Revised estimates from the Association of American Medical Colleges indicate that digital health technologies may prove a valuable solution to the growing scarcity of primary care physicians.

The AAMC anticipates an overall shortage of 91,500 and 130,600 active patient care physicians in 2020 and 2025 respectively, and a primary care shortage of 45,400 and 65,800 physicians in 2020 and 2025.

But there may be a solution to this dilemma.

Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, famously observed in 2012 that 80% of doctors could one day be replaced by technology.

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It’s been announced that ActiveCare, a provider of telehealth and Personal Emergency Response (PER) solutions has entered an agreement to acquire 4G Biometrics — a company who’s technology helps healthcare and insurance providers, as well as employers, manage risk and reduce costs associated with employees diagnosed with diabetes.

Diabetes management, and chronic care management in general, remains a huge issue that mobile and digital technologies are aiming to streamline.  Diabetes trails only cardiovascular disease as the most expensive disease to treat.  4G Biometrics helps people with Diabetes manage their disease and avoid acute events that cost healthcare and insurance providers millions of dollars per year by providing near-real-time blood glucose monitoring through Bluetooth-enabled devices.  When specific data points with any irregularities are spotted, the information is instantly communicated to individuals/care providers based on profiles defined by medical providers.

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New research published recently by the GSMA suggests the market for mHealth will produce a revenue opportunity worth more than $23B by 2017.

The findings come as part of a new report published recently called ‘Touching Lives through Mobile Health: Assessment of the Global Market Opportunity.’  Conducted by PwC for the GSMA, the report looks at the key challenges the healthcare industry is facing worldwide and the opportunity mobile technology provides in overcoming these challenges.

The report says that despite advancements in medical technologies and a general increase in income levels, healthcare continues to pose challenges of affordability, complexity and access across the world, while in contrast, mobile access is almost ubiquitous.  With the increasing penetration of smartphones and new and innovative ‘connected devices’, and the proliferation of Mobile Broadband networks and services worldwide, mobile will play a far greater role in healthcare in both developed and developing countries in the future.

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The long-awaited and anticipated digital health accelerator “StartUp Health” has officially launched it’s Website and opened its doors in New York City.

The new initiative has the bold aim of cultivating over 1,000 digital health startups over the next ten years, which it hopes will generate more than 100,000 jobs.  StartUp Health is chaired by Jerry Levin, former Chairman of TimeWarner.  Levin’s co-founders, Steven H. Krein and Unity Stoakes, founded OrganizedWisdom together, which is a so-called “digital doctor’s office” and patient portal, among other ventures.

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Consult A Doctor, a provider of cloud-based telemedicine services and platform solutions, has announced that it will debut a new solution for hospitals and clinics at the upcoming HIMSS 2012 conference in Las Vegas later this month.

The new platform, dubbed “MyHospital 24/7,” is actually an extended suite of services already offered by Consult A Doctor aimed at serving hospitals, health plans, providers, self-insured employers and consumers.  The new suite of services offer quality care delivered through a variety of channels including phone, email, video, and mobile app consultations.

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As many in the health IT field descend on Las Vegas for the 2012 HIMSS conference later this month, it’s been announced by the Collaborative Health Consortium that it will hold a first-ever “eCollaboration Forum” during the event.

The new forum will explore collaborative platforms as foundations for transformation to accountable care.  Through a series of keynote presentations and panel discussions, attendees will learn what a collaborative healthcare platform is and why the healthcare industry needs it, discover paths to take to effectively implement collaborative technologies, and obtain further resources to help evaluate the solutions available in the shift toward an accountable care health model.

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The folks behind the Health 2.0 Conference together with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Innovation (ONC) have launched three new “Investing in Innovation” (i2) Initiative competitions that challenge developer communities to develop innovative health information technology (HIT) solutions.

Like many of the previous competitions we’ve seen from various government agencies and private organizations, the new i2 programs promote the use of technology to “drive better outcomes, engage users in their health and improve healthcare quality.”  The three new challenges being introduced are the “Health Innovations in Commuting Challenge,” “Discharge Follow-Up Appointment Challenge” and the “EHR Accessibility Module Challenge.”

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