The folks at the University of Virginia Health System have done some impressive work with telemedicine. We caught up with Karen Rheuban, MD, director for UVA's Center for Telehealth, and David Cattell-Gordon, director of the UVA's office of telemedicine, to talk mHealth security, challenges and what it means to take it to the next level.

Healthcare IT News' sister publication mHealth News interviewed mHealth masters Rheuban and Cattell-Gordon to hear a little more about what's going on at UVA and what's top of mind for them in the mHealth arena.

Q. What's your biggest fear about mHealth? Why?

A. Our biggest concerns are twofold. The first concern is security. As more and more folks enter this market, there are massive amounts of PHI moving between locations, stored in the cloud and managed with different levels of control and encryption – and a major security breach will have a deep impact on the industry. The second is to ensure that direct-to-consumer telehealth services do not further fragment care but, rather, are provided in the context of integrated delivery models. Consumers have driven this demand; we need to ensure it is of the highest quality.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. We have several remarkable projects in the works, including: the use of tablets in the back of ambulances to conduct the NIH stroke scale to hopefully reduce the door-to-needle time for treatment of ischemic strokes; the integration of peripheral devices into the direct-to-consumer market and unique locations such as schools; the inclusion of IM functionality within telemedicine capabilities; the use of mobile and fixed VTC capability for the management of special pathogens; and the integration of video-conferencing into the patient portal of our Epic EHR.

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