The Joint Commission has proposed changes to its accreditation standards to account for direct-to-patient telehealth services. The new standards will apply to Joint Commission-accredited hospitals and ambulatory health care organizations offering direct-to-patient telehealth services. Accredited hospitals and organizations, as well as entrepreneurial telemedicine companies that contract with such hospitals, should be mindful of these proposed rule changes and how they will affect their telehealth services and operations.

Variation in Quality of Urgent Health Care Provided During Commercial Virtual Visits

The following is an abstract of a JAMA article posted online here: http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2511324

Walgreens and telemedicine company MDLive announced a 20-state expansion to their virtual doctor service and a new health tracking application, MobiHealthNews reports (Pai, MobiHealthNews, 11/

In an opinion piece for The Hill's "Congress Blog," Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) tout the importance of a bill (HR 2799) that would expand Medicare coverage of telehealth services for stroke evaluations.

The rate of telemedicine adoption among health care providers increased by about three percentage points between 2014 and 2015, according to a new HIMSS Analytics study, FierceHealthIT reports (Dvorak, FierceHealthIT

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has named interoperability, cybersecurity and telehealth as the top policy priorities that Congress should address in the next year, Healthcare IT News reports.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who used a telemedicine application to report daily symptoms to a provider experienced improved health benefits, according to a study published in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health,

In recent years, telehealth technologies are diffusing rapidly into all aspects of healthcare practices, ranging from traditional medical consultations to various patient-centric areas. These new uses bring a promise of integrating computerized support and Internet functionality into the deeper recesses of our community, addressing the intractable problems of access and population-specific health disparities. To ensure the promised benefits of these new telehealth systems, usability has become an ever-present and pressing issue for the research community.