Conmergence

<ed.note>Since vendors are looking at remote monitoring for disease management I should list those as well. I’ll also be on the look out for sensors which are car-based now that wi-fi is available in automobiles. There are some parallel developments which I guess I should mention: Major League Baseball and other event vendors as well as transportation providers and social networks are putting the cell phone closer to the center of their business models. ( Robert Neelbauer on social graphs here — cells will eventually be tracked by them. ) Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is home automation.</ed.note>

<ed.note>John Casillas testified today before the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) American Health Information Community concerning the medical banking vision of a unified view and unified platform to connect EHR|PHR, real-time adjudication, Healthcare Savings Accounts, High Deductible Health Plans, Consumer Driven Healthcare. AHIC decided at its November 29, 2005 meeting to form workgroups in the following areas: biosurveillance, consumer empowerment, chronic care, and electronic health records. Subsequently, at the May 16, 2006 Community meeting, two additional groups were formed: the Biosurveillance Data Steering Group as a sub-workgroup within the Biosurveillance Workgroup (renamed Population Health and Clinical Care Connections Workgroup), and the Confidentiality, Privacy & Security Workgroup, which was created as a cross-cutting workgroup responsible for an issue relevant to all the workgroups. More recent, at the August 1, 2006, meeting, the Community formed the Quality Workgroup to address the need for the development of quality measures; and at the October 31, 2006, meeting, the Personalized Healthcare Workgroup was formed to develop and make recommendations on standards for interoperable integration of genomic test information into personal e-health records.</ed.note>