December 2009

Debate the News: Summarizing the Comments Submitted to the FTC

In the lead-up to this month's Federal Trade Commission workshop on the future of journalism, the agency invited the public to submit comments for consideration. After sifting through the 300-some pages of comments on the FTC's Web site, it was clear that everyone agreed on two points: Nobody's happy with the state of journalism today, yet everybody thinks that reputable journalism is worth saving. So how to fix the former so that the latter flourishes? The advice runs the gamut. While some comments discuss current laws, others explore new funding sources - mostly government sources - to help support or create media jobs. In general, media companies - including a group of TV stations - argue that consolidation has cut costs without cutting coverage, including local emergency reporting.

Traffic at Top Newspaper Web Sites Declines in November

The difficult comparisons of the November 2008 presidential news cycle meant that more than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites lost unique users in November 2009. USAToday.com, NYTimes.com and the LA Times lost more than 20% of its unique users in November 2009 year-over-year. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal eked out gains up 2% and 6% respectively. Newsday went behind a pay wall in late October -- unique users for that month were 2.2 million. In November, Newsday had 1.7 million uniques. The top newspaper Web site on the list that has the most sessions per user? That would be the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at 5.43.

Innovation in Health IT: A Key Component to Improving Care

A key component of securing a healthy future for all Americans relies on harnessing innovation in health information technology. The new Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program announced Friday and funded at a level of $60 million through the HITECH Act, is designed with this purpose in mind. This program will fund projects in areas of research where breakthrough advances are needed to address barriers in health IT adoption. Addressing these breakthrough areas will require the most advanced thinking the nation can bring to bear. Each research project will be charged with formulating and executing an ambitious research agenda. This research agenda will focus on specific goals of HITECH, and the challenges to adoption of health IT and achieving meaningful use that are critical to realizing the full promise of health IT. Each research project will be responsible for thinking ahead of the curve and developing innovative solutions to navigate health IT barriers. The projects selected for participation in the SHARP Program will implement a collaborative, multidisciplinary program of research addressing short-term and long-term challenges within one of four focus areas: security of health IT, patient-centered cognitive support, health care application and network architectures, and secondary use of EHR data. Research in these areas is critical to improving health care through the use of health IT.

In awaiting meaningful use, ONC's hands not idle

While the Health and Human Services Department must still rule on the definition, standards and certification requirements for meaningful use, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and its advisory team are moving ahead with plans for next year and beyond. "We are beginning to think about what follows and the implementation of programs under way and some of the thorny issues we will be dealing with in the implementation process," said Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator. At a Dec. 15 meeting of ONC's Health IT Policy Committee, Dr. Paul Tang, the panel co-chairman, said that it will hold hearings in early 2010 so that public and private healthcare providers and other organizations can contribute to the development of 2013 and 2015 meaningful use criteria. In January, representatives of states will offer their view of barriers and prospects for information exchange in their regions and coordination with federal health IT programs. In February, experts will be invited to discuss sharing data, including outcomes, with patients and their families. Meanwhile, the healthcare IT community awaits the product of a year's work by ONC and its advisors: federal meaningful use rules that will govern a good portion of health IT investment and development over the next five years.

Healthcare IT among PWC's list of top 10 healthcare issues for 2010

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, next year's top 10 issues are:

Expect industry-wide, intense efforts to reduce healthcare costs by hospitals, physicians, other providers, payers and employers.
If Congress passes healthcare reform legislation - as it hopes to do - expect major adjustments that would include insurance market and payment reforms, the addition of dozens of new agencies and grant programs, reimbursement and pricing pressures, increased oversight, tax changes and the overall implications of increased coverage and consumer demand.
Physicians and providers will be scrambling in 2010 to adopt healthcare IT to reap bonuses in 2011 under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Expect greater emphasis on fraud and abuse recovery. The Obama administration has boosted its fraud and abuse budget for 2010 by 50 percent, and a significant portion is dedicated to prosecution and enforcement.
Technology and telecommunications sectors will become leading players in healthcare. With a huge boost from the 2009 stimulus package for broadband funding and healthcare IT expansion, technology and telecommunications companies are aggressively capturing a growing share of the healthcare business.
The role of pharmaceutical and life sciences companies will evolve from manufacturer and supplier to full partner on the healthcare delivery team as its focus shifts from lab-based outcomes to promoting prevention and patient outcomes.
Physician groups will join health systems - the percent of hospitals employing physicians has nearly doubled since 1994, and PWC expects the trend will continue in 2010 as physicians seek greater stability and electronic connectivity
Alternative care delivery models will emerge as traditional care delivery models will give way to alternative models of care outside of physicians' offices and hospitals. Expect to see an increase in the number and scope of services offered by work-site and retail health clinics and home health services as well as other technology-enabled delivery such as e-mail, telehealth and remote patient monitoring.
H1N1 elevates emphasis on readiness for public health outbreak - another wave of H1N1 flu in 2010 will put pressure on healthcare organizations, public health officials and employers to re-evaluate readiness for a major public health outbreak.
Community health becomes new social responsibility - in 2010, a new social responsibility for community health will emerge among employers, healthcare leaders and community leaders, with a major boost in funding from the government.

Hospitals, vendors - not Washington - to drive EMR use

Washington can encourage physicians to buy electronic medical record systems, but it is the vendors and hospitals that affiliate with physicians that will ultimately determine if they go electronic, according to a new report from healthcare market research firm Kalorama Information. The report, EMR 2010 (Market Analysis, ARRA Incentives, Key Players, and Important Trends), represents the second time this year that Kalorama has surveyed EMR markets and is a reforecast of its predictions from earlier in the year, made before the U.S. government announced HITECH Act incentives for physicians who use EMR.

