For how we live.
A CMS and CDC proposed rule would codify pandemic-era remote review of digital lab data, allow digital images in gynaecologic cytology proficiency testing, and ease 2024 staffing rules. Comments close 7 December.
A dormant breach-notification rule became an enforcement tool in 2023, when the FTC fined GoodRx and BetterHelp for sharing users' health data with ad platforms. A 2024 rule change locked apps into its reach.
In a 64-patient randomised trial, home cardiac rehab monitored by a smart ring improved fitness. But both arms wore the ring; what separated them was a weekly call from a clinician.
In a 230-patient randomised trial, self-guided app hypnotherapy produced a 33% pain response versus 48% with an in-person therapist and 22% with education — falling short of non-inferiority.
Contactless photoplethysmography turns an ordinary camera into a heart-rate monitor, and pooled studies show it tracks pulse well. Oxygen, respiration and the stress scores layered on top rest on far thinner evidence.
Digital adherence gadgets promise to fix forgotten doses. In a 53,480-person randomised trial, low-cost reminder devices did not raise adherence at all. Text reminders did more, but on short, self-reported trials.
A pandemic waiver letting clinicians prescribe stimulants and other controlled medicines without an in-person visit has been extended a fourth time, to end-2026, with the permanent framework still a proposal.
Medicare paid over $500 million for remote monitoring in 2024, but a watchdog found 43% of patients didn't get the full service — and rigorous evidence that it improves outcomes remains limited.
Reviews find portals may improve awareness and the patient–doctor relationship, with unclear effect on efficiency. Under new US rules, patients now see 40% of results before their clinician does.
A 2025 rule created billing codes for FDA-cleared mental-health software. The 2026 rule adds short-episode remote-monitoring codes but declines to widen the digital-therapy benefit.
Randomised trials show acute care delivered at home costs less, uses fewer tests and readmits fewer patients — while making little or no difference to whether they survive.
A meta-analysis of 155 studies puts photo-based skin diagnosis close to a face-to-face visit for common conditions. For skin cancer the agreement is lower, and hinges on dermoscopy.
The pandemic-era rules letting Medicare patients see a doctor from home, anywhere in the country, are now locked in through the end of 2027 — the longest extension since they were created.
Two real-world cohorts found lower blood levels per milligram from compounded formulations — and the longest longevity trial of rapamycin was run on the weaker one, which changes how to read it.
A blinded comparison of 180 responses from a university telehealth centre in Minas Gerais found AI matched human specialists on medical adequacy and risk, and beat them on comprehensibility.
A systematic review screened 3,857 records and found three eligible studies, every one produced by a US commercial provider and every one at critical risk of bias.
Across 90,670 virtual encounters at one US health system, phone visits scored lower on likelihood to recommend. A separate VA cohort of 1.2 million found telehealth cut same-day mental health access sharply.