Denmark Adopts National Telemedicine Action Plan

The use of wireless applications in medical devices is on the increase. Wireless technology solutions can make healthcare delivery more efficient, more meaningful, and more secure for patients. Wireless medical devices play a role in diagnostics, patient monitoring, disease and medication management, fitness, independent living, and more. And U.S. federal government incentives for adopting electronic medical records are spurring demand for wireless networking in medical devices.

According to a recent press release, the Danish government is the first to adopt national technical guidelines and standards to establish reference architectures for healthcare IT. Design guidelines developed by Continua Health Alliance® have been chosen as the framework for this groundbreaking telemedicine initiative which addresses areas including:

• Secure collection, transmission and storage of personal health data from patients’ homes
• Sharing medical documents and images
• The management of health records, medical appointments, and other related information.

Continua Health Alliance is an international industry organization dedicated to advancing personal connected health by promoting connectivity and establishing industry standards for interoperability.

The United States is currently behind on the adoption of national standards to oversee healthcare IT and mobile medical devices.  One impact of the lack of standards is that the security of data on some mobile medical devices is in question. Earlier this year, the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB), which advises the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as well as the Office of Management and Budget, sent a call out to the government to:

• Grant a federal entity the authority to assess the security of devices before they’re released for sale to the market
• Establish a clear channel for reporting security problems with medical devices

ISPAB stresses the importance of standardization of security measures.