A bill recently introduced into the House of Representatives seeks to increase the use of mobile and wireless technologies in healthcare to reduce costs to Medicare and other government-sponsored healthcare plans.
The Health Savings Through Technology Act, introduced by Rep. Scott Peters (R-Calif.), would create a 19-member commission to research best practices for using these technologies to lower healthcare costs and provide recommendations for how to incorporate them into federal healthcare programs.
The bill has been endorsed by industry organizations like the American Telemedicine Association and the California Healthcare Institute. "Health information technologies — particularly wireless and mobile technologies — hold the promise to revolutionize healthcare. Improved assessments of the actual value of innovative technologies are crucial to encouraging the development of new technologies," wrote Todd Gillenwater, senior vice president at CHI, in a letter of support for the bill.
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