Browser Update

The Torch Mobile Iris Browser has been updated again. It's a good mobile browser for my XV6800 Windows Mobile PDA/Smartphone, but I occasionally get an "out of memory" error if I visit busy web pages. Like many other mobile browsers, you can zoom in and out very easily and scan pages quickly. I've also been playing around with Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, Skyfire, and Pocket Internet Explorer. Proxy servers speed things up if they're configured properly.

Mobile Millennium : traffic based on GPS-based phones

Mobile Millennium is a partnership between Nokia, NAVTEQ, and UC Berkeley, based at the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), a deployment-focused research center at Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies. It is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation's SafeTrip-21 Initiative and the California Department of Transportation.

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area of near Lake Tahoe? Then you should register and participate.


I'm still waiting until we can use GPS-enabled tracking to help me find a parking spot.

Convergence of the mobile devices

I've always thought that mobile devices will converge into a single device. In many ways, I'm still surprised that people are still purchasing devices that can only perform a single function. Would you purchase an MP3 player that is only capable of playing music files if you could get one that could play video and browse the web? Or, why buy a smartphone that doesn't have a built-in GPS?

I'm sure that all future smartphones will have a built-in GPS. I'm willing to bet that the next iPod Touch will have a built-in GPS. Archos now has a web browser in their latest portable video device (PVD). It's almost like an iPod Touch with a huge hard drive. They're calling their latest devices a "Internet Media Tablet."

W3C Standards Make Mobile Web Experience More Inviting

W3C today announced new standards that will make it easier for people to browse the Web on mobile devices.

http://www.w3.org/Mobile/

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

W3C published a second standard today: XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation, the preferred format specification of the Best Practices.

The Working Group also published today the first draft of a next generation of guidelines, Mobile Web Application Best Practices, aimed at mobile Web applications.

Opera Mobile 9.5

Wow, I have been very impressed with Opera Mobile 9.5 on my Verizon XV6800. This is an incredible mobile browser! You can view standard web pages and easily zoom in and out. Reminds me of using Safari on the iPhone.

I'm still waiting to test mobile Firefox. It should perform better than Minimo, but will it beat Opera Mobile?