News Briefs
News Briefs
eHealth help for chronic disease
Protocol Driven Healthcare Inc. offers disease-specific Web sites to help people with chronic diseases monitor their personal health and increase understanding of their diseases. Current sites include MyAsthma.com, MyAllergy.com, MyBladder.com, and MyDiabetes.com. The company continues to develop new Web sites and encourages patients to register with one of their disease centers. At each sites patients can:
• Monitor symptoms, medication use, and quality of life using a personal, on-line diary.
• Review graphs providing feedback about progress to help understand the relationships among medication usage, symptoms, and quality of life.
• E-mail questions to teams of nurses and health care specialists.
• Read educational material, resources, features, tips, and reviews for all the information needed to actively participate in the management of chronic diseases.
• Share experiences and problems with other members of our on-line communities.
Symptoms of most chronic conditions can be relieved and the risk of long-term complications reduced with current treatment options. However, studies show that many patients are not achieving optimum outcomes. The reasons for this gap between theoretical outcomes and actual results can be assigned to a number of factors, including restricted access to specialist health care, lack of insurance coverage or gate-keeping by managed care organizations, and under-prescription of recommended medications and treatment regimens due to lack of knowledge among doctors and formulary restrictions by health coverage plans.
A variety of disease management programs have been developed to improve compliance among patients with chronic conditions. Some services are solely educational, while others include an element of intervention to encourage medication adherence and behavior change. Many of those programs have demonstrated improvements in patient quality of life and reductions in total treatment costs. The greatest success has been achieved with programs that deliver a personalized service and provide long-term follow-up. However, those programs are the most expensive to implement.
Extendedcare.com provides elder care services
Extendedcare.com has announced major enhancements to its Internet site, www. extendedcare.com. They include increased search capabilities, an assessment tool, a geriatric library and a resource center. In the next 50 years, the U.S. senior population will grow to 80 million, greatly increasing the need for extended care resources and services. Extendedcare.com’s Web site is ideal for caregivers and seniors, especially those who live far away from their elderly loved ones and need to find an extended care provider.
This site includes information on over 60,000 providers nationwide, which include nursing homes, retirement communities, assisted living facilities, home health services, and hospice care. Visitors to this Web site can conduct an advanced search that specifies details, such as the kind of insurance accepted by providers. An assessment tool allows visitors to complete an on-line questionnaire to determine what types of services are needed and receive a list of providers offering those services.
A geriatric library provides information about health conditions that most often occur in the elderly, such as sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, breast cancer, and shingles. John Croghan, MD, extendedcare.com’s geriatric medical specialist, will answer questions via e-mail.
A resource center feature accesses information on how to select a home health care agency, financial planning for extended care, and other related topics. Subscribers to the monthly on-line newsletter receive caregiving articles written by health care professionals via e-mail.
The company’s comprehensive search capabilities provide information on more than 60,000 extended care providers throughout the United States, including nursing homes, skilled nursing/long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers, assisted living facilities, home health care agencies, and more.
Helios gets the nod
St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt has received FDA clearance to market its Puritan-Bennett Helios oxygen system for people on long-term home oxygen therapy. The company expects to begin shipping products in the first quarter of this year.
The company says that Helios is smaller and lighter than other oxygen units currently on the market and provides new levels of comfort, convenience, and mobility to the user. The system is actually worn by patients and does not require cumbersome tubes or heavy canisters. For a typical home oxygen patient, the system:
• will provide a complete ambulatory supply of oxygen, allowing patients to breathe from the portable unit for an entire day;
• features a portable oxygen unit weighing less than 3.4 pounds that provides 10 hours of use between fillings;
• is easily refilled from the home reservoir in about 40 seconds;
• can be worn on a convenient waist belt, shoulder strap, or backpack.
• includes a standard interface for a remote monitoring system that will allow providers to monitor the reservoir contents in their office on a standard PC with modem. For further information, view the Mallinckrodt Web site at www. mallinckrodt.com, or call (800) 635-5267.
Home treatment for blood clots saves big bucks
Lovenox, marketed by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, is a new, low-molecular-weight heparin. The Collegeville, PA-based company states that three months of Lovenox at home can save the patient with a blood clot $3,045 (Canadian), compared to hospital treatment. A study in the October 1999 Archives of Internal Medicine, based on a two-way sensitivity analysis, indicated savings for patients in the United States would be $2,750.
As many as 600,000 hospitalizations each year result from potentially life-threatening blood clots that form in the large veins of the leg and block blood flow. This condition is known as deep-vein thrombosis (DVT). An earlier study concluded that at least 33% of patients hospitalized with DVT would meet criteria for in-home treatment with a low-molecular-weight heparin. Using the above estimated savings, U.S. patients could save more than $500 million annually.
Unrecognized or untreated, DVT can lead to pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal condition. This occurs when a blood clot breaks off, escapes into the circulatory system, and becomes lodged in the lungs, obstructing the pulmonary vasculature. If the clot is large and blocks a blood vessel, it can cause immediate death. DVT and pulmonary embolism together cause an estimated 200,000 deaths per year.
Lovenox was first approved in 1993 for sales in the U.S. and Canada for:
• inpatient and outpatient treatment of deep-vein thrombosis when administered in conjunction with warfarin sodium;
• prevention of DVT in hip and knee replacement surgery and high-risk abdominal surgery;
• extended prevention (21 days) of DVT following hospitalization for hip replacement surgery;
• prevention of ischemic complications (inadequate blood flow to the heart) of unstable angina and non-Q-wave myocardial infarction when administered with aspirin.
Patients with known hypersensitivity to heparin or pork products should not use Lovenox. For more information, contact Rhone-Poulenc Rorer at (800) 477-9636 or visit the company’s Web site at www.rp-rorer.com.
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