Health IT reshaped veterans health; What will it do for 'mobile telephony'?

Health IT reshaped the United States system for caring for veterans, The Toronto Globe and Mail reports. "Ken Kizer is the miracle man of U.S. health care. Mr. Kizer brought in bold reform that transformed the vast and woeful Veterans Health Administration into an efficient, effective model institution with sky-high patient satisfaction. Starting in 1994, it took him five years to reduce costs and increase quality of care, while nearly doubling the number of patients." How did he do it? He implemented electronic health records. Kizer speaks to the Globe and Mail about his work (Mickleburgh, 11/11).

Meanwhile, another trend is taking shape in the U.S. and elsewhere: "The convergence of mobile telephony and health care," The Economist reports. Though proponents have already cropped up all over, "evidence of m-health's usefulness is at last starting to trickle in. A study this week in the Lancet, a medical journal, shows that something as simple as sending text messages to remind Kenyan patients to take their HIV drugs properly improved adherence to the therapy by 12 percent. WellDoc, an American firm, found in a recent trial that an m-health scheme that relies on [behavioral] psychology to give diabetics advice on managing their ailment has more effect than putting them on the leading diabetes drug" (11/11).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.