On Tuesday, the Royal Mental Health Center of Ottawa released a bi-lingual, multi-platform mobile application for veterans, their families and their health practitioners.

Put forward on behalf of the Canadian Operational Stress Injury (OSI) Clinic Network, the formal announcement out of Ottawa indicates that the OSI Connect mobile application will help veterans, military and RCMP recognize and help seek treatment for mental health issues.

The app is available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices. A mobile optimized website was also launched for veterans, Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP, their families and their family doctors to understand the top mental health issues facing veterans, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and sleep issues.

The OSI Connect application has a series of assessment surveys that allows veterans to privately and discreetly determine the type of referral they may need to discuss with their health care practitioner, and where they might be able to find those clinics in their region.

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While the jobs market remains less than ideal in many places around the country today, mobile and health IT jobs are proving surprisingly plentiful in several large metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Georgia.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber says that metro Atlanta job postings have “rebounded successfully following the recession,” particularly in the aforementioned category.

According to IT Business Edge, mobile technology and health IT jobs are among the fast growing today.

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Bluetooth technology is booming in the realm of modern health and fitness, according to a new report from ON World, a global market research firm.

A new report from the organization projects that the adoption of mobile sensing health and fitness products will increase by 500 percent over the next five years.

“Smartphones with Bluetooth Smart onboard provides mobile sensing developers with iOS and Android libraries, app stores, cloud connected mobile gateways and hundreds of millions of users to target their creations to,” asserts Mareca Hatler, ON World’s research director.

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GE Healthcare has confirmed plans to invest $2 billion for the exclusive purpose of accelerating the development of innovative software for healthcare systems and applications.

The investment will take place over the next five years, the company announced late last week.

GE Healthcare – the largest software developer within GE – provides a wide range of medical imaging technologies, IT services, patient monitoring and diagnostic solutions, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and operational and technological service solutions.

“GE Healthcare has a long history in software with its Healthcare IT business; and this investment is designed to advance current and future offerings in order to address new and pressing operational and productivity challenges faced by healthcare organizations around the world,” a statement provided by press release reads.
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The FDA is calling for higher standards across the health IT space in an open call addressed to medical device manufacturers, hospitals, medical device user facilities, health care IT and procurements staff. and biomedical engineers.

“The FDA is recommending that medical device manufacturers and health care facilities take steps to assure that appropriate safeguards are in place to reduce the risk of failure due to cyberattack, which could be initiated by the introduction of malware into the medical equipment or unauthorized access to configuration settings in medical devices and hospital networks,” an announcement from the FDA reads.

The FDA says it has become aware of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and incidents that could directly impact medical devices or hospital network operations, including:

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As the world observed one week ago during the keynote presentation of WWDC 2013, Apple is striking a different tone with its advertising this summer.

And mHealth’s potential is loud and clear in the company’s latest advertorial.

Gone are the product-centric ads (at least for now) and in their place are ideals that speak to the reliability and familiarity of the venerable Apple brand.

So far, the ads have been well-received. And they will continue to pelt our airwaves and computer screens for the foreseeable future.
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Frost & Sullivan has issued a new report indicating that which many in the field of mHealth have been trying to tell us all along: mHealth will be the catalyst for healthcare’s evolution.

The market for mobile health products and services, the firm says, is an important area that could dramatically alter care delivery and the patient experience.

The public acknowledgement of mHealth’s power comes as Frost & Sullivan’s North America Healthcare Director Daniel Ruppar plans to moderate the “What’s Next for mHealth?” panel discussion at the 10th Annual Healthcare Unbound Conference & Exhibition scheduled for July 11-12, 2013 in Denver, Colorado.

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