HIPPA Goes Mobile and Wireless for Hospitals and First Responders

It appears we need to further streamline health care and HIPPA now in effect is quite a nightmare trying to comply with and implement without making a mistake and possibly being sued as the trial lawyers testing the law. The Malpractice insurance rates may go up again. On one hand you have the 'know your customer" laws and on the other you have "privacy rules."

Usually when new laws and regulations come along they are never welcomed, they cause costs to go up, cause chaos and some smart entrepreneur comes along and solves the problems, we have seen this in Aviation, Communication, Trucking, Auto Industry, Mining, Marine, Construction, Education and let's face it, we have seen it in all sectors. The new regulation is no matter how well intended always a problem. These rules when enforced by mandate rather than implementation by free market pressures and desires of patrons tend to cause the worst problems as, they inevitably are prostituted by greed, back door deals and controlled whiners of a system. The whiners think they are to attain justice, but usually end up causing a worse problem upon themselves and the whole of the users of the system.

Today we have a chance to computerize the HIPPA issue and recently I had discussed this at length with the IT Think Tank President in Omaha, NE. They had a plan, which would take the PDA Wireless Device and put all the information, which would be available in the ambulance and to first responders.

It appears that there are several entrepreneurs and larger software and IT people who specialize Medical issues. One project with a major player in the legal field is PocketMD (.com). The World Think Tank had asked about a mobile HIPPA solution for first responders and they have built in accommodations for privacy, particularly with the triple DES encryption. So the data is secured. This mobile application can also work in the battle space arena for quick response to personal and the data set will be two-way so it can give data on the patient and run the data and send back an answer. So this could be used for casualties or those nearby who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Nebraska IT Think Tank is looking into the "huge data base" application for the PDA. This would be a relational database (similar to a rubics cube) in which the PDA could make queries for medical information. Access to this information would be "compartmentalized" based on the hospital, physician, or other source of inquiry. This information would be well secured and protected. The whole project would run on an "ASP Model" - application service provider - that charges based on the type of access, amount of data transferred, etc. - a type of subscription model. They are also looking into "medical smart cards" with the PDA - one of the companies in Omaha has made some great products in that area. Privacy, insurance companies and ethics are all worked out by defining the "Business rules" for access to the database.

There are several other areas of potential affiliation; dictation, charge capture, and medical reference database content. The wireless system is working on 802.11 - which does not have a very long range. There are specialized PDAs that come with different radio freq and capabilities. They had mentioned to me "I am like you - intrigued by the possible military apps - especially field services - procurement, targeting, etc." So far, the VA Hospitals have been the best opportunity for this test market so this will happen. They hope to have a private hospital pay for implementation soon. They are even working on one "user group" as a conduit for development - if the user group provides access to their members, we would provide a subscription plan for the software and equipment customized to their requirements - saving PocketMD marketing costs and saving the user group members a lot of money in the process.

President George W. Bush had made an interesting and unusual comment about this, unusual because no one realized he was so up on all this stuff. He said that streamlining these things, issues with HIPPA and