The FISMA Focus IPD

Editor’s Note:  Federal mobile Health (mHealth) policies inevitably raise issues of cybersecurity regulation, see FISMA Focus here.  The pre-publication public draft of the mHealth Task Force’s Finding and Recommendations, “Improving care delivery through enhanced communications among providers, patients, and payers” is attached here.

From: FierceMobleGovernment

By Molly Bernhart Walker

The Federal Communications Commission Sept. 24 committed to immediate action on the mHealth Task Force’s findings and recommendations for enabling greater use of wireless and  broadband technology in healthcare.

The report, also released Sept. 24, proposes “a bold and important national goal,” said FCC Chairman Juluis Genachowski Sept. 24 while speaking at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C. The commission’s action on the report should help “make the use of mHealth technology a routine  medical best practice within five years,” he said.

The task force behind the report is comprised of healthcare and wireless  stakeholders who began working together following the mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C. this June.

According to an FCC fact sheet, the commission will:

• Before year end propose an order to streamline experimental licensing  rules to encourage wireless health “test beds”;
• before year end propose an order to allow medical facilities to band together when applying for program funds for broadband, electronic health record  and data collection projects;
• encourage international counterparts to free up spectrum for medical body area network, or MBAN, (as the FCC has) to incentivize device makers; and
• create a position for a permanent FCC health care director.

Genachowski told event attendees the FCC was still reviewing other recommendations from the report, and could later announce more planned action from the commission.

For more: – download  the report, “mHealth Task Force Findings and Recommendations: Improving care delivery through enhanced communications among providers, patients and payers,”  (.pdf) – read  Genachowski’s remarks – read  the fact sheet