The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has issued a call for public comments surrounding the security, privacy and best practices of using mobile devices in healthcare.

More specifically, the ONC is seeking comments on three categories, including real-world uses of mobile devices by providers and other healthcare delivery professionals; real-world privacy and security practices, strategies and technology; and other general comments on the use of mobile devices by providers and other healthcare delivery professionals.

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The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has awarded Kaiser Permanente with two awards; the Davies Award for Organizational Excellence and a Stage 7 award for “Excellence in Health IT” for its Moanalua Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Davies Award recognizes “excellence in the implementation and value derived from health information technology,” with Kaiser Permanente named 2011′s sole winner.  ”The implementation of our world-class electronic health record, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, has shaped and improved how our physicians and care teams treat patients,” said Phil Fasano, executive vice president and chief information officer, Kaiser Permanente.  ”The Davies Award recognizes the important role of health IT in improving care and the overall patient experience, the same goals we had in mind when beginning the KP HealthConnect project almost 10 years ago.”  Kaiser currently has the largest private-sector EHR system in the world.

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New research out yesterday from ABI suggests the market for wearable wireless devices in healthcare will grow to nearly 170M by 2017.

This figure represents a CAGR of  more than 41% based on the market showing just 20.77M such devices at the end of 2011.  ABI’s research also includes wearable sports and fitness devices as well, showing the increased usage of devices that collect and automatically share data online from the likes of Nike, Adidas, Motorola and others.  In addition, mobile handset accessory vendors, consumer electronic companies, fitness management and online service providers are quickly joining a market that’s long been the “preserve of specialist, high-end vendors such as Polar and Garmin.”

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Yesterday during the HIMSS healthcare IT conference in Las Vegas, mobile network infrastructure provider Aruba Networks released results of a recent survey showing that 85% of hospitals are currently providing access to personal mobile devices.

In addition, the results show that 83% of healthcare IT professionals allow iPads on their enterprise networks and 65% support iPhones and iPod Touch devices.  Interestingly, 52% of hospitals currently support Blackberry devices as well, which is interesting considering RIMs quick decline in the enterprise space over the last year.  The healthcare industry seems to be one last shining spot for RIM’s fledgling enterprise business.  Lastly, Android is gaining major momentum as well, with 46 percent of the IT professionals surveyed allowing enterprise use of the Google OS on personal phones and tablets.

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With the HIMSS 2012 conference in full swing this week, new data out from Compass Intelligence suggests the market for healthcare IT will reach $78B in 2012.

This includes expenditures on telecom services/equipment, IT personnel, mobile applications, computer hardware, network hardware and 3rd party services and outsourcing, according to the research.  The market is expected to maintain a 5% CAGR over the next five years as well, to reach $92B in 2016.

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It’s been announced by the American Medical Association (AMA) and AT&T that the two have forged a partnership to enable “hundreds of thousands of physicians, physician organizations and medical societies nationwide to connect and collaborate with hospitals, payers and patients to help enhance patient care and reduce costs.”

To accomplish this goal, the two organizations will integrate the AMA’s “AMAGINE” physician community portal with AT&T’s “Healthcare Community Online,” which will create a centralized, advanced collaborative care and Healthcare Information Exchange (HIE) platform.  Together, both organizations have the primary goal of providing physicians with more “tools at their fingertips to modernize the management of their practices.”

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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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