Public Interest Groups Ask FCC for Rulemaking on TV Set-Top Boxes

Public Knowledge, Free Press, Media Access Project, Consumers Union, CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, and the Open Technology Initiative of New America Foundation are asking the Federal Communications Commission to initiate a rulemaking to address the lack of competition in the video device market. Specifically, they ask that the FCC: 1) combine all open proceedings relating to cable set-top box commercial availability and device interoperability, 2) freeze all separable security waiver requests until the rules are updated, and 3) issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require a standards-based gateway for accessing the video services of all multichannel video programming distributors.

Cable and Telecom Tell FCC They Inform Broadband Consumers

In response to a Federal Communications Commission request for comment on consumer transparency and measurement of fixed services, the cable and telephone industries let the FCC know they are transparent -- and that measuring actual speed is a tricky thing.

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association says cable operators provide a great deal of information about their broadband services to consumers at every stage of the purchasing process. With respect to information regarding the "actual" speed of broadband services, we continue to encourage the Commission to consult with Internet engineering experts to develop measures that would be meaningful to consumers and not unduly burdensome to providers, rather than adopting new rules based on potentially flawed data or unwarranted assumptions.

The United States Telecom Association says consumer disclosure and measurement of fixed broadband services are enormously complex areas that elude simple, one size fits all, answers. Fixed broadband services are constantly evolving and service choices are expanding with each innovation. Moreover, consumers' uses of their fixed broadband services are also evolving and vary considerably. Consumers who use the Internet simply for web surfing and e-mail may need a different type of broadband service from consumers who use the Internet for gaming and real time entertainment. As new applications come online, usage patterns change. In the face of these variations, defining and providing transparency is very difficult. Measurement presents similarly difficulties because the type of measurement most relevant to meet one consumer's needs may be different from the type of measurement that will provide the most meaningful information for a different consumer. coming to thoughtful and practical answers will, USTelecom believes, require more than the on-going workshop and notice and comment processes already underway at the Commission. Further, given the variety of approaches to resolving the issues of measurement and transparency, it is vital to build consensus among the stakeholders. Therefore, to complement and improve the outcome of the Commission's ongoing processes, USTelecom believes that industry, public interest groups and other interested stakeholders should join together to articulate best practices with respect to disclosure and to create a technology neutral and understandable measurement methodology.

FCC, NTIA Funding Approved

On Wednesday, December 16, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 3288, which provides FY 2010 appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and other agencies.

The law restricts the Federal Communications Commission from changing its universal service rules regarding single connection or primary line restrictions. The FCC is directed to work with the Universal Service Administrative Company and the FCC Inspector General to re-evaluate auditing processes to ensure that audits are more uniform and not unduly onerous, that all auditors are familiar with the telecommunications industry, and that lessons learned from audits are translated into better performance in the future. A report on USF audit activity is required within two months.

The FCC is directed to work expeditiously to conduct a successful auction of the D Block spectrum so that first responders have an interoperable communications network. The FCC us urged to ensure that public, educational, and governmental (PEG) channels remain on the basic service tier of programming and to prevent cable service providers from impeding the public's access to PEG programming.

For the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the law requires a report to Congress by June 1, 2010 detailing the collection of reimbursements from other agencies related to spectrum management, analyses, and research. The law also requires the NTIA to work with the FCC the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the National Institute of Justice, to develop a plan to investigate and evaluate how wireless jamming, detection and other technologies might be utilized for law enforcement and corrections applications in Federal and State prison facilities. The the NTIA and the FCC are urged to investigate and evaluate detection or other technologies that do not pose a risk of negatively affecting commercial wireless and public safety services in areas surrounding prisons.

By mid-January, the NTIA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting must issue a report to Congress clarifying the funding authorities of the two agencies for the Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction program which has been the primary source for telecommunications infrastructure assistance for public radio and television stations seeking assistance, particularly in under-served rural areas.

Congress is concerned that some Federal agencies may not be improving controls over wireless networks as delineated in the Government Accountability Office's 2005 report (GAO-05-383). Therefore, the conferees direct GAO to update its report and include a review of Federal agencies and their wireless networks, including an assessment of vulnerabilities to attack and unauthorized penetration; an examination of best practices within Federal agencies for deploying and monitoring secure wireless networks; and an assessment of state-of-the-art technology solutions that could help protect these networks. GAO shall report its findings to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations within 120 days of enactment of this Act.

Can AT&T Tame the iHogs?

With the smartphone fast replacing the PC as the center of many consumers' digital lives, changes in the way people use mobile computing are inevitable. Analysts and other experts say wireless operators need to train American consumers that bandwidth isn't unlimited. That won't just be good for phone companies; it'll be good for virtually all mobile phone users. Today, AT&T says 3% of iPhone users account for 40% of the traffic on its data network. The other 97% may get better, cheaper service if YouTube video and online radio addicts paid more for the network upgrades required to support their habits. "It's not a question of if this changes, it's a question of when," says analyst Charles S. Golvin of Forrester Research. The moment may be upon us. In an interview, AT&T Mobility President Ralph de la Vega says the carrier is mulling changes to the $30-a-month unlimited data plan that most of the company's smartphone customers use. He emphasizes that no final decisions have been made, but AT&T could institute tiered pricing models similar to today's voice plans or caps on the amount of bandwidth a consumer could use before getting bumped to a slower, cheaper network. "Carriers need to end up with a sustainable model," says de la Vega.

Benton

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