West Tennessee Healthcare has recently joined with AT&T to implement AT&T Healthcare Community Online, a service that will allow for more accurate and timely data sharing in the 17 counties the system serves, the release said.

HCO Benefits:

* Virtually anytime, anywhere access to patient information and eHealth applications.
* Integrates mobile health and telehealth applications for remote diagnosis and care.
* Supports compliance with HIPAA regulations* with strong security measures.
* Single sign-on, federated authentication with pre-integrated applications.

*Kennedy/Kassenbaum legislation, 1996

I think time will tell on what will or will not be on this alleged "reform" regarding the Health Care Act.

It does not address the fundamental issue of the "crisis" in the first place: actual patient costs.

Providing insurance does what, exactly? The sole reason that any person needs it is to what? Pay for patient costs of seeing the doctor.

Eliminating maximum limits does what, exactly, to address patient costs? If anything, it is an enabler to additional patient costs.

The current "crisis" as it is termed today is due to the medical and physical condition of the many of the citizens in this country. Considering that there is no way for a federal piece of legislation to "fix" such a crisis what should be done is to scrap the legislation and correct it so that an acceptable piece of quality federal policy is implemented.

What should be the centerpiece is Prevention, which is in the current law but not nearly enough of it. Prevention is how, for the most part, that the substantial amount of all of these patient costs will go away, to be honest about it.

Obesity may impact certain individuals because of their particular metabolism and physiology but for most with weight issues it is a matter of proper diet and routine to fix it. Everything from mandating in federal policy things like sidewalks to be built every time a road is built to restricting all "junk food" from entering a school, public or private, to medical screenings and physicals that PREVENT a condition should be the focus. Changing the USDA to outlaw many of the current "economy of scale" agro-practices while acknowledging that mass consumption is a part of modern America are just a tip of what could be done to end this crisis.

It developed over the last 20-25 years and will take at least a decade to solve, provided that real solutions are implemented.

Changing a culture that has developed for the last generation to accept obesity as a norm, fast food as "food," and conditioning children to plop in front of a screen of some kind instead of being physically active is just part of what needs to be done to fix the "health" crisis, which is what it really is more than a "health care" crisis anyhow.