This week, the healthcare industry saw a series of diverse developments. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Some seniors seem pretty excited about Medicare, even more so than two years ago, and surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold President Obama’s healthcare act, according to two new surveys.
In the first survey of 449 seniors on Medicare, performed June 29-July 2, it was revealed that “while the numbers have changed a bit on seniors' overall confidence in Medicare, 24 percent of respondents said they were ‘very’ confident that Medicare will be there for the rest of their lives – an increase of 36 percent over a survey of 444 seniors answering the same question in June 2010,” the source said.
Another survey, done in 2009, polling Medicare recipients on healthcare reform, found that while 94 percent of seniors at that time were extremely satisfied with the federal program, “nearly half of Medicare recipients polled (48 percent) say they do not believe the Obama administration is looking out for their best interests when it comes to healthcare reform.”
There’s a downside to mobile apps, especially health-related ones. The healthcare industry has the highest percentage of data breaches of any sector, according to a report by Symantec. Healthcare also had the highest number of reported breaches, at 43 percent, Patricia Resende reported. And the costs continue to rise, with each breach costing organizations $5.5 million, and each compromised record, $194, the Symantec study reported.
Even though the costs have dropped slightly from several years ago, according to a Ponemon study, healthcare is the one area where they have not. Physicians’ offices and small clinics say they have lost more than 54,000 patient records due to breaches since 2009.
Some suggest we don’t do nearly enough for veterans, but House members from both sides of the aisle are coming together to sponsor a bill that will help veterans get access to healthcare even if they live in rural areas, far from good doctors, or unable, because of age or disability to get to office visits, through telemedicine services. Now, with the Veterans E-Health & Telemedicine Support (VETS) Act of 2012 (H.R. 6107), providers affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs will be able to serve vets not only in the states where they practice, but across state lines.
In the past, providers needed to be licensed in the same state as their patients, allowing veterans a greater selection of doctors, and ways to “see” them, than in the past.
Health information technology presents a unique and expansive way to improve healthcare without increasing costs. "This is an unprecedented time for transition in the healthcare ecosystem through the use of technology," said Dr. Peter Tippett, chief medical officer and vice president of Verizon Connected Healthcare. "Advances in telemedicine, wireless networks, virtual care solutions, information exchanges and cloud computing are empowering health care providers to improve their business operations while giving them more time to provide quality care."
Verizon has come up with a list of ways to enhance patient care and reduce cost through technology, including telemedicine, which can reduce preventable hospitalizations resulting in $31 billion in annual costs, while bringing healthcare to rural, underserved areas – mHealth, apps for which now number in the ten thousands in what has become a market that will reach more than $1.2 billion in 2012, according to Research2Guidance, and managing chronic disease, which accounts for 75 percent of every dollar spent on healthcare.
The world has long hoped for a vaccine that would help people with AIDS. We’ve not made much progress in the past, but that may soon be changing. Julie Steenhuysen wrote about a vaccine that appeared to make people more vulnerable to infection, not less, and other attempts that dashed hopes as well.
But if you’re talking about preventing people from getting the disease, the news there is very good. The FDA approved this week a drug, Truvada, that has been shown to protect people from being infected in the first place. A 2009 clinical trial in Thailand was the first to show it was possible to prevent HIV infection in humans, according to Steenhuysen.
