Senate bill includes wireless health: InformationWeek reports that the health reform bill in the Senate includes support for the use of home health technologies for managing chronically ill patients in their own homes with a focus on reducing hospitalizations. Specifically the bill calls for health IT "in providing health home services and improving service delivery and coordination of care across the continuum," which it says includes the use of wireless patient technology, home telehealth technology and chronic disease registries for patients at high-risk of hospitalization. More
Texting during mental health crises: A crisis telephone helpline for people with mental health problems in Surrey, UK now allows callers to send text messages instead: While the functionality is intended for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, anyone who prefers to text may. The user can text a brief message that indicates the nature of the crisis, the helpline suggests. Are 140 characters enough for mental health crises? More
Mobile phones cut maternal deaths in Ghana: “When we did not have mobile telecommunication, women were dying,” district nurse Madam Lydia Owusu told IRIN News in a recent interview. “It was horrifying to be pregnant here before this project came along… Mothers used to bleed to death while waiting in their homes, hoping a health worker would come to help them.” The program Owusu is referring to is part of the Millennium Villages project. “We have not recorded a single maternal death in Amensie village since 2006 when this project started,” Owusu explained. More
