mHealth Initiative, Inc. (mHI), which arrives as the natural successor to the Mobile Healthcare Alliance (MoHCA), recently unveiled its comprehensive plan for cost control and improved healthcare through mobile device-based information technology. The Boston-based not-for-profit organization envisions the development of a wide range of healthcare applications on cell phones and other mobile devices and cites them as the future conduit of interoperability for essential health information Read »

Last week, I wrote about mobile data volumes being set to outpace revenue growth by 100 to 1 between now and 2015, and how the advent of mobile broadband may very well trigger a host of new business models and industry partners, including healthcare. Since then, I’ve enjoyed checking out two new health oriented mobile apps, but an article I spotted in a newsletter from a telecom consulting firm has me wondering if wireless companies are, in fact, missing the healthcare boat. Read »

With the threat of government-run healthcare looming on the horizon like a bad storm rising, the prospects for telehealth have never looked so good. As Daschle and his gang move to make face-to-face visits and “redundant, unnecessary tests”—as determined by bureaucrats—things of the past, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration is ponying up $3.4 million in the form of 14 new telehealth grants. Read »

Mobile devices of all kinds have been a staple in clinical settings for years now, but their usefulness has been held in check by the limitations of the operating systems they were built upon, which in turn has prevented software programmers from making the next logical leap forward. With Congressional interest in telemedicine at an all-time high—and the success of Apple’s app store launch giving both the company and independent software developers a serious foundation to build upon—my gut says the smartphone is about to make its presence known to the healthcare industry in ways previously unimagined, and I think the device of choice among physicians will likely be the iPhone. Read »